Julian Parish is a respected and long-standing author of many automotive books published by Veloce.
With another title soon to be published, Saab Cars A Pictorial History 1949 to 2011, we spent some time with Julian to find out more about his fascinating background, love of all things French, and his passion for cars.
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Julian Parish
Julian grew up in south-east
England and went to school there. He read Modern Languages at university
(Oxford) and has always been fascinated by other cultures. Altogether, he says that he must
have visited more than 40 different countries, for work or pleasure. It is
France, however, which has always had a special place in his heart: he has lived
there for nearly 30 years and has had French nationality since 2008.
His first job after
graduating was as a junior lecturer at the Sorbonne in Paris. After this, he moved into book publishing (schoolbooks and travel guides), before turning to international
software development. He spent 17 years at Microsoft, based in the UK, Ireland, France
and the United States. He remained involved in the software industry until 2018,
and since then has worked full-time as a motoring writer, translator and event
commentator.
Julian has always had a
passion for cars and has been fortunate to own and drive a number of
interesting models over the past 40 years. He say that he has a particular weakness for
anything with six or more cylinders under the bonnet!
In his free time, he also enjoys landscape photography and he continues to travel for pleasure.
We asked Julian about his latest book published by Veloce, 'Saab Cars 1949 to 2011', an addition to the well-established and highly successful 'A Pictorial History' series.
His last company car
in the UK, many years ago, was a Saab 900 NG, and he has always been interested
in the make. Its long history of technical innovation and many successes in
competition led to some great production cars with a very distinctive appeal. He felt these models deserved to be covered in Veloce’s 'Pictorial
History' series, especially as Veloce has no other titles covering the complete history
of Saab’s cars.
As with my previous
title in this series, Citroën Cars 1934-1986, he has tried to provide a
concise but comprehensive introduction to all Saab’s production models,
beginning with the 92 in 1949 and continuing until the company sadly went out
of business at the end of 2011. As well as its top-selling models such as the
96, 900 and 9000, he has included some lesser-known vehicles from the Swedish company’s
history, such as its Formula Junior racing car, the Saab-Lancia 600 and even
the SaabO caravan!
He hopes that this book
will make an informative and enjoyable read for committed Saab enthusiasts and
newcomers alike. As well as telling the story of each model, the book includes
detailed technical information, presented in a clear and consistent manner, drawing
on contemporary road test data from magazines such as (The) Autocar. It
also features 300 high-quality photographs, many of them from the Saab Car
Museum at Trollhättan and Saab’s own historic archives.
Coincidentally, as he began researching this book, he was looking for a modern classic to add to his own garage, and hit on the Saab 9-3 2.8 V6 Turbo as a quick but discreet
performance saloon. He found an example in lovely condition at a former Saab
dealer in Luxembourg in the summer of 2024; you’ll find a picture of it in the
book on page 97!
When we asked Julian if his career helped him with his writing, he said that if he looks back at his ‘corporate’ career, the short answer is that it didn’t! Although he had always been interested in cars and had written a few short features for club magazines and websites during his time in business, his transition into full-time motoring writing and translating was completely unplanned.
When he moved on from
Microsoft in 2013, he found himself with the time to work up an idea for a book he had been thinking about for a few years; Veloce took a gamble on it and
accepted his proposal. That book was France: The Essential Guide for Car
Enthusiasts, first published in 2015. Building on his personal experience attending
car events in France, it was a practical guide to 200 things for car
enthusiasts to see and do in France.
This went better than he could ever have hoped and led to him writing a succession of other books, all
published by Veloce. A combination of his own suggestions and requests from
Veloce, these have included a guide to driving in Europe, five Essential
Buyer’s Guides and the Pictorial History titles for Citroën and Saab. He has also contributed to a number of UK magazines, including Octane and Classic
& Sports Car.
Over the past decade, he has gone back to his original training as a linguist and built up a portfolio
of work as a specialist automotive translator. Most of his translation work is
from French into English, but he has also translated four books from German
into English for Veloce: two Essential Buyer’s Guides (on the Mercedes-Benz
W126 S-Class and W124) and two Restoration Manuals (How to Restore Classic
Car Interiors and How to Restore & Improve Classic Car Suspension,
Steering & Wheels).
Alongside his writing
and translation projects, Julian regularly works as an official French-language
commentator at several leading events in France, including the Tour Auto, Le
Mans Classic, Sport et Collection and the Coupe des Alpes. He has also helped
organise several motoring events, including the last edition of the Guild of
Motoring Writers’ Euro Classic in continental Europe, a Koenigsegg owners’ tour
of the Champagne region and a classic car rally in Iceland.
Although he has enjoyed many different cars over
the years, the marque to which he keeps coming back is Mercedes-Benz, and
especially its modern classics from the 1980s and 1990s. He loves the engineering
quality of these cars and Bruno Sacco’s timeless, elegant designs.
He has owned three models from this
period. The first two were an R129 SL500 and a W201 190E 2.6, and he wrote
Veloce’s Essential Buyer’s Guides for both these models. His current Mercedes,
and probably all-time favourite, is a W124 E420 from 1995. This was produced
only in left-hand drive and it combines an effortless ‘small’ V8 (i.e. ‘small
as in 4.2 litres!) with a completely understated appearance.
Although he has not personally owned these two
models (so far at least!), he also wrote Veloce’s Essential Buyer’s Guides to
the Mercedes-Benz W116 S-Class and W123. The latter was even translated into
German and published by Heel Verlag.
When asked what he is most proud of in his career, Julian answered that without a doubt, it would have to be his very first book, France: The Essential Guide for Car Enthusiasts. He says this for two reasons:-
First, nobody
else had come up with anything similar, and thanks to Veloce’s design and
editorial teams, he feel it turned out very well. It was the first title Veloce
ever released simultaneously as a printed book, eBook and mobile phone app and
was selected as ‘Book of the Month’ by Classic & Sports Car magazine
in May 2015. It went into a second edition in 2017 and was also translated into
French and published by ETAI.
Secondly, it provided him with the
springboard to develop an entirely new and unexpected career as a full-time
professional motoring writer, translator and event commentator, to the point
where he gave up his IT consultancy work in 2018.
Finally, returning to Julian's latest book on Saab, we asked him why he would recommend the book, and who
is the target reader?
He said: there are few books available which cover the
complete history of Saab’s production cars, especially in a concise format at such
an affordable price. Many commentators on the marque struggle to conceal their
disdain for Saab’s later cars, but he has tried to provide a fair and factual
treatment of all the company’s models.
Its comprehensive content and the wealth of
high-quality period photographs make Saab Cars 1949-2011: A Pictorial
History a great buy for any enthusiast with an interest in the marque. It
should appeal both to diehard Saab fans looking for a single reference work and
to newcomers intrigued by these sometimes quirky, but always interesting cars.
There are strong communities of Saab fans in both the UK and US, historically two of the marque’s most important export markets, and this book should be well received in both countries, as well as in places such as the Netherlands, where English is widely read.
You can pre-order Saab Cars 1949-2011 here. (Published 14 October 2025).
Julian at an automotive event in France, the Coupe des Alpes in Evian
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