General Automotive Reviews

i ordered the book on September 6th 2003 and recieved the book normal frieght within the next week. I'd definately buy form this seller again. The book was allmost like new, there were a few minor things wrong with it but it was used so nothing you wouldnt expect.

I've been a professional aircraft/automotive mechanic for 17 years. I use this book extensively, it has great review material along with alot of updated information on the latest technology in all areas. I used it to re-certify for my ASE ratings. This book will help novice and experienced techs alot.

This is one of the best automotive teaching books I have seen. It is up to date with the latest technology and the worksheet material gives a great hands on for learning every system in detail.

Great coverage of TV's Batmobile and the Munter's cars. Authors also remind you about cars you didn't know Barris did: The Beverly Hillbillies truck, the Flintstones (film of course) cars, updates of the Knight Rider Firebird, the Jurassic Park Explorers, and the infamous sitcom "My Mother the Car" (the butt of many Johnny Carson jokes). But also taking up space are forgotten cars from forgotton projects...the Bugaloos dune buggy and a TV special "Romp". Cars I would have liked to have seen but didn't make the cut include the Monkee Mobile, the Green Hornet's "Black Beauty" and the Stutz replicas made for the TV adventure series "Bearcats!". Overall a good book, but I have a hunch that only the surface of Barris' career has been scratched. How about a large format book with lots of color and details on the surviving movie cars and "Kustoms" that made Barris the legend he is?

I had the opertunity to meet george barris at the Houston Autorama. He not only took time to autograph his book but to visit about custom cars. We visited for quite some time and he went to look at my custom car. I was impressed by his down to earth genuine interest in my projects. Movie cars built by Pegasus Motorcars he liked my designs and the wild wing on the back was his favorite. Thank you George Barris you are my Hero. Charlie Van Natter. .

DAVID FETHERSTON DID A VERY GOOD JOB ON THIS BOOK. EXTRACTING INFORMATION FROM KING GEORGE IS NO EASY TASK.

This is a good book. Its just that it's geared toward the person that has thousands of dollars in tools and equipment,a mega shop, and twenty years of experiance. For the average streetrodder who is working out of a 24X24 shop,it will be about two foot over there head. It's a good referance book, but shows very little for the budjet builder. Shows Chevy & Ford V8 installs, any other engine, your out of luck.

Book is logical and provides pro/con review for different engineering/issues. Knowledge is power - this book is well written. Glad I'm not in competiion with Boyd.

I found this book to be a very good practical guide to building a frame from scratch. The pictures were well thought out with good timing. The text supplimented the photos to give a good feel for frame building do and dont's. When I had a question I sent it to their web page and got a phone call with the answer a day later. These folks know thier stuff and they love it!

Ms. McCluggage has a wonderful writing style. Combined with her first-hand experience with the "golden era" of American sports car racing, this book is a great read for enthusiasts. There's good reading for the non-enthusiasts as well, as most of her writing deals with the various characters of the era. Many of my personal racing heroes are chronicled in the personal detail that only one of "them" could manage. This book is very entertaining even for those who regularly read her column in Autoweek, as her writing stands up to repeated readings and the book spans several years of columns. I hihgly recommend the book for those even remotely interested in the subject

I love wallowing around in the past. Um, excuse me, I should say meandering through recent history, made all the more fascinating when you can remember it!

If you were a teenager in the years 1948 to 1960 or so, you may well recall the first invasion of those funny little foreign sports cars, brought over here from Europe. They all only came from Europe then, and folks really did call them that, 'funny little foreign sports cars'--or 'sporty cars'. It made no difference really to the masses, anything that wasn't made in this country got lumbered with that designation. If you were at all interested in cars during those years, then you would love this book. In the late 50s--early 60s, when I first started driving, I didn't want to be LIKE Denise McCluggage. No, I wanted to BE Denise McCluggage. Obviously, that couldn't work. This book is almost the next best thing.

She could have been the prototype for the Wonder Woman of the comics and TV, except the comic book version is older than she is, I suspect. It seems there was nothing she couldn't be--or do. A gifted descriptive writer, Ms. McCluggage was also a top-notch race car driver and skier, and could probably have held her own in today's WNBA, as well.

To know why the reality of this book is so special, one has only to read the quote on page 177. Already a ranked driver in 1958, she was was refused entry at Le Mans. "The head of the organizing committee had told Luigi (Chinetti): 'This is an invitational race, and we do not choose to invite women.'" We have indeed come a long way, baby, in the intervening 43 years! (The title of this review is quoted from the book, as well.)

She also had the great talent of being in the right place at usually the right time. She got that story, or that ride, and proceeded to make it her own. Celebrities became her friends long before they became celebrities to the rest of the world. Some few of them were gone from us before we even knew them very well, but she allows them to live on in the pages of this book, drawn from her columns in Autoweek Magazine.

Competition Press was the Bible of the racing world in the 60s--mid 70s, and that was her creation, too. It was required reading for anyone caught up in the whirl of motor racing, as I was, then. I was in good company, though. And you will be, too, if you remember the names of Fangio, and Moss, and Hill, and Briggs and Shelby and Ginther, and the list goes on and on and on. Some of the ones we didn't have time to know as well are treated just as fondly: Peter Collins, Mike Hawthorne, Jo Bonnier, Taffy von Trips, Jean Behra, the Rodriguez brothers, and on and on.

But it wasn't only drivers who became her friends and/or companions. No, there was Steve McQueen (before he became the film star we know him as) and Miles Davis, Dave Brubeck, Cal Tjader (before they became the jazz greats we know them as). And we mustn't forget the tracks with those magical names that will live forever in her words: Mille Miglia, Targa Florio, Nurburgring, Le Mans, Goodwood, Sebring, Monza, and the Speed Weeks at Nassau and Daytona Beach.

And the cars. Oh, my! The marques that live no longer: No one, and I do mean no one, wanted a Mini-Moke more than I did. My heart nearly broke for the wanting of it. The closest I could ever get to it was an MG1100. Not the same thing. I did once have a very -much-driven BMW, though, and even a Formula Vee. But who wouldn't ache for an original Maserati or Delahaye, a Gordini or Stanguellini, Vanwall or OSCA.

If this book were to be scored on a numerical basis of 1 to 100, say, with 100 being the ultimate accolade, then this one would definitely be 99 and 44/100% perfect! An index would have given it that extra little something. But yet, reading these short (mostly four pages worth at a time) reprinted columns is perhaps enhanced by never quite knowing which name will pop off the next page as you carefully turn that corner, er, page, to the next episode.

My favorite? Actually, there two. 'Driving through France (page 123) and 'Ring around the 'Ring' (131). For different reasons. I always wanted to see the 'old' Ring, where my Dad used to walk over, some 50 km from his home village for the big races, and instilled that love in me, as well, and the other? Read it for yourself, and you'll know why.

Oh, marvelous, indeed. Now that I'm older and hopefully wiser, I realize that there could only ever have been one Denise McCluggage, and it wasn't my turn! Darn.

McCluggage offers a driver by driver account of the glorious fifties and sixties. Only Denis Jenkinson shares her enthusiasm and ability to convey the experience, however, Denise was a real racer - she's less awestruck than Jenks! McCluggage is like poetry for the racing fanatic - more books Denise please!

A fascinating account of the ingenuity and skill of Cuban car buffs. Old American cars are kept running without the benefit of spare parts availability. It made me realize how wasteful we are in America - the Cubans would love to have access to the cars we sent to our junkyards decades ago! We go into debt to have the latest vehicle, when the one we just got rid of could have lasted a lifetime if only we had appreciated what we had and had given it the level of tender loving care that the Cubans do. The book has some very interesting stories on the Cuban car culture and how some individual 50's era American cars were kept running, and has great photos. My only complaint is that I want to know more! I want the author and photographer to go back to Cuba and take a good U.S. mechanic and a mechanical engineer with them. Then, take a lot more photos of the cars but don't limit us to the exterior. I want to see dashboards, engines, underbody, spare parts, everything! I want to see the machinery and tools inside their shops. I want to know, in full depth, all the details on how they adapt Russian parts to these cars. I want all the intimate technical details from beginning to end on a particular car. So much for the proposed sequel - Cars of Cuba gave me an evening of great pleasure as I read about and looked at pictures of Cuba's living car museum.

This book is fabulous and every admirer of American cars of that era should have it. Not only does it give you beautiful glossy pictures of a variety of old American cars in Cuba, but it places them in beautiful (and sometimes not so beautiful) Cuban settings. There is some insight into the place that these cars have in Cuban society to this day; they are actually regarded as a member of the family, not merely as transportation. I recently spent some time in Cuba and rode around in a '58 Rambler, a '53 Chevy, and a '48 Pontiac! Not that it was always a pleasant experience (the Rambler reeked of exhaust fumes; I tore my jeans climbing out of the Chevy; and the Pontiac, with a diesel truck engine, was noisier than Kennedy Airport at rush hour), but it is amazing how they manage to keep those old cars running seemingly against all odds. This book is a tribute not just to the cars themselves, but to "the most brilliant mechanics on the face of this blue-green planet," as Garcia calls them. How ironic it is that, after four decades of Soviet/Russian influence, the prerevolutionary American cars are so prized and the newer Ladas are widely scorned.

A copy of "Cars of Cuba" should be given for every owner of a trailer queen automobile and all the over-restoration adepts... For real vintage car lovers it's great to see that the old Chevys, Fords, Packards, Studes and even Hudsons are still used as daily drivers by careful owners, near 50 years after the production (the paint appearance doesn't matter). Cristina Garcia and Joshua Greene, we wait anxiously for "Cars of Cuba - tome II".

i've used haynes almost exclusively starting with my dodge dakota, then subaru, honda accord, and i'll buy and use another for my dodge ramcharger. better for the home mechanic with no training - these books actually follow the service manuals for the vehicle. chiltons might do for the semi-trained mechanic, but i find hard to follow. no book will be perfect - this helps a half way smart home mechanic the best.

this book has helped me repair my S-10 on many a saturday.thanks guys.would like to see more on vacum lines need help there. i have three lines in back of model 220 tbi,cannot find one line .can you help.one to map ok.one to front of tbi.third ? 4.3,v-6 s-10 truck vin z. can you help?

Haynes repair manual help me DIY my S-10 in FAR EAST-Taiwan

It was a great book for all car lover

Needed to get more chevy nolige on witch nose or rear back light extr extr with a certain type of building year. This is the book. Give's al kinds of just would like to know info. Engine,weigth,selling price,changes compaired to other types or years. they are al in it. LOVE IT! hhoeray for ted burness

A very, very good book for any Ford fans. You can distinguish between different years and models of Ford cars even though the differences may only be a subtle change in the grill. Filled with hundreds of pictures from Ford ads and others. It gives some varied specifications but this is not the strong point of this book. Its strong point is to have a quick reference book to help distinguish what year Ford you happen to be looking at and for this it is great!

I was on my way home from school, and as I was accelerating, I felt the front-end shutter, and when the shuttering had ended the car would not budge. The mechanic said that I would need another transition in the car. It would cost me $2,300 to fix the problem. I had no choice but pay the man. I found out later that this was a common thing for the 92' mercury sable. If you have any information about a recall on this please let me know... Thanks

When i am running on the highway around 140 k/h and a big freight truck cross close to me the taurus car are shut off the engine,always with the cold air and i need to stop for turn on again the key of the car. No body knows what happend with this in the winter. Do you know what happen with me car. Taurus 3.8L 1990.

one of the bolt on the cylinder head broke in half.I could not get it out,and antifreeze in my engine keep leaking out.how can i fix the problem

Dr. Craft has really done his home work. This is the only book I have found that gives complete and accurate information on ALL the models of cars promised. Complete and accurate information along with good color photography make this not just a coffee table book but an enthusiasts reference guide as well..

I didn't think that you could come up with a whole book just about the Boss line of Mustangs. Great pictures and history of this classic car.

This book has great pictures and tells of the 1969-1970 trans am series seasons with great detail recalling the great camaro/mustang battles of that era. Includes some information about the shelby road racers and the 1968 Tunnel Port Mustangs. Has an abundance of 1969-1970 Boss 302, Boss 429 pictures and deatails about the cars. Some information on the Cobra Jet cars too. Buy it!!

A very good book with detailed custom-made speaker projects for the front, rear (flush and surface mount) speakers and boxed woofers explained in clear and simple terms. The tips on making and cutting your own mount boards are especially useful.

However, if there is a future edition of this book, it would be best if it included simple wiring diagrams from the speakers to the amplifiers. Since for beginners, they might not know what to do or how to hook up the speakers afterwards. Otherwise this book would have deserved a 5-star rating.

p.s. To Amazon.com: The shipping schedule is excellent. I received this book in less than 2 weeks from the order in perfect condition.

Car Stereo Speaker Products Illustrated the moment I read the last word in the title: ILLUSTRATED. Finally a car stereo book that is completely illustrated with step by step procedures for all types of projects for cars, vans, and SUVs. I started reading this book with very little knowledge of how to build my own system, but now I feel confident enough to tackle my stereo project before me. Dan Ferguson really hit it on with this book! It's a must for any beginner car stereo enthusiasts!

I like this book. It has a unique SUBWOOFER BIAMP FILTERED CROSSOVER project (It's easy to build, works very well) And it has a really cool Jeep CJ box, And you keep the back seat. Nice if your a Dad with little ones. Covers speakers from Madisound, Kicker and MTX. Note front and back speaker projects. Not just Subs. The people from Madisound I found to be very nice too. This BIAMP FILTERED CROSSOVER is not the same one as from his first book. (Killer Car Stereo on a Budget.)