There are certain eras in auto racing that just have special appeal to us. The old days of racing hot rods on the dry lakes in the 1930s and 1940s, the rollicking match race drag racing days of the 1960s and 1970s, and the romantic period of sports car racing in the 1950s and early 1960s. This book is a wonderful documentation of that era filled with period photos, engrossing captions, and most importantly hundreds of magnificent cars.
Admittedly, we’re not experts on these old cars or the specifics of the race tracks they competed on. We know enough to be dangerous. Where this book really shines is in the story telling of Paul Parker. It would have been really easy to write very mechanical captions stating the location the photo was taken, the car in the photo and who was driving. Instead, Parker tells the stories behind the scenes, humorous anecdotes, and he works in quotes from period news reporting of the races.
99% of the photos are of European cars on European tracks, being driven by European drivers. Many of which we’ve never heard of before. That didn’t diminish our enjoyment at all, and made our experience reading the book more enjoyable because we were learning something. We love drag racing books, but that’s our wheelhouse and lots of the history gets scrubbed and retold. In this case, it was all new material for us to learn from.
There are lots of black and white photos (remember this is 1950-1959) and the nice color shots are worked in seamlessly. You’ll spot a fresh faced Phil Hill, Carroll Shelby, and a color photo of Ak Miller that we can only describe as iconic from the finish line of the 1954 La Carrera Panamericana. There’s ice cold beer and an awesome period Hot Rod Magazine shirt involved. Like we said, magic!
If you’re a fan of the swoopy and gorgeous racing sports cars of the 1950s and the romantic aura that surrounds the period, this book will probably be the best thing you’ve had in your hand since forever. We think it would be close to impossible to tell the story of this period in racing in a better or more compelling way than Parker did. You can almost hear all those small displacement engines screaming by on the track through the photos!
This book can be found at your local book seller or internet vendors all over the web!
