Silver screen machines

LET’S FACE IT, if what you are after is a book or info about cars in movies or on TV, then you are spoilt for choice. In print or online, you can take your pick of everything from glossy coffeetable overviews to squillions of web pages of snatched screenshots of things like a Citroën GS fleetingly in the background in Grange Hill.

It’s also true that many of the printed products share pretty much the same source material – do you really need to see some of those stills from The Italian Job ever again? – which is what made a recent book stand out. Boasting a large number of photos that nobody (even on the geeky Octane team) had previously seen in print, it came from motoring author and editor Giles Chapman (see p210).

The reason it stood out was that it featured the personal collection of this inveterate collector and archivist, amassed over 40 years. ‘The book is based around my collection of rare and original film stills