Brooklands Books is one of the best friends a

Jaguar, Land Rover or Range Rover owner could wish for.

The story of Brooklands Books began back in 1954 when John Dowdeswell, its founder, was unable to find any kind of manual or handbook for his newly-acquired Morgan 3-wheeler. He did, however, locate an out-of-print work, obtained the publisher’s permission and reprinted it. Other owners, on hearing of the book’s re-appearance, were quick to order it. Clearly there was a market here and subsequently a BSA 3-wheeler handbook and a couple of Ford Tuning books were produced. Thus was set in motion a publishing program that has extended over half a century and run to over 1,000 titles, covering cars from over the world.

Soon after these early publishing ventures, it was realised just how much motoring material was being lost. This was when he came up with the idea of collating road tests and stories of individual makes and printing them in book form. The first efforts were “The Vintage Bentley Book” and “Another Vintage Bentley Book”, followed by road test collections on Rolls-Royce, Alvis and pre-war MGs.

The great majority of Brooklands titles fall into two categories: road test collections, as mentioned, which are published in a variety of series, and reprints of official factory literature.

Austin-Healey, MG, Triumph and in fact all BMC/BL enthusiasts are catered for incredibly well. In their capacity (since 1981) as official publisher for the British Motor Heritage Trust, Brooklands offers a range of factory literature that includes workshop manuals, parts catalogues and handbooks on these marques.

Brooklands Books also hold the publishing license for all Jaguar, Land Rover and Range Rover books – from the Series 1 Land Rover through a plethora of models to the telephone-directory-size Defender and Discovery manuals of more recent times. All of these publications, it has to be stressed, are the real thing and not to be confused with the much-advertised “condensed” manuals which are fine for servicing and small repair jobs.

The Autobooks OWM range of manuals was acquired from Blackwells in the mid-1990’s and have successfully been incorporated into the brand. These niche books range from 1920’s Aston Martins through to the quirkier Ford Mavericks, Reliant Robins and Hillman Imps.

Along the way Brooklands Books has embraced the various technologies that have come (and gone). It is still very much a family company now being run by Dowdeswell’s son, daughter and grandson. John Dowdeswell himself is now in his ’80’s and still has an interest in the company.

In recent years Brooklands have streamlined their business to fit the new model of print-on-demand publishing and feel well placed to embrace the next generation of classic car owners, wherever in the world they are located.