Allan Stephenson’s etchings of classic cars, bicycles, motorcycles and airplanes draw from his experience both as an illustrator and a young car-spotter who would doodle cars on his exercise book at school instead of attending to the lessons at hand. He lived at the time in 1950’s England, so his sketches were of Triumphs, the MG’s, the Healeys and the Jaguars that he saw almost every day. Once in a while, he would see an exotic and foreign Alfa, BMW or Porsche – even a gigantic Hudson or Chrysler.

During the 1960’s he witnessed the homogenization of the auto industry. Many small, independent companies would be swallowed up by larger corporations, and along with that – the disappearance of unique styling and engineering, giving way to what we have today – a handful of giant manufacturers producing cars barely discernable from each other.

So, Allan refers back to the days when the cars, bikes and planes were very different from each other- when the designers were reaching and experimenting. Some not so successfully, but others producing timeless classics of design. For the most part, they were handmade of materials such as wood, hammered sheet metal, rivets, spoked wheels, gleaming exhaust pipes, huge headlamps, flared fenders, running boards, split windscreen and enameled badges with mascots riding ahead on the radiator caps. They may not have been so silky smooth, seamless and reliable as today’s mass-manufactured car, but they made up for it by having immense character and charm!