Talk Morgan Forums Community The Malvern Arms Motorpunk is back - SUPER book / filling stations

Apologies for the unintentionally cryptic title, I can explain - I'm Rich Duisberg, I used to post here as MotorPunk but managed to make a balls up of my email/login combo, so registered again. Still with me? Some of you kindly bought my magazine, MotorPunk, which ran for a year. I met a few of you over the years, too, at Morgan and Goodwood on occasion. Hello again.

I've kindly had the support of MMC in putting together a series of five books which might be of interest to you chaps (or not, who knows). The book is called SUPER and has five regional editions. I spent considerable time traversing the UK researching, visiting and photographing old, old, abandoned, obscure and interesting filling stations. In the 1960s there were over 40000 filling stations in the UK. Today only 20% of them are still operating. I was on a mission to document as many as I could, focusing on the more photogenic or interesting ones. I ended up with around 350 places and a book that was too large and expensive for any right-minded publisher to take on. So I broke it down into regional editions and self-published it all on Amazon. And I thought people here might like it.

Here's the sleeve for the Midlands and North of England edition;



And the South East England edition sleeve looks like this;



I expect that forum rules mean I can't post links to where you can buy this on Amazon (I might be wrong).

I love roadtripping. I covered quite a few sites in the Midlands, North of England and Scotland in a new Plus Four. I also did a few on my Lotus. There's also an Austin Maxi for any closet BL-pervs. The locations are fascinating. I particularly love the abandoned Lada dealership, a Ferrari garage that was forgotten for decades, anecdotes about the Murco logo looking like a cat's bum (once you've seen it...) and, above all, researching and sharing stories about places like West end garage, Tunastone (England's oldest until the proprietor passed away last month) which was also used to refuel the local tally-ho's biplane. I ended up in grim spots in South Wales, remote island locations in Scotland, and places buried in the South Downs that time forgot. Some locations are well-known, others are obscure, I hope this book serves to bring back memories and encourage people to document and help preserve what was once a way of life. The MotorPunk logo shown on the covers is just a watermark and doesn't appear in print.

Anyway, enough waffle. Hello again.

Closet BL -perv...how dare you it's Austin Morris

Can only see the Northern edition on Amazon

Welcome back Rich. That looks like an excellent project, I've just been reading all about it here https://www.motorpunk.co.uk/articles/super-old-odd-interesting-obscure-abandoned-filling-stations/

The SE edition will be going on my Christmas list.

Thanks. It's a bit weird how Amazon lists it, here's South and East - https://www.amazon.co.uk/SUPER-inte...mp;psc=1&refRID=SY0R14JT3CJHDDARSB05


Wales is here

Oh, the South West edition, and Scotland edition, will go live in 1-2 weeks.

Scroll down a bit to Amazon recommendations and you'll see a link to the one with the Maxi on the front Peter.
Haven't found the others, yet!

Edit - OK rich beat me to it!!

That's very kind, thank you, Ian!

I'll post up some snippets / pics when I am back at a proper PC.

Cheers Graham, ordered it, look forward to finding some on my travels

It's dirty and wrong. But I love it.

Actually, I didn't take that pic, the guy who owned the image was quite incredulous when I said I'd love to put it on a book cover

Very interesting book. My old house that I'm currently restoring also includes a small smithy building that was also a gas station in the 1930s. On the old photo you can see the "Big Ben" fuel pump. The brand was Standard (Esso). It will be a perfect home for my 4/4. :-)