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100 Years of Brooklands: The Birthplace of British Motorsport & Aviation
by Allan Winn and John Pulford

Commissioned by the Brooklands Museum on the occasion of the famed circuit’s centenary in 2007, this book tells its story mainly in photos.

To fully appreciate the importance of Brooklands in its day it must be remembered that, at the time of its founding, no form of racing was permitted on public roads in mainland Great Britain. British car and also motorcycle development were thus stymied by not having any sort of venue, let alone a proper one, for testing and racing until 1907. That year landowner and motoring enthusiast Hugh Fortescue Locke-King transformed 330 acres of his Brooklands estate into the world’s first purpose-built race track replete with all the required infrastructure. Its 2.75-mile banked oval was 100 feet wide, rising at its highest a dizzying 29 feet above its base, making it perfect for sustained high speeds.

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Abarth - The Man, The Machines
by Luciano Greggio

As with several other automotive histories author Greggio has to his name, this one too ranks among the serious, reference-level literature. It is the story of Austrian Karl (later Carlo) Alberto Abarth (1908–1979) whose name and accomplishments are not nearly as well known as the staggering 7300 races between 1958 and 1971 in which cars built or enhanced by him were victorious. From all-out racecars to high-performance tuner items such as exhaust systems, manifolds, valves and water pumps, Abarth’s firm made a mark on motoring history. The best drivers of the day drove for him and, from Allemano to Zagato, the best houses of the day bodied his cars. Add to that his pioneering work and personal race victories as a motorcyclist and you have one inspiring story.

Moreover, Greggio has a knack for context-rich reportage. (Already his university thesis dealt with as multi-faceted a topic as the development of the motor industry in the EU.)

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American Cars, Trucks and Motorcycles of World War I:
Illustrated Histories of 225 Manufacturers
by Albert Mroz

Written a year after his book on the American Military Vehicles of World War I Mroz presents here an illustrated history of 225 of the American companies that manufactured cars, trucks, or motorcycles for the civilian market in 1917 and 1918. While the actual number of manufacturers is probably larger, Mroz omitted the ones that had only marginal impact on the consumer market either because their output was too small or never even reached series production. Unlike the earlier book, this topic lends itself to straightforward alphabetical organization. This new book complements the earlier one better than the other way around inasmuch as an integral aspect of the first book was the fact that with few exceptions the vast majority of vehicles that were appropriated for war use were out of necessity initially stock or only slightly modified civilian vehicles. Thus, this book gives background on various items only mentioned in passing in the earlier one. Where there is overlap with military vehicles (be it support or combat) it so noted.

The book’s aim is to give a basic perspective on this specific time period, not to serve as an in-depth model history or to present any one maker’s entire model range. Even with this intended brevity the text consists of fully articulated sentences as opposed to bullet points and is quite detailed.

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American Military Vehicles of World War I:
An Illustrated History of Armored Cars, Staff Cars, Motorcycles, Ambulances, Trucks, Tractors and Tanks
by Albert Mroz

For better or worse, war, or even the prospect of war gives rise to a degree of need and sense of urgency that accelerates development of whatever tools are deemed necessary to gain supremacy, be it throwing rocks at each other or splitting the atom. Due to a unique constellation of events, World War I—the Great War, the War to End All Wars—was the first conflict to see widespread use of mechanization, a threshold hybrid stage where horse, camel, and mule fought alongside car, tank, and airplane.

For the sake of context, Mroz sets the scene by summarizing the specific events that led to the outbreak of war, the participating nations’ state of preparedness both philosophically and technologically, and the transition from scrambling to requisition anything that could possibly have any war application to developing purpose-built vehicles for specific tasks and conditions. Beyond these introductory remarks the book is not concerned with political, social, or even strategic aspects of the war although it does weave those strands into the overall story of vehicle development and history from a technical and logistics perspective. As Mroz writes, “the moral deficiencies of those involved in making or carrying out warfare” are left for others to sort out.

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NSU: The Complete Story
by Mick Walker

From knitting machines in 1873 (that’s where the “S” in NSU comes from)—by way of bicycles, motorcycles, and cheap but well-built small cars—to the futuristic, luxurious, world-class Wankel-engined Ro 80 passenger car in 1967 (that year’s European “Car of the Year” and also unofficial Car of the Decade) NSU was one of Germany’s pioneering manufacturers. More importantly they had an unusually solid track record for technical innovation both in terms of product and manufacturing processes. Still, having been absorbed in 1969 by Audi which itself is part of the Volkswagen Group, the nameplate was discontinued in 1985 and nowadays the sole physical reminder of its corporate existence is “NSU Road,” the address of its former factory that Audi still uses today.

This book represents the first-ever English history of the company. Walker’s interest in the subject comes from his background in motorcycles (as a racer, importer, race sponsor and later editor of Motorcycle Enthusiast magazine), and motorcycles were a if not the major aspect of NSU history. In fact, just over half the book is devoted to them; by the 1950s NSU was the world’s biggest motorcycle maker and none other than Soichiro Honda stopped by in 1954 on his fact-finding tour of Europe and expressed his admiration for the speed and reliability of NSU bikes.

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