John Haynes, the man behind 200m car manuals, dies at 80
THE creator of the Haynes car manuals, which have helped millions of owners carry out DIY work on their vehicles, has died aged 80.
John Haynes launched the manuals in the 1960s and sold more than 200million to car lovers around the world.
His family said yesterday he died peacefully surrounded by loved ones after a short illness.
Mr Haynes’ firm produced manuals for 300 models of car and 130 types of motorbike. It also produced guides to the Apollo 11 spacecraft, the Typhoon fighter jet, Wallace & Gromit’s contraptions and the Starship Enterprise from Star Trek.
Mr Haynes’ passion for cars began in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), where he was born the son of a tea plantation manager. The family rode around the plantation in a beloved Morris car. Mr Haynes later boarded at a school in Kent where the concept for the manuals was born in 1954,
John, then 17, spent time in one of the school’s sheds converting an Austin car into a sportier version. He decided to produce a booklet showing other enthusiasts how he had done it.
The first print run of 250 copies – run off on the school copier and priced at five shillings (25p)) – sold out in ten days.
After leaving school, he joined the RAF. The first Haynes manual was created while he was posted to Aden and helped a friend to rebuild an Austin-Healey Sprite. He quickly realised that the official factory manual was not designed to help the average car owner. Mr Haynes bought a camera and captured the process.
The use of step-by- step photo sequences linked to big diagrams became the trusted hallmark of Haynes manuals. The first mangrew ual, for the Sprite, was published in 1966, and 3,000 sold in under three months.’
He met his wife Annette while he was in the RAF and bought her a typewriter as a wedding present. She ended up typing the early manuals. The publishing business and was floated on the Stock Exchange in 1979. In 1995 Mr Haynes was awarded an OBE for services to publishing. Success made him a multi- millionaire and allowed him to collect 30 cars. He gave them to the Haynes International Motor Museum, which he founded in Somerset in 1985.
The museum now displays more than 400 vehicles, and has 125,000 visitors a year. Even in the digital age, 80 per cent of the manuals the company has published are still being sold as the cars they detail are repaired by DIY fans.
In 2004 the firm launched The Sex Manual ( nicknamed the Carma Sutra) as a novelty book. Each manual takes a pair of authors between 20 and 30 weeks to complete.
Mr Haynes’ family said yesterday he ‘will be missed enormously.’
Run off on the school copier