Archive for Items Categorized 'Automobiles', only excerpts shown, click title for full entry.

Alvan Macauley of Packard: Detroit’s Forgotten Automotive Pioneer

by Charles E. Flinchbaugh

So much went right at Packard for so long—surviving the Depression and once outselling Cadillac—and then the company went under anyway, and during the greatest car-buying boom the US had ever seen.

The American Highway: The History and Culture of Roads in the United States

by William Kaszynski 

How did KFC start? Who was Colonel Sanders? From actual road construction to the genesis of road-related amenities, this book chronicles the story behind much of what we take for granted today.

Jacques Saoutchik, Maître Carrossier: 1948 Talbot-Lago Grand Sport Chassis 110101

by Peter M. Larsen and Ben Erickson

A car with a great story, and a book with a great story. A car with a forensic restoration, and a book with forensic research. Things like this don’t happen every day.

DeLorean: The Rise, Fall, and Second Acts of the DeLorean Motor Company

by Matt Stone

Big title for a small book. It doesn’t answer all questions and in a way doesn’t even ask all of them—but it does connect many dots and it certainly shines a light on the multitude of external factors the auto industry, not just boutique makers, faced in the Eighties.

Alfa Romeo: An Illustrated History, 1910–2020

by Christian Schön (editor)

As of April 2024 you can no longer order a gasoline-powered Alfa in the US. All the more reason to cast a wistful eye at the past with this book commemorating 110 years of history.

The Austin Pedal Car Story, The Fascinating History of Austin’s J40 and Pathfinder from 1946 to Present Day

by David Whyley

Austin J40 pedal cars may be diminutive. Telling their story is anything but. With over 32,000 produced since the first ones 75 years ago, they are being made again albeit with re-engineered, contemporary mechanical components.

Lola GT: The DNA of the Ford GT40

by John Starkey

This book fills a gap in the timeline between Ford getting snubbed by Ferrari and finding a new partner with whom to build race cars. Lola already had their own prototype bolted together, and Ford made them a deal. The rest is history—except the telling of that history has been incomplete.

The Phantom Corsair, A Remarkable Journey

by Meredith B. Jaffe

Wildly futuristic not just in looks but in technical features it cost around $24,000 to create in 1936 and if it had gone into production you could have bought one for the low-low price of $15,000—never mind that we just came out of the Great Depression. That’s not the only reason it didn’t happen.

Supercars

by Rudolf van der Ven

This book is more about the photographic style than any learned commentary—if such a thing were possible—about the supercar genre. Fun with cars is the theme here.

Mascots in Motion, Images and Stories of Automotive Aesthetics

by Steve Purdy

In spite of its title, the images are not exclusively motoring mascots as there are some body parts or trim pieces shot for the artfulness of the reflections that drew Purdy’s eye.

Porsche Decades: An Introduction to the Porsche Story

by Jay Gilotti

So you have twenty feet of Porsche histories already . . . give this one a whirl anyway. Very well thought out, hits all the essential talking points, current up to 2023.

Tractor Wars

John Deere, Henry Ford, International Harvester, and the Birth of Modern Agriculture

by Neil Dahlstrom

A case study of how “power farming” got its start at a particularly precarious time for America and also the wider world. Farm equipment manufacturers were among the largest US companies so the money is big and the egos, too.

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