LONGTIME AUTO JOURNALIST, STEVE PURDY, PUBLISHES A VERY SPECIAL AUTOMOTIVE ART BOOK

MASCOTS in MOTION
By Steve Purdy
NOTES BY THE AUTHOR:

I’ve been privileged to be a contributor to TheAutoChannel.com for more than 20 years doing regular product reviews, show reports, travel stories, and even occasional industry news (my least favorite topic). I’ve always loved automobiles, particularly sports cars, the places we go in them and the experiences we have along the way. These experiences are always enriched by the people we encounter as well.

Friend and colleague (he hates it when I call him the boss), principal at TheAutoChannel.com, Bob Gordon, invited me to tell you about my new book, an art book (5-pounder for your coffee table) celebrating my other automotive interest: the details of auto design presented in artful photography.

Hanging out and doing projects with a bunch of automotive fine artists has influenced me in the presentation of my images, and the design skills of Coleen Miller at M.J. Jacobs, have resulted in this book. At the risk of sounding immodest, it is spectacular.

MASCOTS in MOTION, Images and Stories of Automotive Aesthetics

By Steve Purdy

I’ve been shooting the details of classic and collector cars for more than 40 years.

I was about 30 years old in 1978 when I inherited a Canon Ftb with a 200mm fixed focal length lens from my late brother Warren (a CanAm racer, by the way) who died in a highway accident. He was just 28.

As I began to take pictures through that long lens I soon came to understand the drama of the images I was intermittently getting; and I found an appreciation of the art they could represent.

It began when I discovered the Meadow Brook Concours d’Elegance and found myself drawn to the mascots, hood ornaments, side mounts, trim, and other details of those wonderful old cars, particularly those of the classic era.

Over the years I've shot at Concours shows around the county, every-man shows, junk yards, back yards, salvage yards . . . wherever I encountered something that caught my eye . . . always in natural light, nothing staged. "Shot in the wild", I like to say.

For years, I had been thinking about gathering my favorite images and making a book to share with those who appreciate such things. Having self-published three other books on behalf of clients, I had a good sense of what that would take. In the meantime I continued to add to my collection of images and gather the stories around them.

About a year ago I pulled the trigger on the project to create this art book: MASCOTS IN MOTION, Images and stories of Automotive Aesthetics. I knew I wanted it to be a first-class, coffee table-style art book so I engaged Rinck Heule at the award-winning art book producer M. J. Jacobs company to manage the production, concept, design, printing and logistics. I found them through one of their recent projects a book that is shelved in my own library, the Gilmore Museum's ART, ARCHITECTURE AND THE AUTOMOBILE.

Rinck and his teams have been producing high-end art books nearly as long as I've been shooting cars.

While I wasn't entirely sure how best to structure the content, I certainly had plenty of it. Too much, in fact. The most difficult part of the book was culling these 320 images from thousands of others. Then, as I began to fact-check the stories I thought I knew and to find others, I kept getting dragged deeper and deeper into the research.

What fun that turned out to be!

So, here you have it: 316 pages, more than 320 images, and about 50,000 words, with a Foreword graciously provided by friend and colleague, Ed Lucas, for many years the resonate and authoritative voice of the most prestigious classic car shows in the country, and the most knowledgeable expert I know regarding the art and history of automobiles.

You’ll find stories as oft-told as that of Eleanor Thornton, model for the sculptor who fashioned the Rolls-Royce “Spirit of Ecstasy;” and as obscure as the mascot we found atop the radiator of a 1920 Vauxhall, a rotund country fellow astride a barrel hoisting a frothy beer mug titled “Ancient Order of Froth Blowers.” You’ll find stories of the characters who pioneered the auto industry; you’ll find colorful images shot with an eye toward art; and I’ll pass along some notes on how and where the images were captured.

Above all, I’ll promise to surprise and delight even the most knowledgeable aficionado.

So, come buy a book at: www.shunpikerproductions.com, . . . and

ENJOY THE RIDE!

Mascots in Motion is featured on the M.J. Jacobs website as well with closeup images of the elegant production details like: French jacket, embossed cover, silk ribbon book mark, archival paper, etc. https://mjjacobs.net/mascots-in-motion