Total Lemons

by Tony Davis

A hilarious look at 111 automotive atrocities. Bad design, appalling execution, ridiculous pretensions, ludicrous names - it's all here in this motoring hall of shame. Most of them didn't even seem like such a good idea at the time ... Cars that doubled as boats, cars that used salvaged aeroplane motors, cars as long as limousines (but only good for transporting 2 people), cars that were too skinny or too wide, much too high or ridiculously heavy, cars which looked like they had been designed by Noddy with Big Ears lending a hand. there is one place they can be total Lemons, a new omnibus which lovingly brings together the 111 worst cars ever built. Here you'll find the dumpy and astonishingly incompetent Austin Allegro ('A streetcar named Dire'), the frighteningly unstable Messerschmitt cabin-scooter (a 'Postwar crime') and the exploding Ford Pinto ('Passengers alight here'). You'll meet their colleagues, brothers and sisters in automobile atrocity, including certain Holdens, Falcons, Valiants, Leylands and Lightburns. Filled with high hopes, low commonsense and photos manufacturers wish had never been taken, total Lemons is a gift book - and a warning - for the revheads in your life. As author tony Davis notes, good cars come and go, but a total lemon is forever.

299 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 5, 2015

About the author

Tony Davis is widely blamed for LEMON! 60 HEROIC FAILURES OF MOTORING, an Australian bestseller that was published in US and UK editions – and which has been adapted into the hit book for kids, YOU MUST BE SKIDDING! He is also responsible for the eccentric literary memoir F. SCOTT, ERNEST AND ME, plus the new children’s series ROLAND WRIGHT, FUTURE KNIGHT.

Before courageously leaving a well-paid job to be a full-time author (at the end of 2005), Tony had a long and successful career in newspapers, magazines and publishing. He has worked at THE AUSTRALIAN and THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD, has held senior editing and news roles, and has written extensively about popular culture, history, motoring, television and a myriad of other subjects.

Tony lives in northern Sydney with his wife Carolyn and their three sons, William, James and Daniel.

Reviews

[Stephen Hickman · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Christmas stocking filler 'list' book that is well written and has some genuinely funny lines. I read it over four hours on Boxing day morning and came a cross a few cars I now feel lucky I avoided. I recall wanting a Honda s600, a Jensen-Healy, a Hillman Imp, each one I now discover a Lemon. I was young.