Gentlemen, Start Your Engines!

by Jared Zaugg

Bonhams is an auction house through whose doors hundreds of delectable cars pass each year. This book showcases a few dozen that best embody the emotional impact that separate sports and race cars from more prosaic transport.

Some of the prices will have an emotional impact too . . .

The Ford Model A

by Robert C. Kreipke

Ford’s original entry into the automobile world, the Model T, was a runaway success—the A was too. Almost five million would be made so it’s no wonder that there are survivors and thus an active club scene—and books such as this, by Ford’s Corporate Historian and Manager of Special Projects.

Ladies of Lascaris: Christina Ratcliffe and the Forgotten Heroes of Malta’s War

by Paul McDonald

The RAF did tremendously important reconnaissance work on Malta, and the women and girls who worked as plotters and cipherenes helped. Obviously, they had private lives, and Ratcliffe’s in particular is way out there.

Carlo Demand In Motion and Color: Automobile Racing 1895–1956

by Gary D Doyle

The German artist Carlo Demand (1921–2000) illustrated more books than any other artist, yet his name is not nearly as well known as that of many of his contemporaries or as the quality of his work would indicate.

Making It: Manufacturing Techniques for Product Design

by Chris Lefteri

The world as you know it is not quite as you know it—the finished products you handle every day are full of surprises as to how they’re made.

Dean’s Garage: The Future is Back

by Gary Dean Smith

So what’s it really like to be a designer at a big carmaker? A behind-the-scenes look at GM Design from the 1950s through the ‘80s with stories, quotes, and anecdotes told by designers, engineers, and sculptors.

Niki Lauda: The Biography

by Maurice Hamilton

One of the greatest F1 drivers of all time, he died in his sleep at age 70. He had worn many different hats in his life on and off the track, one of them to hide the scars of that near-fatal accident at a race he, then the defending world champion and points leader, considered so unsafe that he attempted to arrange a boycott.

Nissan Z, 59 Years of Exhilarating Performance

by Pete Evanow

Intended at launch as a halo car, the Z showed the world that the Japanese really could get the essence of a sports car just right—looks, reliability, performance, even affordability—so right that it has remained in production for over fifty years.

Slow Car Fast

by Ryan K. ZumMallen

The title is cryptic, but the core topic explored here is not: Do young people still like cars? Drivers, tuners, designers, and millenials weigh in.

Project Terminated

by Erik Simonsen

“Too many cooks spoil the broth” . . . this book puts the blame for pulling the plug on seemingly viable aviation projects on hapless bureaucrats who keep the military from doing its thing. But it ain’t that easy . . .

MOMO Italy, 50 Years 1964–2014

by Mario Donnini

You don’t have to have a space age $40,000 F1 steering wheel in your car to appreciate that Momo must be something big. They are, and in ways that may surprise. This anniversary tribute looks to the past and to the future.

Jim McGee, Crew Chief of Champions

by Gordon Kirby 

He cut his teeth working on a private Indy entry cobbled together in a backyard garage and rose to run some of the big-league outfits of his day. An important book about an important man.