oldsE-books are good for more than just reading. Turns out they can be great for research, too. One antique auto enthusiast used the wide variety of period books and magazines available on Google Books to help him add some period décor to the 1906 Oldsmobile Model B Runabout he was scratch-building.

When Bob started building his car, he started off with a set of plans he obtained from another replica car-builder, but he also wanted to add as many original qualities to the car as possible that were not in the plans, such as a steamer trunk extension and fringed ‘Surrey Top’. He had heard of ebooks, so he went over to Google Books and discovered many old books and magazines about the earliest automobiles from the early 1900s. He loaded them up onto his iPad using his Google Books app and got to work.

Bob says the Surrey Top was especially difficult to design, but that the vast number of digital books were a great resource, with drawings and texts describing various car tops and the pros and cons of each.

I’ll bet a lot of hobbyists are already using Google Books to research their projects—and the more stories like this come out, the more will start to realize just how useful a resource it can be.

(Found via Gizmodo.)

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