I am still in the process of trying to compile a bibliography of works edited, written or translated by D.B Tubbs.
The first version was published with my Christmas newsletter of 2025. Diligent research by a friend has uncovered several more, including both original, translated and edited publications.
There are online autogenerated bibliographies already but missing items I know of and I think there will be others of which I do not yet know.
Reviews of all books then to hand not previously reviewed were reviewed in the 2025 edition.
I will refer to him here as DBT conforming to long-standing family practice starting with HTT, DBT’s grandfather. His full name was Douglas Burnell Tubbs (1913-1999). Burnell was a family surname coming from HTT’s wife and was given as a second name to numerous members of the next two generations.
In the family, motoring world and many others DBT was known as Bunny Tubbs, where the nickname is probably a contraction of Burnell.
An * asterisk after a listing indicates the edition is on the index of The British Library directly linked to DBT.
A plus sign + before a title indicates that no copy has been seen or owned by me.
The SBN Standard Book Number system started in the UK in 1966, the ISBN from 1970. These are given where available.
Before going into books and pamphlets his most voluminous writings were in various roles on The Motor, the standard weekly motoring journal which first appeared in 1903, variously titled Motorycling and Motoring, The Motor, Motor. It was taken over by Iliffe Press. In 1968 the title was merged with The Autocar as Autocar and Motor. A similar merger of Temple and Iliffe aerospace publications took place at the same time. . If ebay is to be believed back numbers are now over £10. £3 is the usual autojumble price.
Temple Press was founded by Edmund Dangerfield in 1891 in Bouverie Street. It headed Fleet Street’s charge to east London before WW2, settling in Bowling Green Lane, Clerkenwell. (https://www.londonpicturearchive.org.uk/view-item?i=62571&WINID=1750075519908), where publications were also printed. Its chief topic was cycling at the peak of the cycling craze before that was overtaken by motoring and motor cycling. Temple Press covered most aspects of transport. Roland (Roly) Dangerfield ( 1897-1964) took over the business in 1933. He had been at St Cyprian’s preparatory school in Eastbourne, a near contemporary of CBT. He was a fierce supporter of editorial independence without which DBT would have been gagged. DBT joined The Motor some time after he returned from a year as a postgraduate student in the USA during which he became thoroughly familiar with the car industry in America and remained critical of the lack of progressive car design in the UK.
At the insistence of his family he wrote a memoir which remains unpublished.
The Motor Yearbook 1960. Temple Press
(The 1959 edited was edited by Philip Turner with DBT). There were only two editions.
Vintage Cars in Colour, (1966. Batsford)
Lancaster Bomber, Ballantine (UK and US editions)
Zeiss Ikon Cameras (1926-1939), Hove Cameras *
Kent Pubs (1966, Batsford), illustrations by Alan F Turner. In a series of Batsford regional pub guides.
Art and the Automobile (1978, Lutterworth Press, ISBN13 978-0718823856) *
ART & THE AUTOMOBILE : THE BARRON COLLECTION. BY D.B. TUBBS. AN ORIGINAL ARTICLE | eBay UK
The Phantoms (1961, Hamish Hamilton)
Horseless Carriages (1968, Edita Lausanne, UK Patrick Stephens), illustrations anon, text by DB Tubbs. Limited edition of 3,000.
The Age of Motoring (Pierre Dumont, Ronald Barker, Douglas B Tubbs. Edita Lausanne, 1965) – probably the American edition of the same book published as Automobile and Automobiling, Bonanza Books)
A utomobile Design: Great Designers and Their Work: Amazon.co.uk: Barker, Ronald, Harding, and others : ISBN 9780715349052: The Chapter on Porsche by DB Tubbs, the chapter on Lanchester by his father-in-law Anthony Bird, the chapter on Colin Chapman by his colleague Phillip Turner.
Rolls-Royce Phantom I
Jowett
Austin 7
The Talbots 14/45-110
Lancia Lamda
Wolesley Hornet
The A.C. Six
La 628-E8 Bonnard - Sketches of a Journey.
Bugatti - Evolution of a style with Paul Kestler *
The Golden Age of Toys (1967, Edita Lausanne, Jac Remise and Jean Fondin, Library of Congress reference LC 67 27069) translated by DB Tubbs. In slip case*
The Supercharged Mercedes with Halwart Schrader *
The Great Classics, Automobile engineering in the Golden Age with Ingo Seiff and Peter Roberts.*
First published in the UK by Orbis Books First published in USA by Gallery Books, an imprint of WH Smith Publisher Inc 280pp - Ingo Seiff
The illustrated history of the camera from 1839 to the present. (1975. Fountain Press. ISBN 0852424459) This is variously attributed to Michel Auer translated by DB Tubbs, DB Tubbs, and Michel Auer translated and adapted by DB Tubbs (which I believe is the correct attribution based on the title page in the book).
+ The Illustrated History of Phonographs ( Daniel Marty, Edita Lausanne, 1979). English Edition published by Edita SA 1981 – translation by DB Tubbs). USA edition published by Dorset Books with ISBN 0-88029-388-8)
+ Extended Travels in Romantic America – chosen and displayed by Joseph Jose with translation of French, German and English items translated by DB Tubbs, Edita Lausanne
+ Musical Instruments through the Ages - This work was translated by D. B. Tubbs from an original book authored by Dr. Alexander Buchner and Iris Buchner
The Monasteries of The Himalayas (Suzanne Held, Forward by Jean Chalon, captions by Lisa Medini and Gerard Barriere
+ Prints of photographs attributed to DB Tubbs have been circulated but I do not know if they were officially published, whether they are in breach of copyright etc. One in particular has been seen on several occasions of Earl Howe sitting in a racing car.
There is an archive of these at Stanford University
https://web.archive.org/web/20160915173627/https://revslib.stanford.edu/catalog/ch493nk3954
References to DB Tubbs are made in FIAT by Michael Sedgwick.
Sale of flintlock pistol with provenance of DB Tubbs Collection.
https://www.olympiaauctions.com/auction/lot/lot-113---a-rare-irish-20-bore-flintlock-silver-mounted-duelling-pistol-by-wallace-dublin/?lot=56030&so=0&st=&sto=0&au=213&ef=&et=&ic=False&sd=0&pp=96&pn=2&g=1
A link entitled Fertility Control on thriftbooks.com is spurious (we think, hope and trust)
A review of Art and The Automobile and an article written by DBT about the subject was found as below in the website of the Garfield Library of the Institute of Scientific Information/Research.
ISR 613 *Car Art* Title 302
Nothing could have been more interdisciplinary than the contribution by D.B.
Tubbs which he called *The Car and its Artists*. Mr Tubbs, a journalist and veteran
author of the history of motor transportation, had written and published numerous
books and many articles about cars. When I met him, he proudly showed me his lat-
est book Art and the Automobile which was published in 1978 by Lutterworth.
“Here is something really interdisciplinary” he said and I shared his opinion. He
kindly agreed to condense the substance of the book to an article for ISR and I re-
ceived his manuscript together with 12 splendid illustrations from his own collec-
tion in July 1980 and published it in September 1981.
I was particularly interested in his contribution as I had always thought that tech-
nology had not inspired artists, perhaps with a few exceptions of railways, ships and
aircraft during their historical beginnings. Tubbs soon proved to me that cars were
a special case, perhaps because artists themselves owned and drove cars, but never
railways, ships or aircraft. Tubbs had found in years of collecting, that eminent art-
ists like Toulouse-Lautrec, Derain, Bonnard, van Dongen, Leger, Matisse and Dav-
id Hockney have at least flirted with automobile subjects.
The real flavour of car art can only be transmitted through the superb 225 illus-
trations, particularly of the 50 colour pictures, of Tubbs’ 1978 book, a copy of which
lies now by my side as I write. Just as the technology of the car grew from the awk-
ward pre-1900 single-cylinder three-wheeler to the supercharged racing monsters
of the 1920s and 1930s, so the European artistic styles changed from post-Impres-
sionism, Futurism, Surrealism, to Social Realism. In the United States after World
War 11, the motor car, celebrated as one of the chief totems of the American cul-
ture, finds its mirror in Pop art and Photo-realism. History of technology and of art
flow past the reader as he turns the pages of this book of interdisciplinary splen-
dour.
All I can do here is to give brief chapter headings of the book and of the ISR ar-
ticle based on it. Pictures of early motor car races 1895-1905;Ernest Montaut and
his school of early poster artists; Futurism to Dada via Rene Vincent; Styling, coach
work and interior appointments of the Jazz Age; Art and Architecture in motor car
design by stylists; art for the enthusiast as portrayed by Bryan de Grinau, Geo Ham,
Peter Helck and others; and finally the car in contemporary art and sculpture.
As a car enthusiast myself, once the owner of a beautiful 1935 four and a half litre
silver Lagonda, I must admit that this interdisciplinary contribution gave me much