Summer has long been my favourite time of year. Living in a part of the world that has long winters, I have learned to appreciate and enjoy the beautiful summers that we have. I typically try to take the majority of my holidays from work during the summer time, allowing my family and I to take advantage of the wonderful weather. Our favourite family summer vacation is going to our family cottage. Unlike many other cottagers that own fancy well-appointed summer homes, the cottage in our family is rather rustic and has limited amenities and communication. There is no phone, no internet, and even the TV antenna no longer picks up the local stations anymore. Being disconnected from the world is a big part of the appeal of the cottage for me. Spending the long summer days at the lake with the family without a cellphone buzzing is almost the perfect recipe to de-stress and recharge.
Sunrise at the Cottage
It is also the best time and place for me to do my reading. While I typically have a stack of magazines and other reading material on my nightstand, I rarely find the time to sit down and read a good book when caught up with the busyness of daily life. Being at the lake with no distractions is the perfect place for me to read. Every summer I typically pick a book or two and read it while at the lake.
This year my choice was The Reckoning, by David Halberstam. After Paul’s posts earlier this year, where he posted a couple of teasers, here and here, I knew that book was right up my alley. So I ended up getting a used copy of Amazon for this year’s cottage read. While it dates from 1986, the book is an excellent read and really is pretty good at foreshadowing the crisis that faced the American auto industry in more recent times. The author spends a great deal of time to research the history of Ford, one that I am pretty familiar with, but what I really enjoyed was the history of the rise of Japan’s auto industry and Nissan, both of which were relatively unfamiliar territory. This is a book that I highly recommend to fellow Curbsiders and one of the best books I have read on the auto industry.
After completing the book it got me thinking, that there are probably many books out there that fellow Curbsiders have read and can recommend to one another. Fellow CBC listeners know that each year a list of books recommended as summer reads is compiled for its Canadian listeners. Well, I kind of missed the boat on a summer reading list, so let’s compile a Curbside reading list. What book or books would you recommend to fellow Curbisders?
Driving Like Crazy – PJ O’Rourke
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang – Ian Fleming
Anything by Elmore Leonard – he inevitably describes vehicles in detail that shows an enthusiast bent.
+1 on Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. I’d love to see it as a full-length movie that stays faithful to the book. Other than the car, Potts and the children, the MGM movie of the same name has little in common with the book. I read the book to my sons several times when they were young, and my grandchildren are now getting to enjoy it from their Dad, too.
Interestingly, Elmore Leonard knew David E. Davis, the late automotive journalist and longtime editor of both Car & Driver and Automobile magazine, after meeting him while working in same Detroit office building. Apparently, they critiqued each other’s writing, while sharing a common interest in cars and car culture. Davis credited Leonard for helping him to sharpen his style, while Davis provided some of the details on cars which Leonard then embellished in his novels.
The Arsenal of Democracy by AJ Baime. Detroit, Ford, WWII.
Freedom’s Forge: How American Business Produced Victory in World War II. Arthur Herman.
An amazing read.
For Purchase: Car: A Drama of the American Workplace – by Mary Walton
https://www.amazon.com/Car-American-Workplace-Mary-Walton/dp/0393318613
For Free: The Reminiscences of Irvin W. Rybicki
http://www.autolife.umd.umich.edu/Design/Rybicki_interview.htm
Includes a paragraph about GM styling and why it mostly sucks and is always “evolutionary and derivative.” If the following statement was read by Alex Trebek on Jeopardy, the answer would be “Why does General Motors continue to lose market share at an alarming rate to imports?”
“I think it’s important from a marketing point of view because the people who were driving our vehicles today that are one to five years old are still, and feel like they are, members of the General Motors family. An Olds is an Olds is an Olds. If you want to talk about a ’78 or ’80 or an ’85, you recognize an Oldsmobile on the street.” – Irv Rybicki
Like anyone would actually mistake a 1978 Toronado or Ninety Eight Regency Brougham for a 1985 version of the same model car!
Hey Rybicki, you are only fooling yourself and your incompetent bosses. The rest of us are driving Panthers, Caprices, and Fleetwood Broughams. The only thing Ross Perot and Michael Moore agreed on in the 1980’s was that GM Sucked.
GM’s slogan should be “Bridging the partisan divide since 1980.”
I have read the Rybicki interview a few rimes, and I’ve noticed it starts out pretty tame. I’m saying to myself “OK… OK…” and then it turns a corner and it’s like I’m yelling at the girl in the horror movie “DO NOT OPEN THAT DOOR! DO NOT GO INTO THAT HOUSE!” Because it’s pretty clear the exact mindset that sent GM design into a hole for a few decades.
The Car Spotter’s Guides by Tad Burness: American Car Spotter’s Guide 1940-65 (or 1920-80, 1946-69, 1981-90); Truck Spotter’s Guide, Foreign Car Spotter’s Guide, etc.
These books changed my life forever! (Looks like the newer editions are now in color!)
+1000
I had a copy of his “Auto Album” which I got as a Scholastic Book Services book in grade school, I wore out the binding re-readinging (well, it was mostly pictures, so maybe re-viewing is more accurate) it. But I gave it to my nephews, who lost or destroyed it (though it was probably not in best of shape when I gave it to them. Similar fate to my toy car collection, which I gave to my youngest sister, who lost them probably close to 50 years ago.
If you combine this with the JC Whitney catalog which my Dad got back then, and an occaisonal auto magazine (no subscription back then) other than looking around at curbside or roadside cars was the basis of my interest in cars today. Haven’t seen most of the cars Tad had in there (most were rare or well before my time) but otherwise wouldn’t have known of them if not for that one book.
Pretty much every book from Stephen Salmieri (a photographer). Especially this one. A complete guide to all american grilles from T-model to malaise era.
Driving Force: The Past, Present and Future Development of the Car Engine by Jeff Daniels.
Fantastic book which gives the history of engine development. Lots of detail for the CCer but written in a very engaging way. Easy to follow explanations with illustrations. Hard to find these days but an amazing read.
“The People’s Tycoon – Henry Ford and the American Century.” An excellent, in -depth look at the man, his times and his company. A fairly objective look at this complicated man who knew everything about the design, manufacture and sale of automobiles – and little else.
Not really very automotive, but I just finished “The Wages of Destruction” by Adam Tooze, a very lengthy (650 pages) tome on the making and breaking of the Nazi economy. It’s a very in-depth history and analysis of the Nazi/WW2 era through the lens of economics, which of course was a key driver (along with related ideology) of the Nazi era. I had always wondered about just how the German economy worked during this era, and now I know more than I ever expected to.
The significance of analyzing history through economics is that the numbers often tell a more accurate and nuanced story than the more broad-stroke political and social lens. The author debunks a number of popularly held historical assumptions in the process.
I came to this book via a reference to it on a VW forum, because it covers the VW story, naturally, as one of a number of initiatives by Hitler to modernize the German economy with an emphasis on roads and mass-produced cars. The author’s conclusion about VW’s likely outcome if there hadn’t been a war was surprising and interesting. I will do a post on that.
For any students of the era, I can highly recommend it, although it is quite dense.
You might also be interested in Cars for Comrades: The Life of the Soviet Automobile by Lewis Siegelbaum. It focuses on cars as opposed to the entire economy but it’s an interesting look at Stalinism.
+1. That is a great book. There is always a waiting list for it at the library.
Another book of related interest is “Neither friend nor foe: the European neutrals in World War II”. The author exams the political and economic implications of remaining neutral in WWII for five countries: Sweden, Ireland, Portugal, Spain and Switzerland. The author is Jerrold Packard – perhaps that makes it automotive related?
Adam Tooze’s “The Wages of Destruction” is an intriguing look at wartime Germany’s economy. In a similar vein there’s also “Britain’s War Machine” by David Edgerton which has its flaws and needs to be read in conjunction with other revisionist works but is interesting and offers some compelling arguments.
I just finished The Decline & Fall of the American Automobile Industry by Brock Yates. Published in 1984, it’s a bit dated today, but also prescient in a lot of ways. The GM J-cars had been on the market a few years at this point, so he focuses on them (and their failures) a lot.
Oh, I have yet to read them, but I also have Bob Lutz’ Car Guys vs. Bean Counters and Icons and Idiots in my ebooks queue.
Truck: A Love Story by Michael Perry
Any Clive Cussler novel
The Caine Mutiny
“Ford: The Dust and the Glory” by Leo Levine
“A Century of Automotive Style” by Michael Lamm and David Holls
“Go Like Hell” by AJ Baime
“Billy Durant: Creator of General Motors” by Lawrence Gustin
Just to name a few…
A number of years ago I got a copy of “Chrysler, the Life And Times of an Automotive Genius” (https://www.amazon.com/Chrysler-Automotive-Genius-History-Personalities/dp/0195147057)
The book is about 20 years old and is a very deep read, but one that goes into great detail of both Walter Chrysler himself (an automotive pioneer who is not as well known today as he should be) and the amazing story of the birth and growth of his company. It is an excellent read that I started to write a review of years ago before getting sidetracked, mainly by being overwhelmed by the amount of fascinating information packed into the book.
That sounds very interesting. Walter P. Chrysler is someone I’ve longed to read about. Last year when we were in Western Kansas, I really wanted to visit Chrysler’s boyhood home in Ellis, Kan., but it was just a bit too far away from where we were traveling.
I fervently recommend:
• Truck, by John Jerome—a hell of an entertaining…I can’t in fairness call it an account of rebuilding a 1950 pickup truck. It’s that, but that description is inadequate; like calling the Mona Lisa a painting of a woman.
• Van People: The Great American Rainbow Boogie by Douglas Kent Hall. A thoroughly titterworthy look at custom-van culture, written in the 1977 thick of it.
• Inventing for Fun and Profit by Jack (Jacob) Rabinow. Don’t be put off or misled by the clanger of a title, which sounds like a how-to book Wile E. Coyote might have read. Rabinow was a prolific and important American inventor. He was also a terrific storyteller; he’ll keep you up past bedtime, making and breaking successive one-more-chapter deals with yourself.
• Farmer’s Law: Junk in a World of Affluence by Richard Farmer. This book was given to me years ago by a drunk. Bob’s being a drunk (a functional one; he did fine for himself, kept a job and a house, and never that I know of crashed any of his many cars) has nothing to do with this book, which is a practical look at the world through an overlooked lens.
• The Complete Calvin and Hobbes (box set), by Bill Watterson. Get it now—prices have come way down, as it seems—and start in on it when the days get short and cold. If you need an explanation of why this is on the list, run and get it now.
• Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World, by Dan Koeppel. Yes, really.
• Gogo’s Car Breaks Down, by Anne Rockwell. File this one under “Curbivores, Making Future”. Get this book if there are small children in your life, and read it to them. When I was little I couldn’t get enough of this book; I wanted it again and again, over and over—and now just look at the long-term results!
• The Petersen Automotive Troubleshooting & Repair Manual, by Erwin M. Rosen. Worth its weight in whatever costly stuff you care to compare, and not just if you’d like to learn (or learn more) about keeping just about every part of a ’60s-’70s American car running and working. There’s great material on proper use and care of tools, and extensive, excellent coverage of emission controls of the day—with enough philosophising to make it entertaining. It’s unusually well written and there are lots of photos. I got my copy from my grandfather, decades ago. I still refer to it regularly.
• Dreams and Wars of an American Inventor. It’s by Oscar H. Banker, who has a legitimate paternity claim to the automatic transmission. He tirelessly railed—with rigourous data on his side—against unsafe automatic shift quadrants with adjacent reverse and forward drive positions. For it, he got mocked by officials, scorned by officials, and shunned by SAE.
• A Savage Factory: An Eyewitness Account of the Auto Industry’s Self-Destruction, by Robert J. Dewar. This book was mentioned in the comments here on CC. I second that recommendation with great vigour. If I say more than Yikes, I’ll spoil it, but I think Car & Driver got it right when they said “If ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ had taken place in a plant in the 1970s, it would be ‘A Savage Factory’.”
• Chrysler Engines, 1922-1998, by Bill Weertman. No compilation of reheated magazine articles or shop manual specs, this; Weertman was there. He was Chrysler’s Managing Engine Design Engineer ’55-’62, Assistant Chief Engine Design & Development Engineer ’62-’76, and Chief Engine Engineer ’76-’87. He’s also a talented descriptive writer and storyteller.
Re: John Jerome–I also recommend his book “Death of the Automobile”. It’s funnier and much better written than Brock Yates’ “Decline and Fall of the American Automobile” (cited in a comment above).
“Calvin & Hobbes”: Oh, absolutely! Sadly, a lot of people under 30 either don’t know who Calvin & Hobbes are, or they know the characters but never read the comic strip! (“There was this page in the NEWSPAPER called the “FUNNIES”, and… Oh, never mind…”)
A pastor I knew once said that when he was in seminary, “While the other students were reading John Calvin, I was reading Calvin & Hobbes!” (He probably learned a lot more too!) 🙂
John Jerome has long struck me as markedly less baselessly self-impressed—and a better writer, and very likely a better person—than Brock Yates.
Thank you for the Amazon links. I think. This post just added 3 more items to my shopping cart.
There would have been 4, but fortunately I checked the pricing on ‘Van People’, then sheepishly tucked it into a “Wish List”.
Y’got me curious; which three? (Keep an eye on “Van People”; it seems to fluctuate quite a lot)
Truck, Farmer’s Law and A Savage Factory. ( I already own Calvin & Hobbes.)
Plus one on Calvin and Hobbes. I have the book, and I reread these comics every day on line.
I am still working my way through The Gus Stories, of which I saw a link here at CC. Go to http://www.gus-stories.org/The_Stories.htm
I’m going to give a shout out to the current equivalent of Calvin and Hobbes, called “Wallace the Brave”, by Will Henry. Similar themes, except that Wallace isn’t a little psychopath (but his brother is).
(Also very slightly more automotive than C&H in that Wallace’s dad”s pickup is an occasional theme.)
Auto Biography by Earl Swift. The author traces the complete history of a 1957 Chevy station wagon from its original owner to the current one, a man attempting to restore it.
the mary Walton book about the Taurus is one of my all time favourite books. The chapter about making the HVAC buttons was amazing. Really well written with lots of compelling detail and drama.
Iacoccas autobiography is a cannot miss.
There was a book about ford which came out in the mid eighties which was great.
I second the savage factory. Fascinating look at how cars were made in a bygone time.
I didn’t think yates book about the Chrysler minivan or eric taubs taurus book were as good as mary Walton’s, but they weren’t a total waste of time.
For a completely different subject, there’s a biography of colonel sanders. He was . . . Unhinged is a nice way of putting it.
Not automotive in the slightest, but if you’re interested in how the sausage gets made with technology in general, Tracy Kidder’s Soul of a New Machine is a must read. It’s similar to Mary Walton’s Car, but instead of the Taurus it follows the team building a new minicomputer in the late 1970s.
Many years ago I found these in bookshops in Denmark:
“The decline and fall of the american automobile industry” by Brock Yates
“On a clear day you can see General Motors” by J. Patrick Wright
Newer books:
“Le Mans ’55” by Christopher Hilton
“Into the Red”/ “Passion for Speed” by Nick Mason and Mark Hales (nice sounds!).
If I could only have ONE book: “Berømte Biler” by J.D. Scheel (In Danish).
In books, I’ve gravitated toward anything with a WWII theme.
1942, The Year That Tried Men’s Souls by Winston Groom is excellent – as is the other Groom novels, such as Forest Gump. 1942 is non-fiction and focuses heavily on the war in the Pacific, the front of the war with which I am less familiar.
The Hitler biography by ____ Toland. Excellent book, filling in innumerable details about both the war and Hitler. In paperback it was over 1,200 pages but well worth it, covering Hitler’s early life.
One book I have on my bookshelf and want to read is Inside The Third Reich by Albert Speer. I may be having some downtime in the near future and it’s on my shortlist to read.
There are several others I have read, but titles and authors are escaping me. One is a WWII trilogy that is historical fiction as the author creates conversations for well-documented events. It is where I developed my appreciation for General George S. Patton.
Not long ago, I picked up a copy of Patton’s WWII memoir “War as I Knew It” — if you haven’t read it already, it’s a worthwhile read, not only on some of the background of WWII’s greatest moments, but also in the realization that these top generals were besieged by bureaucracy and mundane tasks as much as they were by the enemy.
I also enjoy WWI and WWII histories and historical fiction and probably have over 100 books in this genre packed away in boxes in the garage. I’m currently working my way through a six-novel set by David Black revolving around a British WWII submariner named Harry Gilmour. Black took great pains to ensure the history around his fictional character is accurate, and I’m enjoying reading of a submariner’s life in the Royal Navy. The first book in the series is entitled Gone to Sea in a Bucket.
Speer’s two most readable books were “Inside the Third Reich” (1969) and “Spandau: The Secret Diaries” (1975), both benefiting from being edited by an experienced journalist. Speer’s later work, published without stylistic help, is hard going.
Sprinkled with anecdotes, on matters about architecture and armaments, “Inside the Third Reich” is regarded as reliable and generally truthful but with Speer, what’s always loomed between the lines is what he didn’t say. He hinted, obliquely at the start, but later, especially to the biographer who wrote the longest study, he seemed almost to be longing to admit the guilt of the knowledge he’d denied since the Nuremberg trial. Had he lived another ten years, one wonders if he might have extracted his own confession.
The most obvious coda to Speer’s own works are Joachim Fest’s “Speer: The Final Verdict” (2002), Matthias Schmidt’s “Albert Speer: The End of a Myth” (1984) and Gitta Sereny’s “Albert Speer: His Battle with Truth” (1995). All these are constructed around variations of one theme: What Speer knew. Much evidence, not available at his trial, is discussed, including Erich Goldhagen’s assertion Speer must have been present to hear from Himmler himself the details of the holocaust and the discovery of documents (which had been deliberately concealed) implicating him even while he worked as an architect. Interesting too is the slow progress Speer made over the years, summoning different phrases to admit his greatest wrong was to “look the other way” while still maintaining he had no knowledge of anything from which he should have averted his gaze.
For the Third Reich, you can’t beat Richard Evans (Prof at Cambridge) trilogy, published in the UK as Coming of the TR, TR in Power and TR at War. Accessible academic history at its best, if you can cope with the subject matter
can’t beat Rise and Fall of the Thrid Reich. It’s a huge book. Also, try Studs Terekl, The Good War. Both authors pulitzer prize winners.
Though I’m an avid reader, I rarely read automotive-related books — so this thread is very interesting to me. I think I’ll follow up on some of the suggestions here.
One transportation-related book that I enjoyed is a 1956 book titled “Trolley Car Treasury.” It was written by a trolley enthusiast, but in a rather non-biased way that explores both the benefits and downsides of trolleys (and what makes it particularly interesting is that it was written in the 1950s, when it seemed as if the days of trolleys were over for good – few would have guessed that they’d make a resurgence decades later).
An aspect of this book I found particularly interesting was reading about the decline of the once-popular urban trolley systems — and to a modern reader, there’s many parallels to the fate of some more modern public transit systems, such as the Washington Metro system. For instance, they were popular and transformative when introduced, but the operators took their customers for granted, didn’t invest in new rolling stock, and were content with having passengers ride overcrowded vehicles in rush hours. Eventually, commuters found other modes of transportation that suited their needs better, and the trolley systems eventually gave way to more flexible bus systems. Anyway, it’s worth a read for those who are interested in the topic.
My dear old man has that somewhere amongst many an old train and tram book.
I think his ’67 Chev-driving friend of many moons ago (who was that not-entirely-common thing in Oz, a US-enthusiast) found it somewhere on one of his many US trips, this one to the east coast in the ’70’s. I loved it as a kid. Strange child, really. I doubt I really understood much of the text!
Ford trucks:
International:
Harry Truman’s Excellent Adventure: The True Story of a Great American Road Trip by Matthew Algeo
This book has been mentioned here before. It is an excellent vacation read and available in multiple formats. The author brings to life a lost era where an ex-President lived the life of an average American to the most extent possible, including a road trip driving his own new car. Along the way – on pre-Interstate roadways – we experience meals in independent coffee shops and cafes, stays in motels and hotels outside of the big chains, and gas station stops that involve neighborly conversations and ice-cold bottles of pop on boiling hot days before auto air conditioning was common. Algeo has written a classic that is well worth reading and reflecting on during a dramatically different period in American life.
https://www.amazon.com/Harry-Trumans-Excellent-Adventure-Matthew/dp/1569767076
That is a very good book. I purchased my copy at the Truman Library and consumed it immediately. Truman was a devout Mopar man.
“Catastrophe, Risk and Response” by Richard Posner. People who consider themselves to be “conservative” might do well to read this book by former Judge Richard Posner of the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals. Judge Posner is one of the foremost conservatives of the era and was widely considered to be the most intelligent judge in the United States. His quantitative and common sense analysis of the costs of ignoring threats to civilization are not easily ignored.
The below are the car business or management in general:
“When It Hits the Fan: Managing the Nine Crises of Business”- Gerald C Meyers
Meyers was the former Chairman and CEO of AMC. He’s seen his share of crisis in business.
“Overhaul” – Steven Rattener
Covers GM and Chrysler during the 2009 bankruptcies and the behind the scenes negotiations. Chrysler was on its death bed and GM wasn’t too far behind.
“Riding the Roller Coaster – A History of Chrysler Corp” – Charles K Hyde
Chrysler has had its share of mis-management prior to 1980 and 2009.
Here is another one of my favourites.
East European Cars by Julian Nowill. Full of super obscure cars from the other side of the Iron Curtain.
“Behind the Wheel at Chrysler “, “Riding the Roller Coaster “, and last but certainly not least. ..”Stilwell and the American Experience in China 1911-1945”. Oh, I almost forgot “Super fortress ” by none other than Curtiss LeMay.
Try also “The generalissimo: Chiang Kai-Shek and the struggle for modern China.” Provides an opposing and very unflattering view of Stilwell.
Most of the car books i read are for personal reasons –
Jabby Crombacs’ biography of Colin Chapman because I’ve loved Lotus cars since 1952,
‘Cosworth’ by Graham Robson because I love engines
Iacocca – because I had to,
But if I’m going to recommend a good read, then the cars are Swedish and incidental, and the book is ‘A Man Called Ove’ – but you might need kneelex close at hand…
(and the book is fiction- we’re not talking about a Swedish rally driver here)
Ah, you beat me to it. Any automotive non-fiction list will be lengthy, and vary so much depending on interests. But for fiction, I too was going to nominate A Man Called Ove. Great story, which weaves cars into the plot and character in a way that all of us CC-ers can appreciate. Pretty good movie, also.
Ah, only ever seen the film of A Man Called Ove, which was sweet.
On comments to previous posts, many have referred to and recommended “On a Clear Day You Can See General Motors” by John DeLorean. I haven’t read it yet, but it is at the top of my list.
I enjoyed “Car” by Mary Walton about the gestation of the 3rd Gen Ford Taurus.
I’ll mention it again, The Last Open Road by Burt Levy is historical fiction about the early days of open road sports car racing in the early fifties, told through the eyes of a young New Jersey mechanic.
It’s very good, the best racing themed novel I’ve ever read. I have my copy somewhere if you want to swing by and borrow it.
It’s the first of a series of six novels, but my enjoyment of the series declined by about 20 percent with each subsequent book.
Yes, The Last Open Road is the best of the series and a must-read for the motor head. Notwithstanding the neat historical references in each one, you’re about right on the percentage of enjoyment decrease for each subsequent book.
It may be time to dust it off and read it again.
Yes. I read this one when we were first in lockdown last spring. Great coming of age novel.
Devotion: An Epic Story of Heroism, Friendship, and Sacrifice. Adam Makos
An amazing, easy to read book about two Naval aviators.
Use this link to see some readers reviews.
https://www.amazon.com/Devotion-Story-Heroism-Friendship-Sacrifice/dp/0804176604/ref=sr_1_3?dchild=1&keywords=devotion book&qid=1598905056&s=books&sr=1-3
Makos has another very good book titled “A Higher Call”. Primarily about Franz Stigler, a German pilot, it recounts his opting to not shoot down an American plane as it was heading west out of France. Years later Stigler met the American pilot and they became the best of friends.
+1
I am an avid reader and have read many of the titles suggested here, including Mary Walton’s “Car” and the John Jerome treatise. Some good reads await you here.
I will offer this left-field suggestion: Chrome Dreams – Automobile Styling Since 1893, by Paul Wilson. Originally conceived as a graduate thesis and then rewritten in a far more entertaining style for automobile enthusiasts, the author uses empirical data to interpret the public’s taste of a particular time. Long out of print, so check Amazon or your favorite used book store for a copy.
I’ll second Chrome Dreams! Bought my copy about forty years ago, and a great read.
I enjoyed British MP Alan Clark’s “Back Fire” which was based on his experiences of the wide variety of cars he’d owned over the decades, as well as other musings.
For the Munchies on the road:
Since no-one’s mentioned it yet, How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive – A Manual of Step by Step Procedures for the Compleat Idiot is an entertaining and philosophical read all by itself, even if you don’t own a VW.
Bought a copy many years ago at a garage sale long before I could drive. One of my childhood favorites.
If you read German, I highly recommend “Blick aus der Grube” by Fritz Naumann if you can find it, a development engineer for Mercedes and then Audi from the 1960’s through the early 1990’s. Fascinating inside stuff as to he decisions were made up and and including remote testing trips into the arctic and the deserts. I picked mine up from Audi’s museum store in 2003, it may be out of print but copies float around.
Formula One fans will enjoy “Life in the Pit Lane”, since renamed “Life in the Fast Lane” by Steve Matchett (SpeedTV F1 commentator) who was a mechanic for Benetton F1 back in the day and this chronicles his experiences back then.
“The Lexus Story” bu Jonathan Mahler is a Lexus publication that is basically the entire history of Lexus from concept through about the mid-2000s. Big, hardcover with tons of excellent photos and a well written text it is pretty self-explanatory but very interesting.
And for non-auto related one of my favorites has to be “Fire In the Valley – The Making Of The Personal Computer” by Freiberger and Swaine which to me is the definitive history encompassing Microsoft, Apple Sun, Netscape, Lotus, Oracle and many, many more, copyright 2000 so pretty old now but fascinating. Note I am not a computer guy nor in the tech industry but the topic (the history thereof) fascinates me. (Hence one my favorite TV shows of the last few years was “Halt and Catch Fire” which pretty much plays in the same era(s) and locations. )
And lastly if you’ve ever been into scale modeling, then “Master Modeler – Creating the Tamiya Style” is excellent and chronicles the history of Japanese scale model powerhouse Tamiya. I’m sure Old Pete probably has a signed copy… 🙂
Actually I don’t have that, Jim! 🙂
Jim, have you seen https://www.folklore.org? It’s a whole bunch of first-person anecdotes about the making of the original 1984 Macintosh and other Apple-ish things from that time (including the ouster of Steve Jobs.)
I have not but thank you for that! I also see the link to “Revolution in the Valley” a book re the Mac’s development. Thanks!
If I had one book to recommend, Drive On, by LJK Setright. What a writer!
This title isn’t as dense as some of his writings; it’s a scholarly but at the same time amusing look at the impact of the car on society. He approaches the topic from several different perspectives through the decades, with plenty on the development of the automobile on the side. His depth of learning in so many different fields is always evident but never obtrusive. His analysis of the trends throughout human history and his ability to find parallels you never saw before is quite, quite astounding.
Makes everyone else I’ve ever read seem like a mere pretender.
Definitely! I bought a copy of that book quite a long time ago, and it’s one of the few books I’ve read twice. If I had to choose only one car-related book to ever read, this would be it.
I will make an effort to find that book, then.
I was fascinated by his style, but often found it a bit obtuse, or at least, abstract to the point of pulseless.
He used to have a column in Car and Driver, but people wrote in to protest! I remember one he wrote to commemorate James Joyce – while grammatically faultless (of course), as to meaning I found it totally incomprehensible. Every now and then I try to read it through to the end – impossible.
Drive On is just about the polar opposite; Setright at his most readable.
If I may put in a plug – abebooks.com is a good source.
Happy reading!
That was on my list too! Lots of Bristols, of course.
Two books that altered the direction of my life
Truck, John Jerome, already cited
Rolling Homes, Handmade Houses on Wheels, Jane Lidz
I have since spent far more time rescuing old trucks and building gypsy campers than I ever should have.
Give all your tools away before reading.
“A Savage Factory: An Eyewitness Account of the Auto Industry’s Self-Destruction” by Robert Dewar.
This is an entertaining book about a young manager’s experiences and horror stories while working in the Ford automatic transmission factory near Cincinnati, Ohio. The union vs. management battles, and “production at all costs, regardless of quality” philosophy won’t be surprising to anyone who worked in a similar factory during the ’70’s and ’80’s.
Car related, Blue Highways by Willian Least Heat Moon.
West will win related, James Bond series, by Ian Fleming.
Oh where to start! “All’s Quiet on the Western Front” is as relevant now as it was nearly a century ago. “Frankenstein” is exceptionally well written and almost nothing like what Hollywood showed you, and it recently had its 200th anniversary. “Moby Dick” is an old favorite as is “The Great Gatsby”. “Satan Is Real” by Charley Louvin (I know that’s a terrible name and it has an awful cover but the book is very good). It tells the story of the Louvin Brothers of country music fame. “To Kill A Mockingbird” is excellent. Stephen King has too many good books to list. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s “The Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes” stories are also great. Oh, “The Big House” by George Howe Colt. It tells the story of a Cape Cod summer home that has been in the family for generations and the family ‘s struggle over how to keep or let it go. It’s a perfect sit at the lake kind of read.
To Kill A Mockingbird is one rare case where I like the movie better than the book.
I’ve got to confess to being one who never finished old Moby, though I suspect I am not entirely alone.
Yes, The Last Open Road is the best of the series and a must-read for the motor head. Notwithstanding the neat historical references in each one, you’re about right on the percentage of enjoyment decrease for each subsequent book.
It may be time to dust it off and read it again.
“A Confederacy of Dunces” by John Kennedy Toole.
“Congo Kitabu” by Jean-Pierre Hallet. He spent some years in the former Belgian Congo, first with the colonial administration and then in business. To give you an idea of the kind of guy he was, he once successfully wrestled a leopard.
For black humor, Carl Hiaasen’s novels, but you have to get the right ones. He hadn’t really hit his stride with the first few, and his later ones are a bit formulaic. “Skin Tight” is my favorite, but “Lucky You,” “Stormy Weather,” and “Sick Puppy” are also very good.
+1 on “Car.”
“Disaster in Dearborn” by Thomas Bonsall.
A solid even handed look at the Edsel story.
Car related (sort of): “The Prize” by Daniel Yergin, the classic history of the oil industry. Don’t be intimidated by its doorstop size, it’s surprisingly readable and contains all sorts of interesting facts and anecdotes about the stuff that makes cars, and much of the rest of our world, go. Like who knew that gasoline was originally an undesirable byproduct of kerosene production? And seeing just how close to the edge everyone was running their energy resources in WWII puts that conflict in a whole new light. I recently found out that the author wrote a sequel called “The Quest” covering the period from about 1990 to maybe 2010ish, and I haven’t read it but among other things it addresses the coming of electric cars.
Non-car-related: “Every Second Counts” by Donald McRae. A gripping account of the race to be the first to successfully transplant a human heart. Extremely well-written and well-researched, and it’s hard to get more dramatic scenes than those involving heart surgery! Also an interesting meditation on the nature of fame/credit for an achievement, including the pursuit of it, who gets it vs who deserves it, and the effects on those it comes to.
I’m not big on automotive books. I read this one years ago.
Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry into the Value of Work by Matthew Crawford is in the same vein. He also wrote Why We Drive: Toward a Philosophy of the Open Road.
2 years ago I read a lot about the Battle of Jutland, the largest battleship battle in WW I (and probably ever). (My grandfather fought in it and came within about 6″ of being killed.) _Jutland the Unfinished Battle_ was written by the grandson of the British admiral in charge Jellicoe; _The Rules of the Game_ by Andrew Gordon gets deep into the development of the culture of the British Navy; _Castles of Steel_ by Robert Massie covers the British and German arms race leading up to the war. All are worth reading.
Jellicoe was a much better tactician than Beatty, who came within a sacrifice by a turret officer (Major Francis Harvey) of experiencing how lax turret discipline and ignoring powder handling procedures can disintegrate your ship. His tactics seemed to be ‘let’s stand and shoot at each other side by side’ while Jellicoe assessed the situation and turned the Grand Fleet’s battleships in the correct direction to cross the High Seas Fleet’s ‘T’ – twice! Beatty gave him precious little information about the German navy’s position that afternoon and his job was to scout the position of the enemy for Jellicoe.
Oh yeah, this is about books…Small Wonder comes to mind, an excellent book about VW’s birth and pre-watercooled success.
If you want something lighter, Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman is one of my favorite books. It has some automotive bits (the demon Crowley drives an old Bentley, and we learn that the shape of the loop motorway around London forms a satanic symbol).
Peter Carey is a two-times Booker Prize-winning Australian fiction writer who grew up near Melbourne in the ’40’s/50’s as the son of the local Holden dealer. His latest book, A Long Way Home, has a young couple who own a local garage near Melbourne entering their car in the famous 1955 Round Australia Reliability trial. (These were super-tough events run over a couple of weeks that became very important marketing points for cars that otherwise might never have sold here, like VW and Peugeot, who both won it in different years).
Carey is superb magpie, stealing bits of stories from everywhere and weaving them into one. I think it’s wonderful that a high-falutin’ New-York-Times-well-reviewed type author has the sharp car knowledge of any lowly rev-head: the car details within are all absolutely spot-on.
Perhaps not strictly a car book as such – more part-comedy, then an actual and metaphorical journey into the Australian heart – but it is centered round a car race and is simply a quite superb read.
For some rather recreational fiction with automotive backdrop:
https://www.agentur-literatur.de/rights/hestekrefter-horsepower/
That one is loved by every car guy in my rather extensive circle of fellows, striking lots of strings well beyond the admiration of obsolete automobilia.
English translation seems in the making, anyone speaking German or one of the Nordics can enjoy right away.
Fiction? Any of the Flashman novels by George McDonald Frazer.
Non fiction. “The Rules of the Game by Andrew Gordon. Covers the battle of Jutland, and the Royal Navy culture that lead up to the battle.
My Other Wife is a Car by John M Wright is an entertaining read if you enjoy automotive autobiographies
Where the Suckers Moon: The Life and Death of an Advertising Campaign Paperback – October 31, 1995 , by Randall Rothenberg. An account of Subaru’s early marketing and advertising history, and mistakes, in the USA. Also contains the most detailed history I know of the predecessor Nakajima Aircraft company, and description of Subaru management and design philosophy back in the day. Origins of t he Subaru DNA so to speak.
Car, by Mary Walton. Mentioned here already several times. I have given this book to a few young people starting out in their corporate careers!
Jenks: A Passion for Motor Sport – June 1, 1997 ed. by John Blunsden and with introduction by Stirling Moss. Hard to find. A compendium of writings by the long time F1 reporter for Motor Sport magazine, Denis Jenkinson, who also write a number of books himself.
Ferry Porsche: Cars Are My Life New Edition
by Ferry Porsche (Author), Gunther Molter (Author). An insider’s view.
With you on Jenks, Motor Sport magazine’s Continental Correspondent, Moss’s Mille Miglia navigator, and very much Mr Ten Tenths. His account of driving as fast as possible on an invented circuit around most of southern England on Christmas Day has to be read to be believed.
I could add DSJ’s The Racing Driver ( EZ to find used) for a concise analysis of that profession. Jenks oughta’ know!
Once DSJ retired from F1 reporting, that sport never really interested me any more. I also recall the race reports in Road&Track by Rob Walker, Innes Ireland, Henry Manney, and I think Doug Nye. But Jenks was t he master.
PS I’ve just ordered The Unfair Advantage by Mark Donohue.
Here they both are on my desk at home.
+1 🙂
The Milepost’s latest edition is always good for dreaming of a driving vacation to Alaska. I’ve been reading that a lot lately.
“My Years with General Motors” by Albert Sloan (in my view, the GM “ladder” of makes from Chevy to Caddy was not really valid- GM started making each make into its own ladder of trim levels – e.g. Chevrolet 150 to Bel Air) But still a good read.
A query: many (50?) years ago I read a novel based on Henry Ford. I vividly recall the HFII character coming home from the Navy and firing the Harry Bennett character (Bennett a dangerous guy). I just cannot recall the name of the novel.
Here are a few not already mentioned:
Foster, Patrick – Studebaker: The Complete History
Turnquist, Robert – The Packard Story: The Car And The Company
(My favorite histories of independents)
Nevins, Allan – Ford
(My favorite history of Ford, in 3 volumes)
Chrysler, Walter – Life of an American Workman
(Chrysler in his own words. My favorite auto autobiography)
Neely, William – 505 Automobile Questions Your Friends Can’t Answer
&
Yost, Stanley K. – They Don’t Build Cars Like They Used To
(Fun trivia for when you want a light read. The Yost book focuses mostly on early cars and their unusual technical features).
Siegelbaum, Lewis H. – Cars For Comrades: The Life Of The Soviet Automobile
(Fascinating history of an alternate universe)
Swift, Earl – Auto Biography
(Very cool true story that traces the ownership history of a ’57 Chevy wagon and how it affected each owner’s life)
Currently reading the autobiography of Romain Gary, Promise At Dawn. He was a French pilot in WWII and later a novelist and ambassador. Not auto related, but a very well written, humorous and unjustly forgotten classic.
Amazing and well written book on motorocycle engine design, Top Dead Center by Kevin Cameron
Not sure what it says about me, but my favorite book is “1984” by George Orwell.
I’ve read it at least five times over the years.
Seems less fictional each time.
There is endless pleasure to be had from leafing through Graham Robson’s definitive and handsomely illustrated directory of post-war British cars, also referred to as the catalogue of lost causes. From Audax timelines to one-off microcars, it might just be my desert island book.
Robson on BMC, accompanied by Rawbone on Ford.
How to do it wrong, vs how to do it right.
Ford UK made some missteps (Consul Classic, Mk IV Zodiac), but for BMC, the brilliant but unprofitable blended with humdrum and unkillable, until they were saved [IRONY] by British Leyland.
Finally, something a bit different: a completed album of 1930s Players cigarette cards. These were distributed in packets of cigarettes and covered every topic imaginable, from movie stars to butterflies. They are highly collectible now. The album is packed with delightful line drawings showing old coaching inns around Britain, for the dedicated motor tourer. Got a light?
Tatra: The Legacy of Hans Ledwinka:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Tatra-Legacy-Ledwinka-Collectors-copies/dp/1845847997/ref=sr_1_1?crid=ACLX9W8RMBKD&dchild=1&keywords=tatra cars&qid=1600302289&s=books&sprefix=tart,aps,320&sr=1-1
T87, do you know this one? My local library got it for me on interlibrary loan a few years ago.