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Fuerza Libre 1919–1942
Grand Prix, Sports Cars and Specials Racing in the Pampas
by Guillermo D Sánchez

(Spanish/English side by side) Let’s play a game. You cannot play if you are South American and were born before, say, 1940. There’s only one rule: for every photo in this book that you haven’t seen before you “earn” 10 cents. When you’re done with the book, and you were honest, you will have made more money than the book costs! What does this mean? That you are getting a deal; the book is not cheap but it is worth every penny and then some!

There is no greater compliment to pay a book than to say it covers new ground. Unless you are South American and lived at the time of the Fuerza Libre—the Free, as in unrestricted, Formula, the formula without a formula—, 1919 to 1942, pretty much everything in this book will be new to most. It was published in Argentina, written by an Argentine, and covers events that took place in a corner of the globe little known, certainly at that time. In other words, the rest of the world should break out in song that someone has gone to the trouble to record all this, for the greater good of all—and in English!

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Porsche 718 + 804:
An Adventure into Formula One during the 1.5 litre era
by Thomas Födisch, Jost Neßhöver, Michael Behrndt, Rainer Roßbach

(German/English side by side) Brought to you by a team of authors with a long string of racing books to their names, this large and heavy book fills a gap in the panoply of literature on individual Porsche models. Maybe the reason for the previous lack of coverage is that these particular models had such an uncommonly short lifespan because Porsche never really did wholeheartedly commit itself to being a presence in, first, F2 and then F1. Pretty much from the beginning the firm’s sports cars had been successful in racing and rallying—which, as intended, directly related to and boosted the sale of road cars and in turn provided the cash flow to keep racing—and a campaign in formula racing was seen as a distraction with doubtful return on investment.

The book covers the evolution of the 718 (1958–1962) from the firm’s first purpose-built race car—the 550—and its metamorphosis from road-legal sports car with two seats and steering wheel on the left to single-seater racecar (the 718/2) specifically created for Formula 2 and its subsequent evolution into the 804 for F1.

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Edoardo Bianchi: 1885-1964
by Antonio Gentile

(Italian/English side by side) Bicyclists will instantly relate the Bianchi name to famous professional racing and mountain bikes. Artists may remember that Picasso had a Bianchi bicycle in his Vallauris studio and thought of it as “one of the most beautiful and purest sculptures in the history of art.” Dior, Cartier, Van Cleef reproduced the famous celeste (sky blue) bicycles in their works. Bianchi was, Bianchi is bicycles—but also so much more!

In brief: Edoardo Bianchi was a man of the first hour. Orphaned at birth in 1865, he worked as a machinist’s apprentice and opened in 1885 his first workshop manufacturing velocipedes, ball bearings, wheelchairs, doorbells, and more. Business grew steadily as his reputation for quality spread. His innovations to the bicycle earned Bianchi an Italian Royal Warrant as “Official Supplier to the Royal Court.” International technical and design awards followed including royal recognition from France, Portugal, and Astoria.

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The Automobiles of the Maharajas
by Manvendra Singh Barwani and Sharada
Dwivedi

The book’s handsome presentation, with its copper-toned, deeply embossed dust jacket that protects the finely-textured fabric over the hardcovers, makes it virtually impossible to resist looking inside. The title, The Automobiles of the Maharajas, gives you an indication that you are about to be transported. Opening the book, your eye is treated to ivory and copper-tones on the pages that feature clear, well-reproduced photos of scenes exotic and intriguing to the Westerner.

Fellow SpeedReaders.info reviewer Sabu Advani observed, in his review of this book in the magazine he edits for the Rolls-Royce Owners’ Club that, “The photos beg to be savored not just in terms of the cars but the glimpses they provide into a different society (that is) at an entirely different level of industrialization. As an account of the cars that went to India the book stands alone, but it is much more than just a car book.”

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Zagato Milano 1919-2009: The Official Book

2009 was a big year for Italian coachbuilder and design atelier Zagato. The Milanese firm celebrated its 90th anniversary, had (once more) a special class at the Pebble Beach concours, and a few weeks later mourned the loss of Elio Zagato (1921-2009), son of the legendary company founder Ugo Zagato and head of the eponymous design studio. Another Milanese institution, the publishing house of Giorgio Nada, commemorated the anniversary by adding yet another book to its already considerable list of Zagato titles.

This book does not come right out and say what it is. Neither do the press release or the advertising copy. If you know of Nada’s other Zagato books (for example Zagato: Seventy Years in the Fast Lane, Zagato 1919-2000, Elio Zagato - Storie di corse e non solo) you would assume this new one to be along the lines of those others. It isn’t. It lists no author, a first clue. It does have an Introduzione but it says nothing about who wrote it or why, and only talks about the greater glory of the city of Milan (as does most of the entire first chapter). This is a book a Chamber of Commerce would love to bring out if it had the money! In fact, the reason for drawing so much attention to the city’s industrial and cultural accomplishments probably has to do with the 2015 World Expo that will be hosted by—Milan.

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