Product Description

A marvellous new title by accomplished author Gavin Booth; this volume explores for the very first time how bus design has evolved and its impact on the urban landscape.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #399474 in Books
• Published on: 2008-10-23
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 160 pages

Customer Reviews

Superficial and poorly edited
I have read a number of books on design in transport, such as Underground Movement by Paul Moss. Those books whilst being visually interesting, have also gone into quite a bit of detail about why the designs were as they were, be it practical or political.

In comparison with those, this book by Gavin Booth is a great disappointment. It is not a book about design, but a book about styling. And it is a superficial one at that. There is no analysis of the why or how of bus styling, apart from a few passing mentions of improvements in technology allowing more curvaceous styles. There's also nothing about the interiors of buses. The book is much more about the personal likes and dislikes of the author than an analysis of how bus design has developed. The exploration of bus design's "impact on the urban landscape" mentioned in the product description is totally absent.

I also found the book poorly edited, with bus models described in the text, then a few paragraphs later a description of when the bus was introduced and what models it replaced, as if the earlier description had not existed. Within each chapter, both the text and the photographs are arranged by model type (minibus, single deckers, double deckers) rather than in chronological order, which leads to a lot of forwarding references when comparisons are made between the different models from one manufacturer.

Overall, given the reputation of the author, I was very disappointed.