General Automotive Reviews

Best reference for identifying cars from the years 1940-1980. Shows grills, fronts, back and sample photos of cars. All American makes from Willys to Chevys!

As one of the authors, I know the book well, and am not so much reviewing as sharing how it has been made. Brother Jim, a freelance mechanic in Austin, TX for a quarter century and more, and I published an early version ourselves in 1992, and it is the first guide to the real spoken slang of car, truck, and motorcycle slang--not complete, but stimulating and authentic. It is finally widely available, and its word-list is a key-word guide to the car culture. Lewis J. Poteet

This s a good book for children because it gives infomaton on different vehicles that interests little kids.

Way back when, after the war when these prototypes were being built, I as a young lad was working on many of these prototypes. I admired them and reading this book has helped relive many of the memories.

This is a great book. The book is mostly a photo book with some info with history and/or specs about the car. The pictures are vibrant, clear, quality pictures. A "must have" for the exotic car fan.

This book talks about urban planning, transportation planning, traffic issues, transportation issues, etc; without all of the technical terminologies urban planners use. To learn more about sustainable transportation and livable cities, this book is the best.

The Illustrated Buyers' Guide to CASE Tractors has many good, vintage photos of CASE tractors in the field which show period implements, as well. The author includes serial number information, production numbers and details model changes. There is Nebraska Tractor Test data, along with model specification tables that are difficult to find in one volume. Overall; a MUST for the CASE collector!

This book tells what every number on the corvettes mean. It's a sure way to save yourself from getting ripped off.

This is a 'must have' reference for Mustang collectors or restorers. Well organized by year, but does not have photos of all models. Excellent section on exterior colors and interiors with color chip and interior sample charts.

I liked the stories of the people in the development teams the best, because they really brought history to life. These stories of the frustrations and successes of the technical teams trying to reach the goals of the crashless (synchomesh) manual and then the automatic hydraulic transmission gave a very human side to history.

It was interesting how often a particular technology would be researched and developed, only to be shelved for a couple of decades until another team, costing, or other system constraints caught up. For example, the use by Studebaker and Packard of the lock-up torque converter exemplified how many ways or times something was tried before it became a routine industry standard. The chapter on emerging technologies (circa 1990), such as the steel belt continuously variable transmission (CVT), was surprisingly accurately predictive.

I enjoyed examining the supporting pictures, drawings, and the appendix of power flow schematics for most of the automatics to 1990. I found the schematics clever in their simplicity to be understood.

It would have helped to have had a reference timeline chart to refer to as an aid to help keep straight what happened when as the book is read. Also, it would be nice to see a second addition to catch up on the last decade or so. Changing Gears does not cover the use of the Lepelletier epicyclic gear train, now being applied to most 6-speed automatics. Unfortunately for me, I bought the book to find out about Pierre Lepelletier and his gear train. However, the discovery of this long history compiled in one book made up for it.

This book is pretty easy reading for one on technical history, but it is sometimes difficult to envisage the mechanisms and their movements from a description in text. The bottom line: If you're interested in technical history, then I would strongly recommend this book.