I’ve told the story about not having Noelene Morris’s The Lettering Book as a child, because I knew the NZ$5 was outside my parents’ budget. Ultimately, this was a good thing and it led me to remember and create typeface designs, later becoming the first digital font designer in New Zealand. Another item came to mind over the weekend when Amanda and I went to a used bookshop in Upper Hutt.
There were old copies, one each, of Automobile Year and World Cars. As a boy, these were out of reach, too. In 1982, the latter retailed for NZ$80. Even with my parents’ improving financial situation, that was far too much to ask. But I remember flicking through it and, like Auto Katalog, which at that time I did have a hand-me-down copy of, it was sensibly arranged, cars referred to by their names in their countries of origin. Automobile Year I saw occasionally, once every few years, and had an impression of what was inside. The Automobile Year was from 2002 and World Cars from 1981.
Even though I could afford them now, I didn’t buy them. Simple reason: for my interests, Autocade Year of Cars is better.
I know I am comparing apples and oranges here given that publishing technology has come a long way. Automobile Year was heavily geared toward motorsport, which is fair enough: it’s always had a mix of new cars and sport. Motorsport is not an area that I feel I can write about authoritatively, and I know what I enjoy.
World Cars, of course, beats anything hard copy book I’ve produced in terms of comprehensiveness, but I already know the concept, and our presentation is superior. There was nothing to gain from my buying it, especially as I have sufficient resources from 1981.
I’m sure L’année automobile today is a superb production, and part of me wouldn’t mind ordering the latest to find out, but I feel quite happy developing Autocade in its own way. I’m not trying to replicate them, I’m carving my own niche with the help of my customers who choose to send me feedback. I know what Autocade’s strengths have been over the last 17 years, and what the brand stands for. I was propelled by my memories of both books as I saw them as a child, and it’s been OK to not have seen either titles readily available in this part of the world over the last few decades. The memories of those books are far more colourful, indeed more aspirational—what I’m trying to re-create is that sensation, which, sadly, the reality no longer lives up to.
The ones I do have are Auto Universum, an old Wheels Yearbook, dozens of Auto Katalog and Toutes les voitures du monde, and hundreds of periodicals. They are influential, but there’s not enough in them for them to colour my thoughts on what Year of Cars should have.
What I want to create was so accurately put by Octane in their review of Autocade Year of Cars 2025 in their March issue: ‘Very professionally produced, good value and totally absorbing.’ I hope to deliver this again soon.
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