New Capri book is weeks away

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Steve Saxty
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New Capri book is weeks away

Post by Steve Saxty »

Hello, so after two years of work my book, “The Cars You Always Promised Yourself” goes to the publisher on Monday. I used to work for Ford during the ‘80s as a product designer and did a modest Capri book in the ‘90s. It’s taken me 22 years to find the time to do this new one that covers the history of Ford of Europe’s design, engineering and marketing through the lens of its coupes and high-performance cars. The book spends a lot of time examining how the Capri was born and I spoke to people like Bob Lutz and the Ford’s principal designer, Patrick le Quément – both of whom wrote forewords for the book along with Rod Mansfield of SVE whose team did the Capri Injection. Although it’s independent of Ford the company realized that I was involving heavy-hitters and granted me one-off access to their design archives and many of the prototype photos and design sketches have never been seen before.

You can see a few pages here on the publisher’s site - porterpress.co.uk - where (for another week or two) there’s a limited advanced preorder window open. That’s being done so we can judge the mix of the Standard Edition vs Collector’s Edition of the book. It’s 10”x10” over 300 pages and 150,000 words – so five times the length of my old book.

And, here’s a little scoop the Facebook world doesn’t know of, you can see a video of the book here on my site stevesaxty.com

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Re: New Capri book is weeks away

Post by SmokeEm »

I look forward to reading it.
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Re: New Capri book is weeks away

Post by pbar »

I have just read the online 'freebie' of a couple of pages regarding the code names, which was very interesting indeed.
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Re: New Capri book is weeks away

Post by Andrew 2.8i »

Hi,
Thanks for the update. I'll definitely be adding this book to my Capri library.

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Re: New Capri book is weeks away

Post by Pas28i »

Looking forward to reading this, I’ve ordered mine along with a mk2/mk3 book that continues on from the mk1 book that came out recently.
My library is pretty much complete now!
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Re: New Capri book is weeks away

Post by Jasonmarie »

As you know steve I have already have me name down as Andrew said another to add to the collection .
Ford Capri 2.0 Laser 1987 Mercury Grey ....... :beer:
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Re: New Capri book is weeks away

Post by Andrew 2.8i »

Jasonmarie wrote:I have already have me name down
Me too! Have you ordered the standard or collector's edition?

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Re: New Capri book is weeks away

Post by Jasonmarie »

Can I say the collectors edition but if the wife asks it’s for me Dad and was only a £1 . I guess your doing the same .... :lol:
Ford Capri 2.0 Laser 1987 Mercury Grey ....... :beer:
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Re: New Capri book is weeks away

Post by Steve Saxty »

Everyone seems to want the Collectors Edition which has thrown the publisher into a tizzy. That’s why we opened up a limited window of advanced preorders to ensure the right mix. It’s currenty planned for thirty per cent Collectors but running way higher than that so I’m glad we opened up for a week or two. Downside for me is signing them all.
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Re: New Capri book is weeks away

Post by Jasonmarie »

Steve no kisses in mine then ?
Also just think every Capri , ford man has made the order with out their wife’s knowledge :xd:
Ford Capri 2.0 Laser 1987 Mercury Grey ....... :beer:
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Re: New Capri book is weeks away

Post by pbar »

At £80 or £50 (plus postage) it's too much for me for a book, I've only ever paid that much for a book once, although I would hope to read/get it at some point.
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Re: New Capri book is weeks away

Post by Andrew 2.8i »

Jasonmarie wrote:Can I say the collectors edition.... I guess your doing the same .... :lol:
I think you already know the answer to that ! :D

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Re: New Capri book is weeks away

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Andrew 2.8i wrote: I think you already know the answer to that ! :D

Andrew.
You surprised me a little there Andrew, I recall the two options over the Practical Classics magazines specials, where you chose the standard edition, what is it that enticed you to pay the extra £30 this time around? Just curious :)
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Re: New Capri book is weeks away

Post by Andrew 2.8i »

pbar wrote:You surprised me a little there Andrew, I recall the two options over the Practical Classics magazines specials, where you chose the standard edition, what is it that enticed you to pay the extra £30 this time around? Just curious :)
You only live once!
I must have had a change of mind about the Practical Classics Capri special, as I have the standard edition to read and I also appear to have the collector's edition in an unopened envelope! :D

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Re: New Capri book is weeks away

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Andrew 2.8i wrote:
pbar wrote:You surprised me a little there Andrew, I recall the two options over the Practical Classics magazines specials, where you chose the standard edition, what is it that enticed you to pay the extra £30 this time around? Just curious :)
You only live once!
I must have had a change of mind about the Practical Classics Capri special, as I have the standard edition to read and I also appear to have the collector's edition in an unopened envelope! :D

Andrew.
Ahhhhh, you relinquished after all :) But yes very true, we only have one shot at it, so do as you wish.
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Re: New Capri book is weeks away

Post by Jasonmarie »

I do like a good read and I don’t smoke or drink so it does you good sometimes to treat yourself my wife goes out shopping with my daughter and they are dangerous when shopping I know it’s bad when I get get a classic car magazine .
Saying that on holiday I bought the classic car newspaper one that Andy was in and a magazine for my daughter and the bloke said £11.50 . I payed it but read my newspaper twice ....
Ford Capri 2.0 Laser 1987 Mercury Grey ....... :beer:
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Re: New Capri book is weeks away

Post by pbar »

Jasonmarie wrote:I bought the classic car newspaper one that Andy was in and a magazine for my daughter and the bloke said £11.50 . I payed it but read my newspaper twice ....
Crazy isn't it. I recenly spotted a 70's Glam Rock magazine special on the shelves, great it was, loads of new features, interviews, pics, I wanted it. Looked at the price, £9. I put it back.
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Re: New Capri book is weeks away

Post by Jasonmarie »

pbar wrote:
Jasonmarie wrote:I bought the classic car newspaper one that Andy was in and a magazine for my daughter and the bloke said £11.50 . I payed it but read my newspaper twice ....
Crazy isn't it. I recenly spotted a 70's Glam Rock magazine special on the shelves, great it was, loads of new features, interviews, pics, I wanted it. Looked at the price, £9. I put it back.
It is madness as the kids comic can be a £5 what happened to a bag of sweets a comic and drink for 20p
Ford Capri 2.0 Laser 1987 Mercury Grey ....... :beer:
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Re: New Capri book is weeks away

Post by Andrew 2.8i »

pbar wrote:Ahhhhh, you relinquished after all :)
Yes, I must have bowed to pressure from the forum!
It's funny as I'd forgotten all about that magazine until you mentioned it. I remembered it being talked about on here so I revisited the thread and my final words on the subject were "I feel that the poster is not worth the extra outlay". Now I'm buying the collector's edition of this book partly because of the included poster. How fickle am I? :D
I'm pretty sure that £80 is by far the most I've spent on a new book, and the cost is difficult to justify. In the end I stopped trying to justify spending the money and just ordered it anyway!

Andrew.
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Re: New Capri book is weeks away

Post by Steve Saxty »

Here's how they got priced...

My publisher and I agonized over pricing, they do high-end car books at low volume and ones like mine sell at around £70-80 which I felt too steep. I pointed out that most Ford books are half the size of mine at £25-30 - although far poorer print quality. So given it was over twice the size of the others we went for £49 and he cut his margin.

Then we agonized over the price of the Collector's Truth be told the price on a "Collector's Edition" from my publisher is usually around £160 with all the print cost of so much extra stuff. I suggested that we couldn't double the price but instead make it the better value one. The "problem" with that decision now is that the Collector's Edition is the more popular with early advanced orders which threw the mix off!
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