Cars of the Classic 30's by The Auto Editors of Consumer Guide---Obviously a used book but in "Like New" condition. (See Pictures)

     Cars of the Classic '30's: A Decade of Elegant Design is a lively, full-color chronicle of one of the most challenging and remarkable decades in U.S. automotive history.

     More than 1400 vivid photographs and generous captions illuminate familiar makes and models from General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler, as well as Auburn, Duesenberg, Hudson, Nash, Packard, Studebaker, Willys, and a wealth of other independents. And then there are the makes that, though low in sales volume, brought freshness and flavor to the decade's automotive menu: Cord, Graham, Marmon, Peerless, Pierce-Arrow, Reo, Ruxton, Stout, Stutz, Whippet, and many others.

     The October 1929 stock market crash stunned institutional investors and the general public. As the year 1930 progressed, it became clear that this was no ordinary economic downturn. As yet unimagined was that the economic landscape would remain bleak for more than ten years, until Washington's decision to ramp up factories and rearm in the face of increasing hostilities abroad.

     The U.S. auto industry soldiered on after the crash, and in one of those marvelous paradoxes of business, managed not just to survive the Great Depression of the 1930's, but introduce significant innovations in engineering, and place new emphasis on body design. Technical advances included independent front suspension, hard-pulling V-12 and V-16 engines, and all-steel "Turret-Top" roofs. Ford's tough, new V-8 earned high praise from folk-hero outlaws John Dillinger and Clyde Barrow. Other tech offerings ran the gamut from freewheeling to Synchro-Mesh transmission: automatic chassis lubrication to vacuum-actuated clutches; safety glass to valve-seat inserts.

     Styling assumed a new precedence, resulting in such enduring examples of beautiful design as the Cord 810, Buick Century, Auburn Speedster, Cadillac Sixty Special, Duesenberg Models J and SSL Speedster, Lincoln Zephyr, '32 Fords, and Hup mobile

 F-222. Add to the mix a wealth of custom-bodied cars on chassis by Packard, Duesenberg, Cadillac, Chrysler, and others, and you have a stable of timeless classics.

     And then there were cars with body styles too eccentric or forward-thinking to gain widespread buyer acceptance, but that stand today as beacons of imaginative design and marketing the "shark-nose" Graham, the Chrysler and DeSoto Airflows, the Stout Scarab, and the tiny Crosley (which was sold at hardware and appliance stores).

     Industrywide, sales were sluggish at the beginning of the decade, plummeted in 1932, recovered by '37, then crashed again as the decade wound down. Cord, Cunningham, Duesenberg, Erskine, Essex, Kissel, Oakland, Rockne and many other makes perished, Industry associations identified "obsolete autos"---used cars----as threats to the new-car business and took steps to address that challenge.

     Colorful year-by-year overviews of national and world events (including the growing American Labor movement, which was sometimes violently resisted by the auto industry) bring context to the stories of the decade's cars. Original factory photos and images of restored cars, plus specifications, prices, and more make Cars of the Classic '30's, A Decade of Elegant Design an essential addition to any automotive library.