Archive for Items Categorized 'Biography/ Autobiography', only excerpts shown, click title for full entry.

Béla Barényi: Pioneer of Passive Safety at Mercedes-Benz

by Harry Niemann

Born into the age of the horseless carriage young Barényi had a knack for engineering and an uncommonly acute awareness of unintended safety hazards—so he built himself a racing sleigh with a padded steering wheel! One of his many innovations may well have saved your life.

Roger Williamson: A Collection of Memories from Friends, Mechanics, Rivals and Family

by K. Guthrie & D. Banks

The F1 cars of Williamson’s era were getting faster and faster but neither the tracks nor safety consciousness evolved at pace. His horrific death in a fire at the 1973 Dutch GP is a chilling example of Murphy’s Law at full tilt.

Kim: A Biography of M.G. Founder Cecil Kimber

by Jon Pressnell

This epic book is less about the cars than the man behind them, and in this case especially you cannot appreciate the former without the latter. Pressnell leaves no stone unturned to present a multi-faceted picture of a complicated man who took the firm to the loftiest of heights—only to be fired.

Jock Lewes, Co-Founder of the SAS

by John Lewes

This early admirer of Hitler became so disillusioned with the Nazi regime’s methods that he volunteered for an elite British outfit specializing in counter-espionage, the Special Air Service and became its principal training officer.

Crusader, John Cobb’s Ill-Fated Quest for Speed on Water 

by Steve Holter

For what do you need 5000 lb of thrust? For breaking records. In a jet-powered boat. Air is relatively smooth, water is not. Will it all go right? The author is, among other things, a crash investigator—so probably not.

Bourne to Rally: Possum Bourne, The Autobiography

by Possum Bourne with Paul Owen

The fickle finger of fate . . . this autobiography was completed just days before 47-year-old Bourne had a fatal road accident. While that makes the story especially poignant, there’s a lot of practical stuff here how to keep a racing career humming: talent is essential but not sufficient by itself.

Wheels Within Wheels, An Unconventional Life

by Lord Montagu of Beaulieu

The name of Beaulieu looms large in British history, and not just in a motoring context although the clever book title so obviously alludes to it. His life would have been unconventional even without the law he changed, not as a lawmaker but as a defendant.

Flying with the SPOOKS, Memoir of a Navy Linguist in the Vietnam War

by Herbert P. Shippey

“Join the Navy and see the world!” The U.S. Navy is probably not the first armed service that springs to mind when you think Vietnam—in fact, many people joined the Navy specifically to avoid going there. Navy SIGINT has not been covered extensively and much info was classified for 40 years.

Fast Lady, The Extraordinary Adventures of Miss Dorothy Levitt

by Michael W. Barton

“The Fastest Girl on Earth” had plenty of adventures in life but an inquest ruled her death of morphine poisoning at 40 a misadventure. What good is it to be the first British woman racing driver, the world’s first holder of a water speed record, the first woman to hold a land speed record if no one remembers?

For Flux Sake: Beer, Fags and Opposite-Lock 

by Ian Flux with Matt James

This British driver belongs to the baby boomer generation, the last one to be able to immerse itself in racing without guilt, regret, or even a backward glance. This account of a racer’s life is endearing, frank, shocking, funny and fast-paced—just like its author.

The Last Lap, The Mysterious Demise of Pete Kreis at the Indianapolis 500

by William T. Walker Jr.

On the one hand it was called “the strangest death in all racing history” because no observable causes were found. On the other hand, unobservable forces may/did/could have put so much agony into a man’s soul that going over the edge, flying into the sky, crashing into a tree, was the only sure way to find peace.

Racing With Roger Penske, A History of a Motorsport Dynasty

by Sigur E. Whitaker

Dynasty implies succession but The Captain, after several years as a race car driver, built his empire from scratch and is still involved in many of its aspects. “Most successful” describes most his accomplishments, and this book seems much too small to do them justice.

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