Danger Heavy Goods Driving: The Toughest Roads in the World
Transportation History Adventure Biography Trucking & Logistics Australian Outback Collectible Transport Literature Heavy Vehicle Technology True Adventure Vintage Textbook
First-edition hardcover of Robert Hutchison’s 1987 Australian classic Danger Heavy Goods Driving: The Toughest Roads in the World is the holy-grail title for truckers, transport historians and adventure-biography collectors. Chronicling the author’s real-life runs along the planet’s most lethal haul routes—think corrugated desert tracks, monsoon-washed jungle switchbacks and ice-slick Andean passes—the book blends white-knuckle road stories with period technical data on the Mack, Kenworth and Volvo rigs that carried everything from nitro to mining machinery. Because it was written before GPS and satellite phones, every page captures the seat-of-the-pants ingenuity that kept 50-ton combinations moving when one snapped axle or missed gear could spell disaster 500 km from help.
What sets this copy apart is its collector-grade condition: a clean, tightly-bound first printing still wrapped in the original illustrated dust jacket that screams vintage ‘80s chrome and Outback dust. The boards are square, the pages are bright and unmarked, and the jacket shows only the faintest edge rub—remarkable for a 36-year-old trucking title that was usually thumbed through in garages and roadhouses. As a textbook used in Australian TAFE heavy-vehicle courses, most copies were workshop-battered; intact examples are now scarce on the open market, especially outside Australia.
For enthusiasts, this volume is more than nostalgia—it’s a primary-source snapshot of pre-computer logistics, outback road infrastructure and the culture of the long-haul driver. Hutchison’s vivid prose and the book’s wealth of black-and-white photographs make it equally appealing to model-truck builders, route historians and anyone who loves true-life adventure. Secure this first-edition hardcover now and park a piece of transport history on your shelf before the last clean copies disappear into private collections.
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