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

Silver Arrows In Camera

A Photographic History of the Mercedes-Benz and Auto Union Racing Teams 1934–39

by Anthony Pritchard

This book delivers more than its subtitle promises! If the word “photographic” were missing, no one would feel short-changed. Not only is it an excellent source of period photography, it also contains a thorough textual treatment in the form of contextual narrative.

Men of Power: The Lives of Rolls-Royce Chief Test Pilots Harvey and Jim Heyworth

by Robert Jackson

Test pilot brothers are a rarity. Both Heyworths worked for the same company, at the same time, and both became chief test pilot. Harvey, the elder of the two became the third test pilot at Hucknall, where Rolls-Royce had its flight test establishment.

Bentley’s Great Eight: The Astonishing 50-Year Saga of one of History’s Greatest V8 Engines

by Karl Ludvigsen

A mighty engine of uncommon longevity, dissected here with customary Ludvigsen attention to detail. But why is it a Bentley and not a Rolls-Royce unit? That’s a whole other story.

Stanguellini: Big Little Racing Cars

by Luigi Orsini and Franco Zagari

Automobili Stanguellini was a maker of small racing and road cars in Modena, Italy. Modena, of course, is known as the home of Ferrari and Maserati but did you realize that they and Stanguellini had their premises all within the same square mile? Stanguellini, in fact, is older than the other two.

The Cars of Pullman

by Joe Welsh, Bill Howes, Kevin J Holland

Hotels on wheels—incorporated in 1867 as the Pullman Palace Car Company, New York cabinetmaker George Mortimer Pullman’s eponymous railroad cars crisscrossed North America for 102 years. They became a household word, so much so that especially sleeping cars were often generically referred to as Pullmans regardless of who made or ran them.

The Maserati 300S

by Walter Bäumer

Hard to imagine that there’s a living to be made being a full-time Maserati historian but that’s just what German photographer and car enthusiast Walter Bäumer decided to do in 2003. Incidentally, he also is the editor of the German Maserati Club’s excellent magazine Der Dreizack (The Trident).

Porsche Racing Cars: 1953 to 1975

by Brian Long

This book looks at Porsche’s purpose-built competition cars of the modern era, cars the author considers motorsports and design icons “the likes of which, sadly, we will never see again.”

American Cars: 1946 to 1959 and American Cars: 1960 to 1972

by J. “Kelly” Flory, Jr.

Flory’s life is awash in numbers about cars. His dedication to gathering encyclopedic detail about every car sold between 1946 and 1972 is evident in these two 1,000-page (each!) books. No bit of information is too small, and none has been overlooked.

The Roycean: From Manchester to Crewe, via Derby – Vol. 1

The Roycean is a new annual journal containing scholarly articles on the history of Rolls-Royce and (Derby- and Crewe-built) Bentley motorcars up to the 1960s, as well as articles on coachbuilders, dealers, the personalities involved with the cars, individual models of the cars made, and interesting owners.

The Battle of Britain

by Kate Moore

You could go broke buying every single book about the Battle of Britain, and blind reading them all. This one is easy on the wallet, easy on they eyes, and a well-rounded overview. This book’s particular appeal lies in the sensitive weaving together of individual human voices and the maelstrom of history.

100 Years of Flight, A Chronicle of Aerospace History 1903–2003

by Frank H Winter & F. Robert van der Linden

Published by the two most prestigious institutions in the field, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum, this compendium chronicles in timeline fashion the century of endeavor since the Wright Brothers’ first heavier-than-air flight in 1903.

Merchants of Speed: The Men Who Built America’s Performance Industry

by Paul D Smith

One of the many cultural developments that accompanied the end of WWII was the rising interest (some might say craze) for automotive performance that continues to this day. Read about the automotive visionaries that made it so.

Newer Entries »
« Older Entries