AA European route guides, late 60?s / early 70?s

PostPost by: 69S4 » Fri Dec 21, 2018 5:17 pm

I know this only has a somewhat tenuous link to topics Lotus but at least it?s roughly the right era. Does anyone remember the European touring route books that the AA used to produce from about ?68 onwards? They were roughly A5 spiral bound publications, a bit like reporters notebooks, and gave detailed route information for France, Spain + a few other countries. I had a set of them for years but they must have succumbed to a house move or two.

The reason I?m asking is because I?m trying to find some for a book project either involving the Elan or a suitable two wheeler that I?m planning for the summer of 2020, and despite a year or two of looking both online and in any old book shops I come across nothing has turned up. I asked the AA last year but they don?t even have reference copies.

Any hiding in lofts that I could look at or any suggestions about where else might have them would be gratefully received. I just hope that any that do turn up have not inflated beyond financial reach. They were free back in the day - to begin with at least.
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PostPost by: Ross Robbins » Sat Dec 22, 2018 5:13 pm

Stuart,

I can not help with the map guides but I am curious as to whether you ever self published a book and if so, please give us the title and link to amazon so I can buy one and read it. As I remember it was about your two wheeled adventures in Europe and I for one would love to read about them,

Cheers and Merry Christmas!

Ross
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PostPost by: 69S4 » Mon Dec 24, 2018 9:22 am

PM sent
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PostPost by: elanfan1 » Mon Dec 24, 2018 12:18 pm

Stuart,

I reckon your best bet would be a trawl through the travel section of dusty old second hand book shops.they are usually a mine of forgotten stuff. I?m sure there must be loads in and around Oxford but if you fancy a pleasant day out take a trip to Hay on Wye - if you can?t find what you need there then I suspect no one will have them.
Steve

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PostPost by: 69S4 » Mon Dec 24, 2018 2:32 pm

I've been rummaging through as many second hand bookshops as I can find for a couple of years now without any success. Serendipity has thrown up loads of other interesting publications in the course of looking but no route guides or even the later A2 or thereabouts fold up 'throughways' guides that replaced them in the mid 70's.

I've been round a few of the bookshops in Hay - I'm there most years in mid June for a motorcycle travel event at nearby Baskerville Hall (of Hound fame), but there's so many bookshops in Hay that so far I've not gone through them all.

Initially the search was not much more than 'keep an eye out' when in secondhand bookshops or charity shops or a quick trawl through eBay every now and again as I though they'd be easy enough to find, but a number of years have now passed with nothing showing up.

What's more worrying is that nobody even seems to remember them so instead of getting 'we haven't had any of those for a while but leave me your phone number', I'm just getting blank stares (or, in a few antiquarian bookshops, 'oh no, we wouldn't have anything like that in here' (with the emphases on 'that' and 'here' :lol: ) while looking down their nose at me. The antiquarian world does seem to contain a disproportionate number of large snobs in small ponds.

The guides are not essential to the project and I don't want to get obsessed with finding them to the point where the rest of the planning gets neglected but it would be nice if I had them either bought in original paper form or copied in some other format.
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PostPost by: USA64 » Mon Dec 24, 2018 3:17 pm

"large snobs in small ponds"
That's one for the bank!
We are supposed to be having fun, are we not?
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