Review: "Legendary Race Cars"

[Gatorrari]

When this book first came out in 2009, I passed it up because the description led me to believe that this was mainly a book of photos with very little substance. But recently at Road Atlanta, a vendor had a number of copies for sale and one was unsealed. I realized that the book has plenty of "substance" and was well worth the reasonable price.

There are 25 cars (or groups of related cars) covered in from 6 to 8 pages each. While most chapters have at least one current photo of the car, some have only vintage photos, but the photos are well-chosen and well presented.

The only Ferraris included are the 156 "sharknose", and Michael Schumacher's championship F1s, which are the most recent cars included. Other GP cars include the Auto Union and Mercedes "Silver Arrows" of the '30s (in separate chapters), the Maserati 250F, the Lotus 49 and 79 (again, separately), and the 1988 McLaren MP4/4 that won 15 of 16 races.

There are plenty of racing sports cars and prototypes, including Ecurie Ecosse's Jaguars, the Mercedes 300SLR, the Aston Martin DBR1, the Cobra Daytona coupe, the Ford GTs and the Porsche 917 and 962 (again, in separate chapters).

Where the book gets interesting is in all of the other varied machines included. The oldest are the 1908 Thomas Flyer that went around the world and the 1911 Marmon Wasp that won the first Indy 500. The only other Indycars are the STP turbine cars of 1967-69, and the only NASCAR representation is Petty's 1970 Plymouth SuperBird.

There is a dragster (Greer/Black/Prudhomme, 1962), a rally car (Subaru Impreza, 1994), two hillclimb cars (Maserati 8CM, 1934 and Audi Sport Quattro, 1987) and even an off-road truck (Big Oly "Bronco", 1971)!

Obviously, one could always quibble about the omissions - I would have included the Lotus 25 in place of the 49, for instance - but the cars in the book are all noteworthy for a reason, and the presentation is very good for the price. This will look good on your coffee table.

[BigTex]

I have picked up two copies at Half Price Books.....really cheap.

The author also did another title "Legendary Motorcycles"??

I agree the photos are superb..