History and info

The history of the Cars Collection

Here is the background story of Cars Collection for those of you who don't know that title from before and how it started. Cars Collection was a car book series produced by James' father, Bengt Ason Holm, in the eighties. You subscribed to the Cars Collection. The Cars Collection was released in a total of 36 editions, so every month for three years . It included a black dictionary part and a silver book with articles and pictures about rare and classic cars. Bengt wrote, took many of the pictures and also did the layout of each issue. This was before the layout was done on a computer as it is today. It was done by hand in a repro room. So James didn't see much of his father during this period. But Bengt took James on some of the trips he made to the famous car factories Bengt visited to make articles for the Cars Collection. James accompanied Bengt to both England and Italy, Aston Martin and Morgan in England, and Ferrari and Lamborghini In Italy. At this time, James was admittedly more interested in skateboarding than cars being built in the factories they visited. But one event James will always remember was the time they visited Lamborghini in 1990 and the very last of the first generation Countach was built. It is the silver colored one that is now in the factory's museum.

The story of James Holm

James Holm and has worked as a photographer since the mid-90s. His photography has always been influenced by his interests in life. It started with skateboarding, which then transitioned to snowboarding. A constant search for the endless winter with hundreds of travel days in winter landscapes. Photographing cars was close at hand for James because his father, Bengt, had been doing it for a long time due to his great interest in cars and later work with the Cars Collection in the eighties. But James' interest in photographing cars didn't start until his friend Martin Westerstrand and frontman of the rock group LOK and now

After a number of years as a car photographer, something happened that changed everything for James. When he saw how his motoring journalist colleagues started taking pictures for their articles, he thought, -okay then I'll start writing articles for my pictures. This was in 2008 and since then there have been over 250 car articles published in everything from car magazines, lifestyle magazines, weekend supplements and finally a lifestyle website.

In the summer of 2022, James was involved in a serious motorcycle accident that was about to cost him his life. James spent 2 months in hospital which gave him time to think. Many of the newspapers he worked with had either disappeared, changed or decreased in publication rate. Some remain, however, the airport magazines Voyage and Gate Report to name a few. The site was shut down. So during his time in the hospital, James had time to think about what to do with all the things he had done that were mostly published in newspapers. To publish material on JamesHolm.com didn't feel right because it's his site for him as a photographer and it would feel wrong to publish car articles there. But one day it came like a bolt from the blue, James of course starts up the Cars Collection!

Photo: Nils Simonsson

So when James came up with the idea of reviving the Cars Collection but in digital form and with his own material, it really felt right. Bengt unfortunately passed away from cancer in 2020, but he would probably have been proud of what James did with what he created. James still has all the material that Bengt made for the Cars Collection, albeit in analogue format. But of course James will do something about it in the future. Later, James will also add a news section so you can read about car news that he receives news emails about from the car manufacturers. But first it will be everything James has done since 2008 when he started publishing car tests and test drives. A total of 250 articles that James has produced are now here.

Information about how I work

I may have a bit of hubris when I write the following. But.. I consider myself quite unique with what I do and how I do it. Because I think I'm quite alone in being a writing car photographer who maintains the technical level that I do and that I can actually drive a car and my legacy from my father.

The driving pictures that you can see in many of my articles, including the article about when I test drive Formula 1 and the latest article on Toyota Yaris Cross Hybrid from Lisbon. Those pictures are so-called "rig pictures". That is, pictures where there is a tripod mounted on the car which is then edited out so that it looks like the camera is floating in front of the car. So I take the picture myself as a so-called selfie. The technology is quite advanced and then add that many of the rig photos I take are taken in two steps. A picture of the car at speed and then a picture with a flash inside the car that illuminates me behind the wheel. I'm usually completely alone when I do my test runs and photo shoots, so I take the so-called rig pictures all by myself without help.

Then add that I can actually drive. I have a tattoo of the Nürburgring and it's not because I think it's an incredibly fun and cool track. Admittedly it is but I have driven more than 500 laps there and have attended the famous and respected Scuderia Hanseat course twice. The first time with a Mercedes AMG SL65 Biack Series and the second time an Audi R8 GT Spyder. You can read the tests about the cars here. Mercedes AMG SL65 Biack, Audi R8 GT Spyder. And that I have actually test driven a real, but retired, Formula 1 car on the track twice. So I can drive relatively fast and above all safely with control on most racing tracks.

Add to that the legacy my father left behind, how it started and how I got to be with him at the Ferrari, Lamborghini, Aston Martin and Morgon factories when I was a kid. I still have a lot of his material and especially the stories he told that I will write about here. The picture below of my father just outside the Ferrari factory was taken on a trip I took with him in 1988. The picture of me was taken by my friend Mika Laurino in October 2024 when I was there myself. 26 years between the pictures.

So add up the above four things and that I sit on all of them. Without having too much hubris, I think I'm quite unique in doing so. So I hope you take this with you when you read my articles here on CarsCollection.se and that I make them myself. I don't have a team behind me that other editorial offices have.

Welcome!