Books & Models Life on the Jaguar frontline, and a great-value 1:18 Alfa Romeo

By Brian James Martin, £30, veloce.co.uk, ISBN 978 1 787112 79 7 We should cherish this low-key, but utterly revelatory, memoir courtesy of Brian James Martin. Unless you’re a member of the Jaguar Enthusiasts’ Club you may well never have heard of him, but he was present throughout much of the marque’s tumultuous history and instrumental in a great deal of it.

Martin’s first job as an apprentice working on the aluminium-bodied early run of XK120S. He was in the pits at Le Mans in 1955 and witnessed the dreadful disaster and Jaguar’s response. It was Martin who set off the alarm and summoned the fire brigade to halt the 1957 factory blaze. Later, in the experimental department, he helped build the first E-type.

It’s all told in a frank and unassuming manner from a shop-floor perspective so often woefully ignored by history. But it’s crucial – this is the aspect of the Jaguar story from 1949 to 1978 that no-one else has really told before.