Description
A Limited Edition of only 400 hardback books, each signed and numbered by the author
Written by a former manager of Jaguar’s famed design (styling) department, this autobiography is an entertaining account of Stuart Spencer’s life as artist, Midlands-based musician, and motor industry manager.
It tells how he grew up during WW2 in Birmingham, and how he acquired a keen interest in music and art. As a part-time drummer he played in the Midlands with Mike Burney, Sonny Rose, Adalaide Hall, Diana Dors,John Ruddick and many others. On the art side, he developed an aptitude for painting cars, people and aircraft, later exhibiting at prestige events like the Goodwood Revival meeting.
He entered the Coventry motor industry via the Rootes Group and in due course became involved in the Spartan project, the Arrow range, the Avenger and, during the Chrysler Europe/Peugeot Talbot Citroen years,various Sunbeam and Talbot models. Finally, he went on to play a key role at Jaguar in the 1980s and 90s – a period of the company now attracting more interest than ever.
In particular at Jaguar , Stuart relates the story of Jaguar’s design director Geoff Lawson, the man behind such critically important new Jaguars such as the XJ6 (XJ40, X300), the still-born XJ90 (the book includes probably the first published pictures of this car), XJ220, XJ8 (X308), S-TYPE, X-TYPE, XK8 (X100) and F-Type concept. In doing so Stuart reveals the politics of the time and the influence Ford exerted on Jaguar, and what it was like working with such important Jaguar figures as Jim Randle, (Sir) Nick Scheele, Jim Padilla and the many talented designers and modellers in the styling department. Not to mention the parrot…
Stuart writes:-
I’ve been fortunate to enjoy two creative careers that sometimes intertwined.My journey in art took me from a lettering artist’s drawing board to being the design studio manager for Jaguar Cars and Aston Martin.
In motor sport I had the amazing experience of sitting alongside Tony Pond on the Esgair Dafydd rally stage,and Henri Toivonen at the Bagshot military testing ground.
As a drummer I worked with brilliant musicians in venues ranging from intimidating, dark rooms sometimes thinking “what am I doing here?”, to stunningly beautiful, elegant ballrooms.This is the story of a life shaped by design and music.
