Classic Car Reviews

Excellent book - unfortunately I didn't buy the british version right away - which comes with an extraodinary CD. So I bought the british version as well and offered the american one to a friend. LONG LIVE OLD EUROPE

Recently I bought the UK-version of this book. It is called 'Into the Red' and comes with a CD with sounds of the sportscars described in the books. I agree with all other reviewers: this CD plus book is a must-have. The pictures in the book are beautiful, the text by Mason and Hales is technically, humorously and very interesting to read. Even if you are not full into racingcars, this is still a very nice book to have in your bookcase !

It can be ordered through Amazon UK; It's called "Into The Red" and the engine sounds on the CD are awesome.

I was fishing for something to read on my business trip to Chicago when this clean cut, well dressed but completely drunken guy stood beside me in an airport mini-mart. He handed me a book he'd had in his jacket pocket and told me he wrote it and sort of walked away. (no click) I read it on the plane. I read it again three times during my trip. I believe the guy who gave me the book to be the author. He'd signed it prior with a very nice quip. I am amazed that this is the only book he's published and would buy anything I could find by him. Very clever writing. Nice character development. I am a better person for having read this book. Thak you Mr Ziegler for an incredible life story!

This is a group of stories that seem disconnected and arbitrary at first. The setting slips around and may lose you during the first twenty "snap shots" or so. These five stories pull you in and have life that is refreshing, yet sometimes very disturbing. The curiosity of what may happen next keeps one reading further. Delightfuly so. I continued and found myself laughing openly in an airport awaiting my plane. Though these lives seem to have very little cohesion at first they may (and tend to become) linear and relative to each other. The fact that the stories may be true is intresting in and of itself. I understand that this book was written by an actual car sales person and the realities he shares regarding the human nature of himself and his peers is in every way as enlightening as it is refreshing. I can say that I felt better after reading Mr Zieglers' book and look forward to anything he may offer in the future.

A remarkable tour de force of restless, piercingly intelligent energy. Takes the seemingly disparate lives of several distinct characters and not only psychically ties them together, but brings them to shimmering, unforgettable life. Powerfully reminiscent of Charles Bukowski, Richard Brautigan, and Elmore Leonard. Fine literary company, indeed.

The definitive motorsport engineer's handbook. It is an absolute must for anyone who considers themselves a professional in this industry. Buy this book through Amazon, or if you want a signed copy, try doing a google search on Carroll Smith to find other useful Carroll Smith links. He is one smart man!

Engineering is the crux of it all, no question about it. I bought Carroll's whole set of books begrudgingly, but they helped me improve my game BIG TIME. I am much more able to discuss with my engineer now. My mechanic gave me his copy (it was obviously used once or twice!) and ordered me to get a copy of my own. The pole positions that came quickly after it proved this book's worth.

This one is a little technical, but if you can get through it with a dictionary at your side and really understand what's being said, you'll find yourself a happy person.

This book is packed with all the nerd one could ever use.
I would rate this book very high for someone looking to increase their techinical knowledge of racing. It covers different types of materials and their ability to hold up during a race. Very good book.

Jeremy

This book can look a little daunting as you flick through the pages, however, once you begin to read it, you realise just how good it is! Starting with a basic metallurgy and physics course that most school text books should look to copy, Mr. Smith keeps interest in what could be a somewhat tedious subject using witty comments and practical observations. He then leads us through steel making, alloy processes and finally on to the application of all of the above in the racing car. A brilliant book from start to finish. The only criticism that I would make is that it needs an update to include more on composite techniques and finite element analysis.

This book is a must-have for the drag racing historian or any car nut that missed out on the golden era of drag racing the 'family' car. Numerous photos depicting how the cars were set up and raced. A fun flashback!

What a book! Thank you Mr.Davis for taking the enormous amount of time to compile all this info in one place. With the wealth of unseen (by me) photos this book makes me feel like I was there even though I was too young in the 1960's to experience these cars live. The book is a great reference guide for me as I am now in the process of building a nostalgia super stocker of my own.

This is an excellent book for anyone who likes drag racing, street racing, etc. It is about the evolution of drag racing in the 60's. This book has great pictures and commentary by the author, who has really done his research. I recomend this book to everybody who has ever had a 60's-70's muscle car.

Liked the book so much, I bought it as a gift for a "car guy" at work. He loved it too, sparking internet auction purchases... Great title, the author's enthusiasm for these great collectibles is readily apparent.

Oh, wow!. Just incredible! Page after page of dazzling chrome car ornaments and Ken Steacy has 'em all. His collection has the best an exuberant Detroit could offer through the mid thirties to the late fifties.

Page 27 shows the famous pin-up artist George Petty working on a 1949 Nash ornament, possibly the only one in the world that had the artists name stamped on it, page 41 has a 1935 Hupmobile hood rocket ship straight out of a Buck Rogers comic and pages 64-65 with four futuristic rocket designs for a fifties Oldsmobile.

Not only hood ornaments but horn buttons, emblems and my favourite section 'Scripts' with its Ultramatic, Futuramic, Dynaflow and Super DeLuxe, in bright chrome cursive-bold-italic typography.

All of the images just jump of the page thanks to the lovely photos taken by Rob d'Estrube and the layouts by Ken Steacy. I doubt there is a better book of Detroit's brightwork.

Brightwork is the best and definitive reference on American brightwork. The photography is a joy to behold, and the spare but elegant layout focusses your attention on the pieces.

Most of the pieces are beautifully restored, and all are lovingly mounted. The few in the rough pieces look like they could tell a story.

This was my favorite book when I was a little kid. It is fun to read because on every page there is this little yellow creature that you can find on every page if you look for it. There is an Officer Flossy who rides a bike and chases a terrible driver in a sports car throughout the book while the Pig family goes on a picnic. The pictures are very interesting and neat to look at.

This book is so much more than a vocabulary builder! There are dozens of modes of transportation (from motor-scrapers to locomotives to doughnut cars), real and imagined, represented in the humorous illustrations. The settings take children through various seasons and parts of a community (a farm, a Main street, a campground, a beach, etc.). The questions from your child will be endless...How is a road made? What are the firefighters doing? Has Officer Flossy found Dingo Dog yet, so she can give him a ticket? And where, oh where is that Goldbug hiding? Inside the limousine? Behind the ambulance? Inside the broken-down car that is being towed by a small tow truck, which is being towed by a larger tow truck? This is so much more than just an entertaining story to be read, but an opportunity to ask and answer questions together, to find something new each time you read together, and to explore an imagined version of the world around us. My 3 1/2 year old son has loved this book for two years and hasn't stopped requesting it, even though we own many many quality books. Okay, maybe it helps that he is obsessed with cars, trucks, and things that go to begin with. Well done, Richard Scarry!

This was my favorite book 25 years ago and now im buying it for my unborn, or for myself i cant tell. This book encourages imaginationand thinking skills.

Michael Schnayerson's chronicle of the building of this car is more important in pre-war 2003 than ever before. The designers, engineers and builders are real heros,producing real solutions when we need them most. Their story should be told everywhere.
I've driven the EV1 for the past five years and I'm here to say that it worked. Michael, if you're out there, consider writing the sequel. The story continues with global consequences...

...Reading this book is all
the more interesting whe you realize how well the Gen II EV1
with improved batteries works. An impressive work by GM and Michael Schnayerson in covering it so well.

Unfortunately, the initial Delco/Delphi batteries in the first generation EV1 underdelivered and weren't very reliable.

The Gen II EV1 changed all that once they got decent batteries. The new High-capacity lead-acid battery pack is 55 to 95 miles per charge by GM specification. Some drivers achieve over 100 miles on these daramatically improved lead acid batteries. ...

Thanks for your time!
m.t.thompson@ieee.org

This book was one of the best informational books I've ever read. Usually, I'm interested in novels with tons of action, however, I had to do a thesis for school, which ended up being on New Methods of Non-Pollutant Transportation. I assumed that this book, like most informational books would be extremely boring. However, having read it, it seems so much like a novel, with a plot, protagonists, antagonists, etc. It's very much like a novel. I've never read anything like this before, and I would recommend it to anyone who wants to read a great success story.

A great book,cars from all round the world, not just european snob cars. We need a follow up please, there are many more classic Australian and american cars that could be written about, and some more european of course.

It seems Quentin Willson has made the ideal coffee table book. The Ultimate Classic Car Book groups together all shapes and sizes of classic cars from DeLoreans to Datsuns and Vegas to Volkswagens, and all with original and beautiful photographs wrapped in concise and precise text equavalent to about a page of novel. Willson does a very consistent job of presenting each car with basic facts and statistics along side special traits or other interesting items that make each car unique. One example of an interesting fact is the mention of the "Autronic Eye" available as an option on the 1959 cadillac convertible that would dim the headlights when an oncoming car approached. Willson also gives us insight into the cars by adding his own commentary. Examples of this can be found in his reference to the "Autronic Eye" as a mere marketing gimmick that never took off and his accusal that the stainless steel of the delorean was a "cynical marketing ploy." Even if you aren't interested in reading about the many classic cars of the world, this book is worth a purchase just for the full color meticulously crafted photographs and trivia. I would recommend The Ultimate Classic Car book to anyone interested in learning about automobiles of the past

What diferentiate this book from the others are the photos. We can see that all of them were taken exclusively to this book. For all the cars there are front/side/rear view photos. For some of them there are also top-views, that is hard to find in other sources.

The text is consice, yet informative, and includes summarised technical specifications.

This book is very educational about the topic, but it mentions the same supplier of materials an average of twice per page. I learned quite a bit from it and will continue to use it as a valuable reference, but expect to read about aerosol products and specialty tools from the same company throughout the book. The author doesn't stick with the most authentic of repairs and restorations, but he does do a good job of showing the authentic level of repairs as well as the not so authentic. Overall, worth the money but a tad annoying.

After being frustrated with countless titles on auto restoration, this book is a God send. It covers everything in concise detail and includes large Color photographs. No other books Ive seen comes anywhere close to the quality of this one. The information in here is priceless. The author has obviously restored many cars and researched many techniques.

I've got a 53 Studebaker to restore, so I checked out all the books available at the library on car restoration. This one was by far the best. In fact I liked it so much, I'm buying my own copy. It told me everything I wanted to know and more. For example, the chapter on removing rust explains and illustrates several ways to go about it, then makes recommendations complete with which is the best for the environment.

If you are thinking of building a "Locost" replica of the Lotus Seven according to Ron Champion's Build Your Own Sports Car for as Little as £250 and Race It!, you would be well advised to consult this book to see how Champion's design could be improved. As reviewer Ian Carter can probably attest, a chassis built straight from Champion's book will not pass the Australian government's mandatory test of torsional rigidity. A Web search for "Locost" will yield thousands of hits from which you can eventually dig out some minor improvements to the Locost chassis that will allegedly double its stiffness. But if the principles so clearly presented by Costin and Phipps were applied in a complete redesign, the chassis stiffness could probably be doubled again due to improved triangulation and the use of round rather than square tubing. (Sure, square tubing is easier to weld but structurally it's equivalent to round tubing that has already collapsed on four sides!)

There is yet to be a book written, that describes the why's and how's of designing a light-weight, high-performance sports car chassis in a more informative, yet pleasantly readable style than "Racing and Sports Car Chassis Design". There are other, more contemporary titles on this topic, and having read many of them, I have a strong impression that their authors were much influenced by this book; perhaps having studied it in their college and university years. That would not be surprising, for it is forty years since the author, Michael Costin, then Development Director of Lotus Cars Ltd., with technical writer David Phipps and automotive artist, James A. Allington completed what was to be acclaimed by the industry, and motoring enthusiasts, as the Chassis Designers' Bible.

Costin was also a chief chassis designer at Lotus Engineering, one-time home of many of the most creative and innovative thinkers in the history of motor-sports. He later became the Cos' of Cosworth fame. Quite a motor-sports pedigree!

The theory and basic principles of chassis design, including methods for chassis stress calculation, plotting suspension geometry, and selecting materials for a winning space-frame chassis are all comprehensively covered. The text is classically crafted, making this a reference book for the 'coffee table' reader too. It is complemented with excellent illustrations and (now historical) photographs, and the reader will enjoy a revealing treatise from a fascinating period in motor-sports development. Reference to the appendices explaining the essential mathematical calculations, tables of materials specifications and the glossary will assist understanding of the engineering principles, and will be invaluable to the novice chassis designer. This is the material that contemporary writers have often, unfortunately, left out.

The sections on suspension, while now dated, examine the conflicting forces that influence road-holding and vehicle dynamics, and assess the advantages and disadvantages of the various suspension types then in use. The technology may have developed, but the principles that applied then still apply today, and would be readily recognized by todays engineering student.

If you are a motorsports enthusiast, and particularly one interested in building your own racing or sports car, then this book, though now out of print, is well worth the search. Of course, if you are planning to build a monocoque, or a composite-bodied racer, then you'll have to supplement this book with more recent titles.

As a current Lotus-Seven-inspired-sportscar builder, I value and constantly refer to my copy, and strongly recommend it to like-minded enthusiasts.

Put it in your shopping cart now,...your copy is out there.

Mike Costin was chassis designer at Lotus, and also co-founded Cosworth.

This book shows, in brief and clear style, how to design a fully triangulated space-frame type chassis that will carry loads as efficiently as possible,and how to design a suspension to give both good ride and good roadholding.

If you wish to design a modern day car using a tubular space frame, this book is absolutely essential. It will be very helpful as well to those wanting to design ultralight mileage record or solar cars. Even designers of monocoque chassis will find excellent ideas as to where their load paths should be going, and how their suspension movement should be controlled.

Don't be put off by the fact that the book is almost 40 years old. If you plan to build a space frame, find a copy.