Have you been to the new shop at Middlebrook? I’m writing about Waterstones (or should it be Waterstone’s?). If you’re a book lover and you haven’t, why not take yourself over there and have a good look round? It’s good to see a bookstore on Middlebrook. I just hope it does not herald the closure of the store in Bolton town centre. Will it be another nail in the town centre’s coffin? Well, that’s a question for another day.
Readers of Secretary’s Scribbles will know that I can’t resist a bookshop, new or second-hand, so the store hadn’t been open long before I was in Middlebrook to take a look. And of course I wanted to see if I could find a motoring book to add to my collection. At first I thought I was to be unlucky, as there was nothing more than the Highway Code and driving (and riding) instruction books. And then I saw a book by Jon Bentley, a presenter of The Gadget Show. It had the intriguing title Autopia: The Future of Cars, published by Atlantic Books at £12.99.
Jon Bentley is (or was, as this book was published in 2020) a presenter on Channel 5’s The Gadget Show. He has been a producer and executive producer of Top Gear, and one of the corners on the programme’s test track is named after him.
In the Introduction, Bentley reminds us that, since its invention nearly 130 years ago, the car has been an extraordinary global success story, extending its influence over most of the planet and transforming vast tracts of human life. However, along with its power to change the world for the better, mass car ownership has also had a profoundly negative legacy. He picks out traffic accidents, pollution, resource depletion, climate change, congestion, road rage, loss of rural idylls, and the increasing nightmare of finding a parking place.
Nevertheless, things are changing. Bentley reminds us that avid car customers no longer queue round the block for a new model. Instead they are far more likely to camp outside an Apple store, waiting for the latest iPhone.
Following the Introduction there are six chapters:
- The Rise of the Robot Cars
- Alternative Power and the Future of the Internal Combustion Engine
- How the Shape of Cars Will Change
- The Future of Performance Cars and Motorsport
- Safety and the Age of Automation
- Classic Cars and Enthusiast Drivers
Bentley tries to answer the question “Is the Car Dead?” If I’ve stimulated an interest in the book, here is a spoiler alert: it’s best not to read the rest of this article until you’ve read the book.
The section begins with an interesting statement that in a sci-fi-and-superhero world there would be no need for cars. We’d all use jetpacks! Bentley thinks the future of personal flying transport now looks more likely to be small electric vertical take-off and landing craft and passenger drones. However, batteries aren’t yet powerful enough for passenger-drone use.
So Bentley’s conclusion is that cars can currently give us ecstatic thrills while we sit in a comfortable environment and listen to the entertainment of our choice, and they are not going away any time soon. I recommend the store and the book!
Gary Whittle