Show Brochures

The Show brochures at first with “Motor for the Million” publication no 306 were quite plain affairs within a slightly coloured drawing on the brown cover and the range in 1923 may just have got a mention as “from stock colours”. It took Mr Nicholson with his 1927 Second edition excellent red pocket books to state “the usual finish is Kingfisher Blue”. So there!

By the late 1920s/early 1930s colours were an artworld dream, literally, as colour printing allowed them to show some of the colours but they ended up too bright with orange tourers and lilac saloons seen in 1931 pub 776. The art dept was let loose just before Christmas 1936 in pub 1472 with the naughty ladies and “palpitating pistons” text that was very soon withdrawn and in December 1472a was “censored” on the Nippy page. Towards the end in 1938/39 the brochures really went cheap with just orange and black “colours” and very limited information.

There are a number of ancillary booklets, leaflets and posters. An odd one in todays terms would be the 1938 commentary for the film short “Here’s to Power” as sound equipment may not have been in every dealers budget. These 10 min films were intended for dealers to entice customers in. They just fitted a single reel camera so were easy to run. The best long film made was “This Progress” which compiled a few of the shorts with a new linking overview of Sir Herbert leafing through an album at his office desk and has a rare section with his own voice then early film of a prototype being driven through a woodland path, which may have been the grounds of Lickey Grange.

The most recent addition to this collection comes from Russell Curtis, one of our Australian members, who has kindly donated around 120 brochures and general Seven literature which the Archives did not possess. These have now been digitised and are available below, our thanks go to Russell for this generous donation.