Essential Motorsport Books...

[realjv]

Black Noon by Art Garner about the 1964 Indy 500 is very good and captures the great race at a tipping point in its history.

[Ian_sUK]

Miss Pitstop said:

For a more general sport book, Lance Armstrong's "it's not about the bike" is possibly the best autobiography I have ever read. Truely inspiring, and an awesome human being.

I read this thinking WTF then looked at the date

[LaurasOtherHalf]

Seeing as it's crimbo...

Johny Herbert and Damon Hill's Lights Out And Full Throttle

What an absolutely fantastic read. It really is what it says on the tin dust jacket, two blokes rabbiting on about F1. In fact the very fact you're on PH I'd say is enough to recommend it, as it's presented in essentially forum style with two posters, one each being Johny an Damon.

If you'd ever imagined what it would be like to go down the pub with them I guess this is the answer. 10/10 from me

[johnpsanderson]

Ian_sUK said:

I read this thinking WTF then looked at the date

Indeed. I am going to re-read 'It's Not About The Bike' and 'Every Second Counts' this Christmas, to see how strong the sense of dramatic irony is!

[anonymous-user]

Some excellent books in this recent auction sale, I was after a few but they went over my budget...

https://www.lawrences.co.uk/sales/fine-art-sales/f...

[coppice]

I can heartily recommend DRIVEN - an elegy to cars roads and motorsport , a bargain at about twelve quid. Superbly written too, by some bloke called John Aston , who posts on here as Coppice. End of plug .

[LaurasOtherHalf]

pablo said:

Some excellent books in this recent auction sale, I was after a few but they went over my budget...

https://www.lawrences.co.uk/sales/fine-art-sales/f...

Bugger, I'd have bid on some of those.

coppice said:

I can heartily recommend DRIVEN - an elegy to cars roads and motorsport , a bargain at about twelve quid. Superbly written too, by some bloke called John Aston

Might have to give that a whirl!

[RamseyG]

A very good book is the Stainless Steel Carrot. It is about the American racer - John Morton racing the Peter Brock Datsun 410. It was recently reprinted and should be available via Amazon.

[Fane]

It might seem a bit old fogey for most of you, but "A bit Behind the Times" by Kenneth Neve is a fascinating insight into another world, when you could tow your Bugatti T35 to race meetings behind a Rolls Royce Phantom II tow car and take the mighty Fiat Mephistopheles for a spin round Southport on trade plates.

[itsallyellow]

Any updates on this? How does Jensons book read?

Have read most of the ones listed now.

Lost Generating being the best.

Also really enjoyed No Angel, Bernie Ecclestones book.

Its getting warmer now so some sun lounger and a book time is required!

[coppice]

LaurasOtherHalf said:

Seeing as it's crimbo...

Johny Herbert and Damon Hill's Lights Out And Full Throttle

What an absolutely fantastic read. It really is what it says on the tin dust jacket, two blokes rabbiting on about F1. In fact the very fact you're on PH I'd say is enough to recommend it, as it's presented in essentially forum style with two posters, one each being Johny an Damon.

If you'd ever imagined what it would be like to go down the pub with them I guess this is the answer. 10/10 from me

Late reaction from me , and a generous score of five . It is self consciously chatty , the humour is laboured and God above , if ever a book needed a sub editor - or ghost who knew his subject ... JH apparently drove for 'Benneton ' , JYS for 'Tyrell ' , and Ronnie 'Petersen ' was the late Swede. . 'Puccini' was the opera guy , Johnny , and 'Piccinini' the Ferrari team boss and - Lord preserve us Damon - Ecclestone bought Brabham from Ron Tauranac , not Rob Walker....

[anonymous-user]

itsallyellow said:

Any updates on this? How does Jensons book read?

If you mean “life on the limit”, then it reads pretty poorly. I found it cheap in a charity shop so don’t feel hard done to given i made it through the first 30 pages, skipped to the Brawn era, then gave it away. It’s like reading pages and pages of modern Autosport F1 race reviews, you’re just bombarded with “this happened, then that happened, then another thing happened, the n the other thing happened again……”

The Collecting Cars podcast with Button is far more enjoyable than the book

[moffspeed]

moffspeed said:

Agree with the majority of the suggestions here, in particular “The Lost Generation” and “Mon Ami Mate”. Darren Banks & Kevin Guthrie’s recent work on Tom Pryce is also superb.

However there is one book that is unrivalled when it comes to a database of all things motorsport prior to 1970 - Georganos Encyclopaedia of Motor Sport. Published in 1971, over 650 pages and filled with wonderful/obscure photos. Separate sections cover drivers, constructors and circuits/venues. In my view nothing else comes close.

This is a book that used to command good money - but there is a copy in “good condition” on EBay U.K. at present - £6 including postage - come on one of you lot - snap it up…

[moffspeed]

pablo said:

itsallyellow said:

Any updates on this? How does Jensons book read?

If you mean “life on the limit”, then it reads pretty poorly. I found it cheap in a charity shop so don’t feel hard done to given i made it through the first 30 pages, skipped to the Brawn era, then gave it away. It’s like reading pages and pages of modern Autosport F1 race reviews, you’re just bombarded with “this happened, then that happened, then another thing happened, the n the other thing happened again……”

The Collecting Cars podcast with Button is far more enjoyable than the book

A bit confusing really, Jenson’s book was titled “Life to the Limit”.

“Life at the Limit” was the title of Prof Sid Watkins’ book from 1997 but Graham Hill’s autobiography bore the same title in the early 70’s….

[anonymous-user]

If I know one thing about motorsport it’s that we all love a good cliche…

[coppice]

I avoid them like the plague . Oops

[Silver Smudger]

How to Build a Car, Adrian Newey's autobiography, is very interesting for modern F1 stuff, and if you are interested in the classic era, the quite technical but fascinating The Sports Car: Its design and performance by Colin Campbell

[entropy]

Racers by Doug Nye which I found going cheap at secondhand book stall. Fantastic insight into how Frank Williams went aspiring racing driver to building two F1 teams and went to challenge for world championships up until 1982.

I found this rather sad. The foundations of Frank's empire came from his wheeler dealing, buying and selling customer cars, to being protective of Williams Grand Prix Engineering in the 2010s for not allowing customer cars in modern F1.

[LukeBrown66]

and also if you watch the movie, you realise how much of a pivotal role his wife played and how many other women would have walked long before!!