In this exceptional and popular series of Haynes Owners' Workshop Manuals, this volume covers the Bentley 4.5 Litre all models including Blower, giving an insight into the design, engineering, maintenance and ownership of W. O. Bentley's legendary Le Mans winner. Tim Birkin's chase of Rudi Caracciola's Mercedes-Benz at Le Mans in 1930 is one of the most stirring stories in motor racing history. Here top race car engineer Andy Brown has contributed a detailed examination of the car's anatomy, illustrated with original factory drawings and numerous detailed photographs. There are memories from Bentley's leading period drivers and mechanics, and interviews with many involved in preparing and racing these iconic cars today. There is a driver's view and how contemporary drivers felt about the car including the thoughts of Sir Henry Birkin, 'Sammy' Davis and Dr Dudley Benjafield. There is the engineer's view, restoration and historic racing projects and outline histories of the individual cars raced by the factory. But best of all is the superb gallery of images, huge colour photographs, archive images and postcards, workshop and factory images such as Neil Davies' extensive machine shop and a Blower displayed on the Vanden Plas stand at the 1930 Olympian Motor Show, and proud owners like Charles Amherst Villiers reliving old memories. We also discover that it was actually Michael Burne who wrote Full Throttle at the age of 19. Hundreds of colour and other illustrations, 160pp, 21.6 x 28cm.

A maiden voyage medal and brochure from the SS Imperator, a brass bell from RMS Aquitania, commemorative plaque, propellors, cards posted from sea, pen and ink drawings, a saloon chair, a cutaway rendering, souvenir cigar box, launch menu, Lalique water goblet, cigarette case, salvaged name plate, maritime replicas model, a telephone, a dry martini cocktail from the RMS Queen Mary, a gala dinner menu and the Hales Trophy blue ribboned card both from the SS Normandie and a Cunard magazine are among the 50 items representing technology, supreme luxury and fine cuisine. Ocean liners represented the ambitions of their nations in peace and war. Their design, interiors and fittings incorporated the finest contemporary technology and artistic features. In peace time they carried celebrities, holidaymakers, and emigrants, while in war they carried thousands of troops and then war brides seeking new lives. This is a story of peril, disaster and death, international pride and competition, glory and war, told through 50 objects each telling a fascinating story and showing how the functional sea voyage has evolved from the late 19th century to the huge cruise ship industry we have today. Glossy heavyweight bright white paper, 240pp in softback, approximately 100 colour images, many full page including a superb cutaway extract of the RMS Caronia on page 172.

Inserted into tissue paper pockets throughout this large spiral bound, magnetic fastening folder are facsimile ephemera such as the front page of The Daily Mirror 1924 with the headline 'The King As Driver of the Windsor Castle', a promotional picture of the Flying Scotsman and other famous steam trains, and dozens of postcards as we climb aboard this treasury. It covers the Early Pioneers, Steam Goes Public, Rain Hill Trials, Robert Stephenson and Co., Steam Abroad, Competition in the South, Railway Rivalry, Standardisation and Imported Technology, Grouping, World War Two, Nationalisation and BR Standard Locomotives, Steam In Decline, Famous Men In Steam, and Brunel The Heroic Engineer among the chapters. Lovely colour artworks, archive and colour photographs and clear text, but best of all is the fantastic poster and other iconic ephemera. Very collectable and an incredible price.

Including panoramic gatefolds, this sumptuously illustrated book sweeps through a century of military aviation covering the milestones and key technological developments. It features the designs and manufacturers who produced the early biplanes, helicopters, VTOL and swing-wing aircraft, heavy bombers, giant transporters and stealth intruders. These machines played their part in two global wars, the Cold War and numerous other conflicts, and their stories thus offer a fascinating window on world history as well as relating how military minds sought to gain mastery of the skies. Pilots who took to the air on scouting missions began taking pot shots at each other. Bombs were dropped from the cockpit. From these rudimentary beginnings, the twin branches of military aviation were born - the fighter and the bomber. It was a division that presented designers with different problems. Fighters needed to be fast and agile, but for the bomber, payload capacity was vital. As sleek, metal monoplanes with more powerful engines replaced their wooden-framed predecessors, fighters were also able to carry a useful bomb load. With the arrival of jet propulsion, swept wings and guided missiles, fighter-bombers such as McDonnell's F-4 Phantom became the forerunner to the modern multi-role combat aircraft. By the 1980s, radar-defending stealth was the buzzword, shown off in Lockheed's Nighthawk Fighter and Northrop's B-2 Spirit Bomber. The F-22 Raptor added super cruise to the mix, but the future may lie in unmanned drones, examples of which are already equipped as weapons-delivery platforms. With spectacular colour photography, many in close up of the Westland Lynx iconic helicopter, the Douglas A-4 Skyhawk, the Avro Lancaster, the B-52 Mitchell, the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress, the SR-71 Blackbird, Lockheed's C-5 Galaxy and as we reach the centre pages a spectacular triple gatefold, a skyborne F-15E Eagle flying over Nevada and on the reverse the cockpit and wings in very close up of the F-37C Lightning II with its reinforced landing gear. Gloriously illustrated and huge in size, 192 pages of stunning photographs and excellent extended captions, text, fact boxes and full specifications.
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A Space Fleet Operations Manual in the famous Haynes Manual series covering the Anestasia, Tempus Frangit, Nimbus, Zylbat and associated Interplanet Space Fleet craft. The Eagle magazine saw Dan Dare setting out on a thrilling new mission every day. In 1950, the brainchild of parish vicar Marcus Morris and artist Frank Hampson, the 'Eagle' publication had half of its pages printed in full colour science fiction cartoon strips. The first Dan Dare tale was set 45 years into the future when the Earth's population had doubled and Space Fleet was trying to discover if food could be grown on Venus. Come aboard and explore the people, spacecraft and astonishing technology of the passenger and commercial craft, space bases and stations, Space Fleet defences and equipment, alien identification, Treen craft like Tharl's battleship and Crypt Interstellar craft and new drive systems like the Galactic Galleon. With Space Fleet history, badges of rank and insignia and facts, the catalogue is packed with the Haynes infamous cutaway drawings, data files, extended captions, colour photos and line art on every page. Also colour profiles of SIF personnel and the alien they faced over the years. 128pp, 21 x 27cm.

Author Stephen Bayley considers the car as the greatest cultural and design phenomenon of the 20th century and the book includes 60 of his popular monthly articles for Octane - the leading classic car magazine. They include '62 Capri, Michelotti, Vulgarity Jag, Girls Paint and Speed, DeLorean, Exhaust Pipe, Loose lock nuts, Showrooms, Functionalism, Mini, Ugly Cars, Cinquecento, Snobbery, Stirling Moss and Car Shoes among them. The automobile is the ultimate analogue machine and mankind's most ingenious, seductive and damaging invention. For over a century, cars have provided reference points for our notions of style, status and desire. In design terms, the Age of Combustion was as rich and varied as architecture's Baroque - and far more popular. And now it is coming to an end, as the internal-combustion engine is superseded by the battery and cars become wheeled computers, running on AI not oil. Together with a wide-ranging introduction, this book reproduces 60 of Stephen Bayley's popular monthly columns for Octane, the outstanding classic car magazine where, for more than 10 years, he has provided the most consistent and insightful commentary on car culture, often based on privileged access to industry insiders. With amazing and daring speedway track racing archive photos, VW Beetle production line, glamorous car shows, pop and film stars and their cars, dusty road races with spectators on the roadside, early pioneers and more rare images in colour and mono. 228 pages.

Pull out and examine handwritten letters and race agendas, a replica of Ayrton Senna's baptism certificate, a keepsake formal photograph, autographed team stickers and 20 more special items and interactive memorabilia in this heavyweight slipcased box set. During his lifetime, Brazilian Formula 1 racing champion Ayrton Senna was widely recognised as a leader in his sport, a pioneer in driving technique, a hard racer and a compassionate man. Since his fatal crash during the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix, his remarkable career and humanitarian outlook have continued to inspire the world and the Ayrton Senna Institute, his most important legacy, has helped educate more than 7.8 million Brazilian children. Included in this package are badges shaped in a driver's helmet, an Eddie Jordan personal note, his Team McLaren badge photocard from 1988, a signed poster of the 1991 FIA Formula 1 World Championship, an access pass to the circuit as a VIP Guest in the 1984 Brazilian GP, his British competition licence from 1991 as an international racing driver, a Japanese cartoon advertisement in a long strip format, and all of the items are of very good quality and colour printing. The Senna family has opened its archives and shared photographs of private moments at home and at the racetrack. The assortment of treasured ephemera is included in 13 beautiful envelopes which readers can pull out and examine and the book's striking imagery forms a focal point with exclusive interviews with his teammates sharing personal anecdotes and favourite memories. A true collector's item, 192pp, slipcased, 22 x 3.9 x 31.2cm.

A nostalgic selection of colour images, most of which are previously unseen, featuring fighter, bomber, transport and training aircraft in British Military or Ministry service during the 1960s. The decade saw the heyday of many of Britain's iconic post-war aircraft such as the long-serving Hawker Hunter and the English Electric Canberra which spent its entire active career as a test aircraft principally with the A&AEE whose motif is displayed on the fin. VX181 last flew in June 1969 when it was flown to RAF Pershore, Worcestershire, for use in a ground training role. Both aircraft remained in frontline service with major air forces through the 50s and 60s. Derived from its fighter predecessors as an advanced trainer for the RAF, the de Havilland Vampire T.11 brought about a revolution in flying training and survived into service into the 1960s. Pictured is the XD542 'H' which served with the Central Gunnery School and then with the Fighter Weapons School serving at Leconfield Yorkshire then Driffield in 1957. Equally the Vickers Valetta was required to supplement then replace the ubiquitous Dakota within the RAF. Due to its principal role as a humble transport, it has been largely overlooked - until now. With a superb commentary, comprehensive captions accompany the photographs to explain the various types in full detail. Serial numbers, units and aircraft histories are all covered, and four-view artwork derived from specific photographs is also included and hundreds of colour photographs. 96 big glossy pages, softback.

A ground-breaking book on the Titanic is rare, but this detailed account of the disaster from the perspectives of six first-class passengers, three survivors and three who perished, is a gripping read from a new angle. The beautiful Lucy Leslie, Countess of Rothes was the only member of the British nobility on board a ship accommodating some very rich people. Noelle Dyer-Edwardes divided her time between a Kensington house and French chateau before marrying the Earl of Rothes, who was leading opposition to the "Lords Act" designed to tax the aristocracy and curtail the powers of the House of Lords. The launch of the Titanic at the Harland and Wolff shipyard claimed the vessel's sixth life even before she set sail. Thomas Andrews, the 39 year old managing director of Harland, was dominated by the Protestantism, patriotism and propriety of his Belfast upbringing, but he also rode to hounds and mixed easily with the upper classes. Embarkation at Southampton was a long-drawn out process, with strict separation between first and third class passengers, most of whom were emigrating and had long farewells on the quayside. Lady Rothes was dissatisfied with her B-Deck cabin so she joined the millionaires and plutocrats on C Deck. Ten doors down were Ida Straus and her husband Isidor, the owner of Macy's department stores. Isidor's Confederate links coupled with southern prejudice against Jews had led them from Georgia to New York. John Borland Thayer, Sr, was the fabulously wealthy vice-President of the Pennsylvania Railroad, accompanied on board by his wife Marian and son Jack. Finally the film star Dorothy Gibson, one of the highest paid actresses in the world, had taken one of the cheaper first-class cabins. That night, John and Jack Thayer discussed the ship's accelerating speed with the White Star owner, Bruce Ismay, who controversially survived the disaster. When the Countess of Rothes was awakened by "a slight grating sound" the tragedy began to unfold. Women and children entered the lifeboats, but Ida Straus refused to leave her husband and although infirm he refused to go ahead of the other men. They perished together in one of the Titanic's most touching stories. John Thayer, who courageously helped other passengers to escape, also was lost. With a wealth of social and political detail, this is a sensitive if at times harsh picture of early 20th century Britain and America and the bygone golden age. Remainder mark. Dramatis Personae, 423pp, colour and mono photos.

The 320-mile railway between the Atlantic Ocean port of Pointe-Noir and Brazzaville in the Congo was built with forced local labour between 1921 and 1934 by the French company Batignolles when Equatorial Africa was still a French colony. The railroad had to traverse difficult terrain including the unstable Mayombe and the Bamba tunnel, and abuses and cruelty led to the deaths of an estimated 20,000 workers. The fact that this took place under the management of the French with their ideals of liberty is a theme of the book. The Europeans on the project perversely believed that malnutrition was part of the African way of life, and a belief in the superiority of the white races went without question, though this was not unchallenged at the time, as a contemporary cartoon shows in which the bodies of workers appear as railroad sleepers. For the railroad's defenders, the project was a measure of French expertise and benevolence, bringing new technology and infrastructure to west Africa. In fact, workers died from accidents and wounds, they were murdered at the hands of overseers, whose own brutalisation forms an interesting additional theme of the book, and they died of diseases such as dysentery and, very interestingly, what is now regarded as possibly an early manifestation of AIDS. Around twice as many Africans died on the Congo-Ocean railway as on the better-known atrocity of the Burma-Siam railway in World War II. African workers were conscripted at gunpoint, separated from their families. They hacked their way through dense tropical foliage, excavating by hand thousands of tonnes of earth in order to lay down track. They blasted their way through rock to construct tunnels and risked their lives building bridges over otherwise impassable rivers. Porters were needed to transport building materials and often two men were assigned to lugging a 200-pound load and other "crushing and unmanageable burdens". When a doctor tried to intervene on one occasion, he was callously told that the men were expendable. 368pp, eye opening photographic evidence in photos. Map.