Legendary Car Engines: Inner Secrets of the World’s 20 Best

by John Simister

The engine as object of desire—all this book is missing is centerfolds! The point of this exercise is not to offer a clinically detached appraisal of engineering doohickeys but to give visual expression to the notion of an engine being the heart or soul of a car.

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.”

Higher and Faster: Memoir of a Pioneering Air Force Test Pilot

by Robert M. White and Jack L. Summers

US Air Force Major General Bob White (1924–2010) was the man who, in 1961 and 1962, flew the X-15 sixteen times to a speed of 4,094 mph (just short of Joe Walker’s 4,105 mph record) and an altitude of 314,750 feet (59.6 miles), earning White his astronaut wings.

Jochen Rindt: The Story of a World Champion

by Heinz Prüller

In the Clermont-Ferrand paddock during the French GP meeting of July 1970, Jochen Rindt sat with his fellow-Austrian, journalist Heinz Prüller, in the Firestone caravan. They had collaborated on a book four years earlier, and now that Rindt was romping away with the World Championship, they agreed to write another.

Airplane Racing: A History, 1909–2008

by Don Berliner

Berliner has been writing books and magazine articles about airplane racing for five decades and here gives us a data-packed 260 pages describing more than 187 separate air racing events worldwide. For the time period between 1909 (the first race in France) and 2008 he lists who won each event, what they flew, and what engine twisted the prop.

Air Force One

by Robert F Dorr

Published a year after the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the US that represented the severest test yet of America’s emergency preparedness system this book offers a comprehensive look at the purpose and history of transporting the Chief Executive and Commander in Chief by air.

Aston Martin V8

by William Presland

Built from 1969 to 2000 Aston Martin’s V8 cars represent a fairly late entry into the V8 segment. Customers had been clamoring for a larger mill for years and Aston began development in 1963, aiming for a 1967 release. The new car that was to go with the new engine, the DBS, did get done in time but the new engine designed by Tadek Marek took another two years.

The Fate of the Sleeping Beauties

by Ard & Arnoud op de Weegh, Kay Hottendorff

This is one book that could have used a subtitle! Not only are there several others with the words “sleeping beauties” in their tile, one of them covers the exact same subject—except . . . it tells a vastly different story and its sins of omission and commission are the raison d’être for this new one.

Red Hot Rivals: Ferrari vs. Maserati — Epic Clashes for Supremacy

by Karl Ludvigsen

More than 10 years before Enzo Ferrari ever built a car under his own name, Maseratis were a thorn in his flesh. They were so uncatchable that after three years of provocation he was seriously thinking of buying some himself. This is the spark that ignited the fire that would smolder for decades and that is the topic of this book.

Jaguar XJ220: The Inside Story

by Mike Moreton

If you had never heard of the XJ220 and all you were told is that it was the fastest production car of its day, with a V12, all-wheel drive, spectacularly good-looking coachwork with scissor doors and luxuriously trimmed interior, you’d think it must have sold like hot cakes. Not!

TSR2 – Britain’s Lost Bomber

by Damien Burke

Developed in the late 1950s this revolutionary aircraft was cancelled in 1965 after only one prototype was completed and flight testing had just begun. The word “bomber” in the title alongside the program designation “TSR” (Tactical Strike Reconnaissance) is an indication of the friction that would first lead to muddled development and ultimate cancellation.

Ferrari: Stories from Those Who Lived the Legend

by John Lamm

The subtitle says exactly what this book is about. Ponder it a moment. What expectations do these words generate? If you’re looking for a subjective, decidedly Ferrari Rules! take on the world, this is the book. No stats, specs, data, tables or even cohesive story arc here (“And on the third day God/Enzo begat…”).

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