Audio cassettes of interviews, with questionnaires, information sheets and transcripts, made during research for the book The Motor Car Industry in Coventry since the 1890’s: (origins, development and structure) by David Thoms & Tom Donnelly (published in 1985).
This material is similar to and inspired by the work carried out by former Lanchester Polytechnic history lecturer Kenneth Richardson on the history of Coventry and the car industry (see also the Richardson tapes collection). Thoms and Donnelly found people to interview by inserting an advert in the Coventry Evening Telegraph and talked to all of those who responded to the advert.
Professor Tom Donnelly is an economic historian and Professor in Automotive Business, Centre for Business in Society, Coventry University. David Thoms formerly taught history at Coventry University before moving to De Montford University, Leicester. They were both involved with the Coventry Centre for Business History which was set up in 1985 at what was then Coventry Polytechnic.
A second edition of the book The Coventry Motor Industry: Birth to Renaissance was published in 2000.
Like Richardson, they interviewed some of the major individuals involved in the car industry, such as Alick Dick of Standard Triumph, Jack Jones of the Transport and General Workers’ Union, Sir William Lyons of Jaguar, and many others.