Stinkwheel Publishing

I’m currently working on a new title, possibly my last as author/researcher, on the French Hotchkiss empire which lasted from 1867 to the mid-1950s. Founded by an American arms manufacturer in France at the behest of Napoleon III, at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries the company began machining parts for the thriving French motor induistry. This led to making… Read more →

Volume 3 has been delivered from my printers and is now available from the shop, price £28. This last volume covers twenty years from 1980 to 1999, a period when many social conflicts occurred throughout Europe and Italy, where industrial relations between management and workers at Fiat and their supporters, the Italian unions, were at their lowest ebb. “People did… Read more →

A newly revised, updated and extended edition of this title, first published in 2008, has been reprinted and is now available from the Shop. Following the success of The Stinkwheel Saga, Episode 1, first published in 2004 and now reprinted as Episode 1 v3, the second volume, Episode 2 v3, has also been reprinted. This second volume covers the lost-causes… Read more →

The immediate post-war period from 1950 to the mid-1960s saw Fiat renew their entire model range, replacing carry-overs of the pre-war models once funds were available and the Italian economy had recovered some stability after years of penury. Engineering had progressed, technologies had advanced and some of the most gifted engineers in Italy (Dante Giacosa, Aurelio Lampredi, Oscar Montabone, Gaudenzio… Read more →

This new book traces the history of the FIAT (Fabbrica Italiana Automobili Torino) company from foundation in 1899, when a group of well-to-do young men decided to found one of the first Italian motorcar manufacturers in Turin, having watched imported French cars putter around and realising their country had no equivalent industry. One of the founders, Giovanni Agnelli, addressed a… Read more →

In line with new EU regulations, any historical personal data stored in computer email files or on this website’s server as a result of recently ordering books online will never be disclosed or divulged to third parties. This website is now protected by an HTTPS location and all communications to or from this website are SSL encrypted, rendering hacking virtually… Read more →

Revised and amended, the text of The Wilfred Saga, first published in 2015, has now been reprinted so the third edition of this book is on sale again from the online shop. Read more →

This new book covers the history of the Panhard & Levassor company from the very beginning as Périn, Panhard & Cie., a maker of woodworking machinery in the 1870s. By the mid-1880s Panhard & Levassor were making Daimler internal-combustion engines under licence and from there it was but a short step to making complete “motor-cars”, the first commercially-sold Panhard &… Read more →

The reprinted second volume of the Hispano-Suiza and Pegaso books is now available from the online shop.  The book covers the career of Catalan engineer Wifredo Ricart and his early designs and creations of the 1920s and 1930s in Spain- (Ricart y Peréz 1922-26), S.A. Automóviles Ricart (1926-28) and Ricart España (1928-30). Ricart then moved to Italy and was employed… Read more →

This is the first volume of two and principally covers Hispano-Suiza from 1904 to 1939 from the perspective of Barcelona rather than Bois-Colombes in France. I have used mainly Spanish-language sources and have written about Hispano-Suiza cars, aero-engines, military vehicles, trucks and buses, the satellite Guadalajara factory and its products, racing cars and competition successes. The evolution of the French Bois-Colombes… Read more →