The Story of Ferguson Formula

[ajc9415]

I came across the book Traction For Sale. The sales blurb and link are below. I don’t have any connection to it but thought it may be of interest to some of you.

“Traction for Sale tells the story of Ferguson Formula, the phenomenal technology for all-wheel control. It incorporated four-wheel drive anti-skid brakes more than half century ago. But it took a different company, Audi, with the quattro to make the world sit up and take notice of what full-time four-wheel drive could do. Almost every maker wanted to build a car with full-time four-wheel drive and the Ferguson Formula was the only technology available, off the shelf solution. Even the giants in the field of four-wheel drive – Land Rover, Jeep and even Audi took it up.
In Traction for Sale you can read the story of Ferguson Formula four-wheel drive. Discover its application in all automotive fields, from its inception in the late 1930s to 1994, when FF Developments, the company formed in 1971 to develop it was absorbed by Ricardo Plc.

Features include

The stories of the three men behind it all - Fred Dixon, Tony Rolt and Harry Ferguson
Full development details of all the Research Cars
The background story of the Jensen FF
Development of the Ford Capri, police Zephyrs, Sierra and Escort 4x4s
Ferguson Formula in motor sport, including Formula 1, Indianapolis, Group B and Group A rallying and the British Hill Climb Championship
Production vehicles of the 1980s equipped with the Ferguson Formula
Technical specifications of each Harry Ferguson car made
All Harry Ferguson Research and FF Developments projects listed with project numbers”

https://www.earlswoodpress.co.uk/tfs/

[Keith]

It's a great book and been discussed on the forum:

https://joc.org.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=28964

[MikeWilliams]

There seem to be two versions of the book, one with the FF swirls in the centre of the cover and the other with a picture of a single seater racing car. Anyone know what the difference is?

Mike

[Martin R]

There seem to be two versions of the book, one with the FF swirls in the centre of the cover and the other with a picture of a single seater racing car. Anyone know what the difference is?

Mike

Interestingly, both books have identical ISDN numbers. Seems a bit odd. I'll ask Bill Munro and see what he says.

[Per]

May have changed as there were two print runs. The first run had some issues that slipped through qa.

[Martin R]

I received a reply from the author who explains that there is only one edition of Traction.

The cover [with the race car] you see was the original, provisional one that was designed about three years ago but replaced with the current cloverleaf design.

Therefore, the web site(s) showing the alternative cover needs to be updated, which Bill Munro is looking into.

Additionally, Bill adds that the best price available for the book is direct from his website. www.earlswoodpress.co.uk and he can sign and dedicate it on request.