There have been lots of superb book releases in 2020, which is great given that we all had a bit more time on our hands and also another sign of the renaissance of the hard copy publication!

When considering my personal book of the year award there were several live wire candidates and until just recently it was a toss-up between Steve Saxty’s brilliant book ‘Secret Fords’ or the great book on the life of the late John Haynes…

However, a late entry and just about snatching victory is Richard Heseltine’s ‘Excess All Areas’. A well deserving winner even if this review is an attempt to appease Performance Publishing’s Adam Wilkins as I’m sure he’s going to shout at me, as the review was due to make it into our book review section of the forthcoming January/February 2020 issue of TKC Mag, but sadly because it deserved a long review there wasn’t room for it! It will be in the March/April issue, though.

As I’ve already said on these pages, any book on specialist cars is welcomed with open arms by me but when it’s as good as this one and written by an expert on the subject like Richard then it is always going to be a winner.

‘Excess All Areas – British Kit Cars of the 1970s’ to give it its full title, is an informative and well-produced romp through a decade of anything went for our industry with some outlandish and often over ambitious attempts at car building as well as some of the most revered kitcars ever produced. A proper melting pot.

Richard takes a light-hearted approach but the book is a fact laden gem with a layout harking back to the seventies, which I thought was a really clever and incisive touch.

The format is an A-Z one kicking off with the ABC Trimini and totalling around 170 makes and notable specials builders of the seventies within its 124-pages, written in an enjoyable style while still feeding those hungry for facts everything they could need to know about that decade in kitcar history.

Well worth the £27 asking price the book is available now from https://www.performancepublishing.co.uk/excess-all-areas.html ENDS.