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

Steve McQueen: A Passion for Speed

by Frédéric Brun

To an American reader a book written from a foreigner’s perspective about a quintessential American icon is often as revealing as it is disconcerting—the two being different sides of the same coin.

Art of the Harley-Davidson Motorcycle

by D Blattel & D Gingerelli

This is first and foremost a photo book. If you’ve had Harleys on your brain for a while it is almost not possible not to have encountered photographer Blattel’s images before.

Motorcycle Survivor: Tips and Tales in the Unrestored Realm

by Kris Palmer

Back in 1865 German physicist Rudolf Clausius introduced us to the term entropy. Much like the issue of degradation it addresses, the use of the word itself has degraded over time. Central to the second law of thermodynamics and vastly complicated, it is here used in the gravely simplified sense of “the steady degradation of matter in the universe.”

The Art of the Racing Motorcycle: 100 Years of Designing for Speed

by Tooth & Pradères

Taking up only a small footprint in a more or less open frame, pretty much all the bits that make a motorcycle go are plainly visible. There is an art to arranging them and an art to photographing them. Both are revealed in this excellent book.

David Molyneux: The Racer’s Edge, Memories of an Isle of Man TT Legend

by David Molyneux with Mathew Richardson

Who would have thought that when the first race on the Island was held in 1904 (because racing in Britain was forbidden and the 1903 introduction of a 20 mph speed limit) that more than a 100 years later the Isle of Man Tourist Trophy could lay claim to being the oldest circuit in the world still in use?

You Can’t Wear Out an Indian Scout: Indians and the Wall of Death

by A J Ford & N Corble

If you’ve never seen near-vertical motorcyclists careening around a Wall of Death you’ll need to have 3D-capable imagination to fully appreciate the gut-wrenching gravity-defying stunts! This book examines what it is that makes the Scout the tool of choice for wall riders.

McQueen’s Machines: The Cars and Bikes of a Hollywood Icon

by Matt Stone

Could Henry Mushman have become the “King of Cool”? It probably didn’t hurt his image that Steve McQueen was not saddled in real life with the nom de plume he adopted for his early motorcycle racing persona but had a name that was as properly burly as the roles he played and the things he liked to do.

Life is a Highway: A Century of Great Automotive Writing

Edited by Darwin Holmstrom & Melinda Keefe

Just as Tom Cochrane’s 1991 most famous song of the same name has been covered by others, this book presents “covers” of a common theme. It is an anthology of 44 examples of ruminations about anything automotive, from excerpts from novels to magazine articles.

Villiers: Everybody’s Engine

by Rob Carrick and Mick Walker

Villiers may have started building “everybody’s” engine way back in 1912 but unless you’re from the two-stroke small-engine world, chances are you do not know them. In which case you would do well to start with a look at Appendix 5 “Industrial Power Unit Users”.

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 Alberto Abarth 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.

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.

American Cars, Trucks and Motorcycles of World War I

Illustrated Histories of 225 Manufacturers

by Albert Mroz

A basic perspective on this specific time period, not to serve as an in-depth model history or any one maker’s entire model range. Even with this intentional brevity the text consists of fully articulated sentences and is quite detailed.

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