Book Review: Top 25 Race Cars of All Time

We’ve got another treat for you guys and gals from Motorbooks.  This time, we take a look at Basem Wasef’s “Legendary Race Cars”.

“Legendary Race Cars” is Basem’s Top 25 Race Cars of all time.  I dig how he’s chosen cars from all corners of the globe and from all forms of racing.  The book includes an off-road race truck, a WRC Rally Car, a Pikes Peak turbo monster, Le Mans cars from various decades, F1, a Nostalgia NHRA dragster and a few cars from the early 1900’s.

The pictures and photography are excellent.  It includes shots taken by the author himself as well as old archive photography from the race car’s hey-day.  Here’s a few examples below of Basem’s quality work.

You can’t have a Top Race Car’s list without the legendary Ford GT40 can you?

Here’s a Jaguar D-Type which won the 1956 24 Hours of LeMans with a 200 HP 3,442 cc Dual Overhead Cam inline 6 cylinder.  The curvy lines of these 50’s LeMan’s cars are pure sports car perfection.

Another legend, the Shelby Cobra Daytona Coupe, winner of the 1965 LeMans race.  The author explains the details behind that chopped off rear end design and the necessity of that duck-tail wing to keep it under control at high speeds.  Check out that exhaust tucked into the bodywork, all in the name of aerodynamics.  The poor drivers feet take a heating though.

This book helps continue the legacy these 25 race cars have left behind.  I really enjoyed reading this book and hoped it would keep going and going.  I hope Basem does more books of this type to showcase the many other race cars I think should be highlighted.  Top cars from Trans-Am and Road Racing, drag racers and land speed racers from the Bonneville Salt Flats.

What would you consider to be your Top 3 Legendary Race Cars of all time?  Leave a comment below with your favorites!

Hechtspeed

Winning: The Racing Life of Paul Newman

Automotive book publisher Motorbooks recently launched  a new book about Paul Newman. “Winning: The Racing Life of Paul Newan” was written by Matt Stone and Preston Lerner with a foreword by none other than Mario Andretti himself, a personal friend and driver for Paul Newman.

Most people know Paul Newman for his movies. As a slick pool player in “The Hustler” and then in “The Color of Money” and he could do comedy too in “Slap Stick”. These movies and a long list of others made Paul Newman a Hollywood legend!

But the book, good for me, doesn’t cover the movie side of Paul.  “Winning” focuses on how Paul Newman got into racing, the team’s he owned,  the cars he modified for the street and the many race cars he drove and his impact on the people surrounding him.

Paul Newman didn’t start racing until he was 47 years old.  Many speculate that if he had started when he was 17, (or younger like the racers growing up now behind the wheel of shifter carts) he may have been one of the greats.  He wasn’t fast right out of the gate, but he was serious about racing and learned over the years, gradually getting faster and faster and racing larger, more powerful cars as his skills improved.  By the 1980’s he was a very successful driver in the IMSA and Trans-Am series.

Here’s some interesting tid-bits from the book giving you a glimpse into Paul Newman’s passion for racing:

One of my favorite parts of Paul Newman was that he began his amateur racing career in Datsun’s with Bob Sharp Racing.  He drove one of my favorite cars, the Datsun 510.

Paul Newman made it to the SCCA Runoffs 11 different years, ranging from 1973 to 2002 and won 4 times, making the podium 10 of the 14 times he ran at the SCCA Runoffs.

Paul owned a VW convertible with a Porsche engine, brakes, sway bars and  suspension goodies.  This was in the ’50’s!

Paul Newman was the voice of Doc Hudson in the “Cars” movie.  For the premier of the movie, which was shown at Lowe’s Motor Speedway, Newman (about 80 years old at the  time) took a custom built ‘51 Hudson body mated to a Craftsman Truck Series chassis and drove it over 160 MPH on track!

There’s so much more to this book for the car enthusiast.  There are comments from former drivers that raced for Paul under the Newman/Haas CART/IRL/Champ Car teams, names like Mario Andretti and his son Michael Andretti, Nigel Mansell, Christian Fittipaldi and more.  Others like Bob Sharp, David Letterman and many more including competitors, actors and pit crew shared experiences they had with Paul Newman.

One of the greatest compliments that was mentioned over and over throughout the book was that he was a “regular guy”, who saw himself as a racecar driver first, actor second.  He was passionate about cars and racing.  The book has great glossy photographs that document his racing career through the years.

Winning: The Racing Life of Paul Newman will make a great addition to your car book libary!

Hechtspeed