David Ward is a Detourist with a difference. Where others might opt for a rugged overlander or comfortable Grand Tourer for their road trip adventures, Ward favours the tiny Smart car.

From tortuous mountain passes to empty desert highways, from curvaceous coast roads to scenic country drives, Detour 101 invites you to take the longer way on the world’s best road trips.

Regular Detourist Simon Heptinstall has written a new book of bizarre motoring facts and stories.

Of the many road trip reads that led me to a career in car journalism and my own automotive adventures, here are five favourites.

Filmmaker Lee Shulman documents life on the roads of America and Europe from the 1940s to the 1970s in this beautifully curated book of colour slides.