After Andy B kindly sent me his photo of the model of Seaview and the drawing of the future sub by
Leslie Ashwell Wood, it brought to mind the book series from which it came. Wood is probably best remembered for hi sumptious cutaway illustrations in Eagle, but publisher Benwig Books released a series of small books called Inside Information on a range of different vehicles around 1969. Naturally my favourite was Space Travel, but I soon added Exploring Under the Sea, Tanks and Hovercraft. Sadly the inside of my copy of Hovercraft seems to have got lost over the years and my original copies of some of the books have been lying round my parents loft for some time too. Each book featured about 8 cutaway drawings in glorious colour of a specific vehicle, but I always looked forward to the back pages and the futuristic concepts shown there. With hindsight, some are curiosly myopic, but most aren't far off the mark, especially the destroyer and the tank, which aren't too far from modern designs.
The taqnk looks like the ill-fated MBT-70, an idea for a main battle tank that overran its budget then was never put into production!
ReplyDeleteI always loved cutaway illustrations.
ReplyDeleteI remember my dad buying a set of encyclopedia at a jumble sale when I was a kid that had the most lovely and colourful illustrations at the back. They had all these lift up/fold down sections and showed great detail in their subjects.
One was a bee, one a frog, one the human body and one a passenger aeroplane...eight in all and they were very well done indeed.
I so wish I still had them.
I think I had all of these (or nearly all)! I wish I’d kept them…
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