They were classic images loved by generations of children – but who did illustrate the classic Ladybird books? Alison Jones visits a new exhibition.

The exhibition being staged at the Heritage Motor Centre at Gaydon comes complete with a mystery one of its organisers hopes the public will be able to help them solve.

The Ladybird Big Book of Motor Cars, which runs from September 17 to January 15, 2012, is a collection of more than 120 Ladybird books and more than 30 original artwork illustrations, all with a motoring theme.

The question mark hangs over the identity of the artists responsible for the pictures.

“If they go along to the exhibition, or if anyone does recognise who did them, please let the museum know,” says Ronnie Fairweather, creative director, brands and licensing at Penguin Books, which Ladybird is now part of.

“I would truly love to know who did these. We have hunted high and low and followed every lead but drawn a complete blank.

“We know who wrote the books. His pen name was David Carey but his real name was E C Borst-Smith and he was the Rover car company’s assistant publicity manager during the 50s.

“He wrote the books and got all the technical information for them but he didn’t do the illustrations.”

The idea for the exhibition came when Ronnie was being interviewed by James May for one of his programmes on favourite toys and they were studying some archive materials.

“We found a Rover car catalogue. It had no photography but the illustrations in it were so similar to many of the illustrations in the Ladybird books we felt there must be a connection between the people who did them.

“Steve Bagley at the Motor Museum in Coventry picked up on this and the whole possibility of the exhibition kicked off.

“We thought ‘let’s find out who did all of these illustrations’. We found the man who did the cross-sections of cars and the more technical images, who was Gerald Witcomb, but not anybody else. It has really been quite frustrating.”

“They were probably specialist commercial artists working for studios in the Midlands at the time who wouldn’t necessarily want or expect to be credited.

“E C Borst-Smith, in his position in the marketing department, would have access to all these people and would just get them to do it and he’d stick them in the book.”

The pocket-sized, hard-backed Ladybird books were first produced in the 1940s and became hugely popular in the 1960s

Its Key Words Reading Scheme (also known as the Peter and Jane books) was introduced in 1964. More than 40 years later, the scheme is still in print and has sold more than 90 million copies.

The Learnabout books helped children to develop new interests, and focused on factual things. How it Works: The Motor Car (published in 1965) was used by Thames Valley police driving school as a general guide.