Folkhemmets Farkoster - Claes Johansson

[barrett]

Published by Byggforlaget, 2003
210 pages, hundreds of colour and b&w illustrations


I thought I would draw your attention to this wonderful little book as I'm not sure how well known it is outside Sweden. The title roughly translates as 'vessels of the welfare state' - the book covers the homebuilt cars, pedal-powered mostly, but some using small motorcycle engines, that proliferated in Sweden in the period after WW2 when petrol rationing made running a car a luxury for most people. These cars took all manner of forms from very basic, lightweight Mochet-style pedal cars to very well-built microcars that rivaled anything built in Germany or France at the time.
The author is a real enthusiast of this little-known area of motoring history, but also clearly a lover of the sort of innocent, homely aesthetic of the period and the book is not only packed with superb period and modern images but is designed beautifully too. Sadly I don't speak a word of Swedish, but no doubt the text is excellent and detailed too...
Sadly the book is very hard to find. It totally sold out quite quickly and rarely comes on the market second-hand, and even rarer still outside Sweden. It would be great if Claes could be persuaded to release a second edition, in English, but I doubt it will happen. He's written an excellent piece in the new issue of The Automobile magazine (February, 2016) that gives some background and mentions a couple of the cars in detail.

[Wendax]

And the author is an AP member, of course. 

[barrett]

I didn't realise!

[Paul Jaray]

This book has been the top wanted of my wishlist for years.
Once I joined facebook I tried to look for the author...to discover he is one of us!
The book is even better that the expected...I can't read it but the rare and obscure pictures of those cars are unestimable.
I finally have my copy and I hope there will be more books like that on the subject!

[kwgibbs]

hi,I was just curious, if Claes couldn,t be persuaded to publish a 2nd edition of this wonderful book,maybe he could be persuaded to post a bunch of these obscure cars for us,that would be really great.I always enjoyed the very obscure and little-known cars .I hope Claes does!

[Carnut]

I would certainly buy any new edition!

[Wendax]

I bought my copy at a second hand book store in Uppsala today for 125 SEK (a bit more than 10 €). Really a great book even if you don't speak Swedish. Just behind the front cover is an envelope attached, inside it is a facsimile of the Fantom building plan, lovely!