There are scant few books that are universally recognized as the timeless bibles in their respective fields: Adlard Coles’s Heavy Weather Sailing; Jack O’Connor’s The Rifle Book; Julia Child’s The Art of French Cooking, Olaus Murie’s A Field Guide to Animal Tracks, to name a few.
Tom Sheppard’s Vehicle-dependent Expedition Guide belongs firmly in that category.
I feel free to say this even though I have been its co-author since 2016, because the VDEG’s reputation was established long before my contributions—in 1998, when Tom Sheppard published the first, hardbound edition in conjunction with Land Rover.
I’d been devouring Tom’s articles on his Sahara explorations for several years by then, and when I read about the just-released book I drove 120 miles to Scottsdale, Arizona, to the Range Rover dealership there—the only outlet in the state—and stood in line at the counter behind a woman who had just bought a Range Rover and was agonizing over the choice of some rhino or leopard-themed accessory. I took my copy home and read it cover to cover.
Soon thereafter, Tom took over the publishing, after which the contents no longer leaned nearly exclusively toward Land Rovers and the relevance of the book expanded hugely.
In 2010, after corresponding with Tom through my position as editor of Overland Journal, Roseann and I met him at his home north of London. In sharp contrast to the brash personality one would expect of an ex-RAF test pilot and RGS Ness Award recipient, we found a charming, self-deprecating man who loved sitting in his upstairs office watching sheep graze in the field below as much as he did exploring Algeria solo and completely off-tracks. We became friends, and in 2015 I was gobsmacked to be asked to share to cover of VDEG.
We maintain a regular, lively correspondence which continues to inspire me to want to be Tom Sheppard when I grow up. He recently sent photos of the new driving lamps he’d just installed on his BMW motorcycle, the better to be able to blast around the back roads near Hitchin.
Tom’s next birthday, by the way, will be his 90th.
To the book: If you have a copy, you are already familiar with the stupendous depth of its information, spread over 620 pages—four-plus pounds worth. Unlike many of the bibles listed above, VDEG receives continual updates with each printing, even if minor. Thus information on vehicles, drivetrains, international shipping, communications, and navigation are always up to the minute in accuracy and relevance. Whether you’re planning a week-long exploration of your own state, or have been tasked with leading a multi-vehicle scientific expedition across the Sahara, the Vehicle-dependent Expedition Guide contains the knowledge you need.
If you don’t own a copy, you should. If you already do, and it’s a post-2016 (Edition 4) version with the new guy on the cover, you’ll find mostly updates to existing information. The big change since then came with Edition 5, which transitioned to sharp, all-digital printing and a larger, easier-to-read (and heavier!) format. It’s a worthy upgrade. The print runs, however, are small—we have just 90 copies and no word whether there will be further ones. I should have said 89 copies, because I’m saving one for myself . . .
