The Old Car Manual Project
Verified working Aug 19, 2026
An archive of vintage vehicle manuals, brochures, ads, and specs.
The Old Car Manual Project collects digitized automotive documents for older cars, trucks, engines, and related components. Its holdings include service manuals, carburetor and chassis references, model specifications, brochures, press photos, and period advertising, presented for historical and educational use.
Why it stands out
- Focuses on hard-to-find older automotive literature rather than modern owner manuals.
- Covers more than passenger cars, including trucks, engines, carburetors, steering systems, and transmissions.
- Connects to a large companion brochure archive with over 120,000 pages of vehicle literature.
- Maintained as a long-running preservation project, with an archive of previous site versions and contribution pathways.
Good to know
- Coverage depends on what has been collected and contributed, so it should not be treated as a complete factory-library replacement.
- Some materials may still be copyrighted; the site explicitly asks users not to copy items without checking permission.
- Documents are provided for historical and educational research, not as official manufacturer guidance or endorsement.
- Older scanned documents may require manual browsing through the site index rather than a modern database-style search workflow.
Under the radar: If the home page list does not show the vehicle you need, use the Site Index and the linked Old Car Brochures archive separately; they surface different parts of the collection.
Photos
Classic-car restorers and automotive historians can look up period manuals and factory literature for older vehicles and components. Research the specifications or service details of a vintage make, model, engine, carburetor, or transmission. Compare original brochures and ads to understand how vehicles were marketed in their era. Find obscure documents such as steering-wheel introductions, governor manuals, or Canadian-market brochures. Use the site index and linked brochure archive when a document is not visible on the home page.
Digitized manuals and reference books; vintage car and truck brochures via the linked Old Car Brochures collection; period advertisements and press photos; site index, home page archive, and contribution information; material focused on historical research rather than current commercial repair support.
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0 votesVisit siteA browsable archive of scanned factory literature for classic cars.
AutomotiveThe Old Car Manual Project Brochure Collection preserves scanned automotive brochures and related vintage literature for historical research. The collection is organized by country and recent update month, with sections for the United States, Canada, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, and other regions.
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Similar sites elsewhere
- Old Car Brochures — oldcarbrochures.org
- ManualsLib — manualslib.com
- TheSamba Technical Archives — thesamba.com/vw/archives/manuals
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