COPO Camaro, Chevelle & Nova

by Matt Avery

No corporate ban on racing keeps a good man down. A loophole in GM’s COPO fleet-sales program became a back channel of sorts and today is recognized as the origin of GM’s top muscle cars

Lost Muscle Cars

by Wes Eisenschenk

A departure from the “barn find” theme, this anthology is about noteworthy cars that in quite a few of the cases related here are still MIA. There is some tradecraft discussed but mainly this is more of a mini history of specific cars.

Inside Marine One

by Ray L’Heureux

From building kit models to ferrying the Chief Executive of the United States, Frenchy L’Heureux’s life in aviation has put him where the front-page news took place, but behind the scenes.

Drone Strike!

by Bill Yenne

Drone activities may be in the news a lot but in fact much remains—and rightly so given their purpose—behind closed doors. Yenne’s book is an excellent primer not only on what drones are capable of but how they fit into the arsenal.

Studebaker and Byers A. Burlingame

by Robert R. Ebert

As CEO, Burlingame, an erstwhile bookkeeper at Packard, was given the hard job of turning around one of the oldest names in the automotive field when the company was in deep trouble. He did, for a while.

How to Build a Car

by Adrian Newey

If only really smart people can design race-winning cars then just how smart must someone be whose designs have won over 150 Grands Prix? An unexpectedly gifted writer, Newey reveals the man behind the cliché of the geeky designer in his ivory tower.

Bugatti Blue

by Lance Cole

About 100 miles northwest of London you’ll feel like a time traveller. First opened in 1938 you can still see the same cars competing here, six times a year. People who know come from near and far—but outside of England, few seem to.

Schlumpf

by Ard & Arnoud op de Weegh 

In the 1970s, this was the story. Greedy industrialists pilfering their corporate treasury to buy classic cars instead of paying their employees’ wages and pensions. But is that what happened? This book presents an alternative version.

Streamliner

by John Wall

Combining salesmanship and media savvy, Loewy created brand images for major corporations but also made himself into a national brand through the assiduous courting of journalists and tastemakers to become the face of both a new profession and a consumer-driven vision of the American dream.

The Works MGs

by Mike Allison & Peter Browning

MGs were capable and therefore popular—and not super expensive to boot. No wonder they became the budding racer’s favorite mount. This book too has stood the test of time.

The Perfect Car

by Nick Skeens

If volatility of temperament is a measure of competence then Barnard should be counted a genius. And he is, because he really was. The exasperating perfectionist who cut down anyone and anything in his way makes for an intense story.

The Cadillac Northstar V-8, A History

by Anthony Young

First seen in the Pininfarina-designed Cadillac Allante, the technically complex Northstar has powered cars as diverse as grocery-getters and a Le Mans prototype. Phased out in 2011, without a direct replacement, this long-serving powerplant gets a good look here.