Leslie Kendall, SAH #1599 who served his stint as an SAH director 2009 to 2012, has written his first full book targeted to publish sometime in 2026. What a book it promises to be, too.
It is titled Defying Detroit: Automobile Manufacturing in Southern California, Kendall, native to Southern California and today is the Petersen Museum’s chief historian has “paid close attention to the unusually creative vehicles that hailed from the area and the people who have designed and built them.” Kendall comments he has “long desired to compile their histories into a single work that explains the circumstances that have affected their development, desirability, and, ultimately, their demise.”
Further describing his book, Kendall said, “The introduction includes a detailed 650-word definition of what constitutes a Southern California car,” as he provided the first sentence of that introduction: Vehicles are considered for inclusion in this reference if their major components were manufactured (or if their final assembly took place) in one of ten counties generally considered to constitute “Southern California” (San Luis Obispo, Kern, San Bernardino, Santa Barbara, Ventura, Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Diego, and Imperial). (hvh)
And the lady who is producing this long overdue informational communication to SAH’s membership, Chris Lezotte, has recently signed a contract with an academic press for a new book. Busy lady. We’ll look forward to your second title once it’s been written and published, Chris. (hvh)