Automotive Books

OK, so I got an advance copy. I can't help it if I got it at a book convention. I couldn't resist. This is a wonderful book. There's not a spec or motor description to be found. This book is all about the love of the Bug. And the history. and the advertising. But most of all about the way people get attached to their Buglets and drive 'em forever. And everyone who drives one has a story. Even the people who don't drive them have a story. This book features incredible design and pictures that I, a bug lover, have never seen before. And for Beetle 2 nuts, there's plenty of attention paid to it. The author has one of each. I think that's hilarious. His writing style is even funnier. Bug somebody to buy it! I'm thinking of actually buying one to give to my dad for Father's Day. After all, he bought me my first bug and we repaired it together. He'll like this bit of Bug nostalgia.

I read about this in the New York Times and the LA Times, so I figured it was worth the buy. And it was! It's a very different approach to the Bug -- more about the people who buy it than the car itself. Ouellette is a great writer. somewhere between Gore Vidal and Garry Trudeau. A must for the Bug library.

Not since ancient Egyptians bowed down to scarabs has such a devout cult worshipped a bug -- the Volkswagen Beetle, that is. Under-powered, unglamorous, a complete oddity when it first arrived in the U.S., somehow the VW Bug won the hearts, minds, and automotive budgets of thousands, and eventually hundreds of thousands of Americans. In this delightful "family album" of a book, Dan Ouellette has captured, in apt, economical prose and a witty selection of pictures, all the rapture and counter-cultural fun that Bugs brought to life on the road. His book may be the best record yet of the car that shocked Detroit and changed the way we relate to the automobile. It's a timely reminder that the affection Bugophiles feel toward the cars they have (or used to have) is powerful enough to jump over the generations and embrace VW's new Beetle. Poster boy Che Guevera decorated countless college dorm rooms, but the Bug brought a real revolution to our garages. If you love cars, design, history -- or the Bug -- you'll want this book.

I have had this book for a couple years and still never get tired of looking at it..The pictures are that fun to look at. It shows the year to year changes of details and options for every beetle from the 30's to 1979. This book got me hooked on VWS and i'm currently fixing my 70 beetle up. Buy it now!

Although the basic shape of the Volkswagen didn't change over the years, many detail changes were made. This book does a good job of documenting them. There isn't much text, but the book if full of detail photos showing the small (and sometimes not-so-small) changes from year to year. If you're restoring your Volkswagen to 100% stock condition, you want to know how to tell a '65 Beetle from a '66, or you just like Volkswagens, this book is a good read.

This is a great book for noting the year-to-year changes in the Bug. Almost every change is photographed and documented so that you can see it. There isn't much in the way of writing, but mainly pictures and explanations of the VW's and the yearly changes, including the various dealer installed options. This is a great book, especialy for identifying what is original or how something is supposed to look.

A long-awaited application of the theory of communicative action to issues of automobile maintenance. While I haven't read the book myself, I certainly plan to assign it in all of my upcoming courses on the mechanics of the public sphere.

While Prof. Habermas is one of the most versatile thinkers of the late twentieith century, one had no idea that his expertise went as far as Volkswagen repair.

Leave it to the computer wonks at Amazon to bring this little-known text to our attention. One wonders how it will affect Habermas scholarship:

Intersubjective recognition and ignition? Between Facts and Tires? Gas Mileage and Human Interests?

The new dissertations will be flying off the show room floor!

I have only read to page 1042 so I do not yet know how it ends, but regardless, Pensky has rendered a limpid translation of Habermas's "Volkswagen Quantum Official Factory Repair Manual: 1982-1988, Gasoline and Turbo Diesel, Including Wagon and Syncro." This is one of those translations that appears to speak more profoundly than the original, and with the expanded appendix, the full color map, and the inclusion of new chapters on both "Wagons and Syncros" this text will spend more time on my nightstand than on the shelf.

A reverent examination of the artistic utilization of wood in classic cars. This book ventures beyond the American woodie, and includes the 1933 'Tulipwood' Hispano-Suiza, a 1926 Rolls Royce clad entirely in wood, Labourdette's skiffs and examples of fine woodworking in conventionally bodied vehicles. But I wish it was longer - the fine photography and extraordinary cars whetted my appetite for more.

A reverent examination of the artistic utilization of wood in classic cars. This book ventures beyond the American woodie, and includes the 1933 'Tulipwood' Hispano-Suiza, a 1926 Rolls Royce clad entirely in wood, Labourdette's skiffs and examples of fine woodworking in conventionally bodied vehicles. But I wish it was longer - the fine photography and extraordinary cars whetted my appetite for more.

A reverent examination of the artistic utilization of wood in classic cars. This book ventures beyond the American woodie, and includes the 1933 'Tulipwood' Hispano-Suiza, a 1926 Rolls Royce clad entirely in wood, Labourdette's skiffs and examples of fine woodworking in conventionally bodied vehicles. But I wish it was longer - the fine photography and extraordinary cars whetted my appetite for more.

You don't have to be a Corvette enthusiast to enjoy this book. Duntov's life was so colorful that it reads like a novel. This book is full of characters that make it a page-turner. He never became a true executive of GM but his influence was greater to the corporation's image than any of the people on the top floor. You will be surprised at his achievements thoughout the automotive industry.

Visit a book store with an automotive section or, look right here at Amazon.com. You'll find many books about Corvettes: engine building, racing, restoration, facts-and-figures, service manuals, coffee-table picture books, parts books, assembly manuals, collections of reprinted magazine articles and a variety of other titles. Like I said...there are lots of Corvette books.

As for great Corvette books?

Well...those are pretty darn rare. Karl Lugvigsen's classic, "Corvette: America's Star-Spangled Sports Car", is one. The late Jim Schefter's, "All Corvettes are Red", is another. Noland Adam's pair of Corvette Restoration and Technical Manuals are two more.

The newest member of truly outstanding Corvette literature is Jerry Burton's biography, "Zora Arkus-Duntov: the Legend Behind the Corvette". Finely-detailed, yet easy-reading, it's a spellbinding life's story of a man who became one of the automotive engineering giants of the 20th Century.

Corvette enthusiasts know Duntov as the guy who snatched Corvette from death at the hands of short-sighted General Motors executives in the early 1950s, then, improved its engineering, performance and image such that it went from a product Chevrolet dealers couldn't sell to the most successful high-performance sports car on earth. A good part of how Corvette became one of the rare automobiles to attain American Icon status is attributable directly to Zora Duntov's vision, personality and hard work.

This book also tells of Duntov's growing up in St. Petersburg during the Russian Revolution when young Zora was a street-wise, risk-taker who sometimes carried a pistol and more than once used it to defend himself. It also tells of newly-married Zora and Elfe's Duntov's frantic escape across southern France just ahead of the Nazi juggernaut in the early days of World War II? You'll read about Duntov's arrival in New York City, just before the U.S. entered WW2, where, inside of three weeks, he borrowed money, started a business and, within months was a runaway success as a defense contractor? The book explains Duntov's initial success in the car business came as a manufacturer of parts for Ford V8 engines? It tells about how he raced Porsches at Le Mans while he engineered Corvettes at GM? You'll learn that Zora was quite the "chick-magnet" jet-setter who hung-out with the high-society, political, entertainment and international motorsports personalities that made news in the 1950s and 1960s? All this and more of Duntov's amazing life is in Burton's book.

Not only was Zora a wonderfully talented and visionary engineer but he had his limitations, too. He cheated on his wife, partied too much, drove too fast and pissed-off half the executives at GM right up to the CEO. He loved the Corvette, worked hard to make it better and strived to promote it, not only to the public, but, also, to the company that was making it because, in the car's early years, half the time, GM didn't know what to do with Corvettes and the rest of the time it didn't want them at all.

Through painstaking research and a affable style, Burton weaves all these colorful aspects of Zora Arkus-Duntov's life into a highly-captivating story. The book is decidedly non-technical, one of its major strong points. Each chapter is a short-story in itself, encompassing a particular period or aspect of Zora's life. The book is remarkably unbiased, covering Duntov's strengths and his weaknesses but expressing few opinions. It's smooth writing style and easy reading make it outstanding entertainment as well as an excellent work of biography.

Even casual students of the history of the American automobile industry must have "Zora Arkus-Duntov" in their library.

Very very interesting book on the Father (but not creator) of the Corvette. The book brings the legend to life. If you have already put Zora on a Pedestal, then you may not want to read this book as it shows his human side (but does not tarnish it). On the other hand if you want to know the inside story on someone who had a tremendous influence on automotive history, then read this book. If you want to learn about how the Corvette happened and grew, then this book is for you.

I just received this book and I am so excited. It is full of great pictures from many different collections that show trucks from all parts of North America during different periods of time of the past 100 years. This book is a MUST for anyone who interested in trucking history in North America.

This book is the most comprehensive I read about North American trucks. I have lots of books about trucks but none is as thrilling as this one. A wealth of pictures and information - I doubt that there's another book which delivers such a complete history of 100 years of trucking in the U.S.

The only flaw (if you want to find one) is that half the pictures are really too small. But this of course is to get more photos into the book. If all where as big as the other half, the book would probably have 600 pages (and the same time would be much more expensive).

I think at the moment you can't get a better buy if you look for a really good summary of a century of trucking.

Researched and compiled by Mike Varey, 1000 Historic Automobile Sites lists sites of interest in 40 different countries for automobile lovers, and ranges from historic racing circuits, to automobile museums, birthplaces of famous auto pioneers, historic car factories, and more. Each individual site listing offers a brief description, an address and telephone number, and notes on available hours. 1000 Historic Automobile Sites is commended as a unique and truly excellent resource for automobile buffs looking for exciting places to visit during their travel or vacations.

This book is amazing! Love cars? Love to see old cars, famous cars, special cars in museums? Then this book is like a magic carpet. It'll take you to see some amazing things.

I purchased this Book as a gift for my father , who had raced in the Baja 1000 in the early years. He enjoyed the book and thought the stories rang true as he remembered. I have since tried to buy other copies of this book and have not had any luck finding them available . This book makes a great gift ( If you can find It )

Marty Fiolka's 1000 MILES TO GLORY: THE HISTORY OF THE BAJA 1000 tells of one Dave Elkins, who in 1962 rode his new Honda from the Mexican border along the Baja peninsula to La Paz as a test of the new motorcycle: a journey which would take nearly forty hours and which would create incentive for other racers and manufacturers to test their endurance in Baja's rugged desert terrain. 1000 MILES TO GLORY documents these ventures in a year-by-year history which begins at the 1967 inaugural race and continues to modern times. The evolution of vehicles, colorful participants, and zany and incredible racing stories blend with full-page color and vintage photos to provide an outstanding visual survey and history of the people and vehicles involved. If you like auto racing in general and the Baja 1000 in particular, you can't miss this treasure trove of details.

This book rates as one of my favorites and I would recommend this one to anyone serious about vintage Beetles!
If you're serious about having your Beetle 100% original this book shows the reader the 49-59 annual changes made to the Beetle and what options are correct based on serial (production) numbers of the car.
It also shows correct paint codes and the options for the different models of the car (deluxe, standard, or export).
This period of the production of the Beetle is probably the favorite for any vintage fan and this book is definately an interesting and informative read.

Whether you own a 1949-1959 Beetle, or just dream of one, this is your book! It contains extensive information on your dream car, and guides you through the car in an excellent manner. The authors of this book have made thorough research before writing the book, and that benefits the reader. You can rest assured that the information you find here is accurate, and will help you understanding your car better. Because after all, it's not just a car, it's a lifestyle! You will find all the details you need about your car, which in it's turn will make you a better Beetle-owner.

This book helped me to restore my 67/68 Mustangs more than most others. It's not a 'How to'- book but it shows the diffrent details of every model and option.

I am the owner of a 1967 Ford Mustang luxury convertible GTA S-Code. I enjoyed the book and got a lot of bits and pieces of the history put in perspective in the proces.