Lorries: 1890s to 1970s: No. 578 (Shire Library) - Tapa blanda

From lumbering house-shakers on solid tyres to smooth turbo-power in the 1970s, the lorry has come a very long way in a remarkably short time. In the early competition between steam, petrol and electricity, the internal combustion engine had more or less won by the 1920s, after proving itself in the First World War, when all-wheel-drive arrived in quantity and thousands of new drivers were trained. The book traces the developments that created the modern truck in the 1960s and 1970s - tilt cabs, clever transmission technology and turbo power, and the transcontinental journeys they travelled.

Nick Baldwin is a former chairman of the National Motor Museum Advisory Council, and owns several old tractors and historic vehicles. He has written a number of books about tractors and commercial vehicles, and is currently compiling an A-Z of the more than five-thousand tractor makers that have existed in the past hundred years for Tractor and Machinery Magazine.