Compelling.

At its best, Appleyard’s book stimulates exactly the feeling of being driven by a reckless but charismatic driver. Just as a wild drive is fun until the brakes come on, it is only when you put the book down that you notice the moments that it occasionally careens into bathos.

This book is very much in that familiar voice: forward-looking but sceptical, gnomic but penetrating. It also has excellent anecdotes.

The bulk of the book focuses on these grand themes of change, speckled with pithy tidbits of automotive and engineering history.

Entertainingly forthright.

A magisterial history.