Automotive Books

This book is the softcover version of another book by the same author.

There are several books on the history of Camaro but I chose this one.
My choice paid off when I received this book.With plenty of photographs throughout covering the various models and plenty of interesting information as well,this book impressed me.

The only fault I could find was too many photographs of the same cars instead of several examples of each model.Apart from that this book is the best.

This book published buy Motorbooks classics is the same book than the first one published MBI published company. Only the cover had changed. I thought it was a brand new book !

This is the best book on Camaros. It provides a lot of information and great pictures. Any Camaro fan will enjoy this book.

First of all, this book is fascinating to read. It contains a lot of interesting facts and nice stories you will love. Besides, it is full of great pictures (some of them are real stunning shots). The only thing that disappointed me a little - there are too many new cars in this book. I would prefer to see more rare models from the late sixties/early seventies instead. But that's my personal opinion. For those looking for the performance specials, I would recommend a nice book written by Jason Scott and David Newhardt. Its title speaks for itself: "Camaro Z28 and Performance Specials". You may also like to buy both of them. They are worth it!

This book is well-organized and well-written. The author knows the subject matter and it shows! The information is pretty comprehensive and details everything you'd want to know about the Camaro's distinguished history (from 1966 to 2000)--R&D, engine design, options available, marketing, sales, etc. Hundreds of detailed color photos are also provided.

Another plus about this book is the fact that there was an editor! I can't recall finding any misspelled words, errors in grammar, or misinformation. A book this "clean" is such a rarity nowadays!

Personal note: I purchased the hardcover edition of this book and, while very nice and durable, I found it difficult to read because of its size (10.25" x 10.25" x 0.5"). If you're only interested in reading the material versus using the book as a reference piece, I would recommend getting the paperback edition.

Buy it for the great cars!
But it for the great photos of the cars!
Buy it for the play by play of each and every race.
-for the Amazing list pro drivers whom were brave enough to get behind the wheels of these 'Big Bangers!
-for the behind the scenes looks at these monster big block engines and how they pushed the envelope of technology.
-for the wild designs as each team played at the first tentative steps at understanding Aerodynamic down force!

Nothing, nothing was more grand or powerful at that time! So get this book that perfectly captures the time when Racing was Dangerous, but Sex was not.

OK, I am a huge Pete Lyons fan. He lived it and wrote about it so we could also live it. Great job and great book. A must read if you are a Can Am fan or a fan of the "good old days" of motor sports where determination and a few bucks could get you in the game.

This is a delightful book for any racing enthusiast who either loved the Can-Am or wants to learn why older fans revere it.

While Pete Lyons is as scrupulous as someone like Doug Nye about accuracy for such details as chassis numbers, Pete uses such information only to make sure that his narrative is accurate and consistent or to authoritatively state interesting facts, such as the cars that won consecutive events, or won the same events in consecutive years, or were raced by certain drivers.

Pete Lyons and Doug Nye are THE names for any library. Once again Pete lives up to a stellar reputation and this book is another must have for your collection.
Can Am is such a beloved series that you have to have the best book in your library and this is the one to build your library from.
I hope this helps you make your decision on purchase.

Reading Lyons' book is like reading the race reports at the time in Competion Press and Road & Track, with the added perspective of knowing how it all turns out after the rubber dust has settled. The candid driver shots of Bruce, Denny, Dan, Mark and the rest of these heroes of my college days, with the exquisite on-track shots and hardware close-ups, bring it all back in a great rush. It's a very difficult book to set down, time just seems to fly, as it seems those years did. It's a marvellous reminiscence of those larger-than-life men and the fastest road-racing machines ever built.

This book really is a must have for the old car enthusiast. It went perfectly with the 50's car book I had from the same author. Great pictures and lots of detail.

Im a classic car lover, and this book had awesome information on how models came to life, matured, and even died in the 60's.

There are lots of great pictures and information on the cars of the '60s. Broken down by year and by manufacturer, this is a great book for classic car enthusiasts!

This book is arranged with one chapter per year from 1960 through to 1969. For each year, each of the major American car brands is profiled with pictures of the models that they were producing and the updates and innovations that were notable. Along with this are many insights and observations in easy to read point form. The book contains thousands of pictures (mostly in colour) of cars, car ads, and anything else related to cars. Simply brilliant to flick through because so many great cars are listed and pictured. If you love the cars of this area then you will love this great book. There are many book that go into detail about specific makes models and years, but this one covers an entire decade of the US auto industry in a way that allows you to look at one manufacturers cars alongside another's to get the overall historical picture. This is a very well presented book and now I'm keen to get the similar ones for the 70s and 50s. Overall, very good value for money.

Buy this book for the great pictures, appreciate it for the snappy trivia. Lots of cool color images and rare factory stuff. A car-lover must have.

This was actually my first experience with Doris Lessing, tho I've heard of her for years. Her picture of the So. African experience was quite revealing but I got a little tired of the analysis of those who joined the communist movement. It seems that though she worked as an activist, she never really
'bought' the doctrine, to her credit. But she seems to have a need to over analyse the motives. It seems to me that most of the people were just trying to improve the social ills of the time and were taken in by the communist rhetoric. The writing was good enough to keep me reading even though I wasn't too happy with the her bohemian attitude; abandoning her children, taking successive lovers.... I respect her intellect but not her morals.
I am not inclined to look for the second installment.

Doris Lessing has led such an interesting life, and writing a diary all the time. She writes of a time completely foreign to me, living a history of the changes in Southern Afica. I find her autobiography a great read, and prefer it to her novels. Interesting and moving, and explains much about her!

This is a hard-hitting piece of autobiography. Lessing looks at her parents and their world of colonial mastery from the point of view of her younger, increasingly disenchanted self. Lessing was gathering steam in those years, to emerge as one of the prominent novelists of the post-war era. In this, the first of a two-volume autobiography, she is beginning to grow critical of her parents, colonialism, white supremacy, men - her husband in particular - and just beginning to flirt for a short time with the great experiment in group-think of the period known as Communism. She falls for it for a time, but not for long. It will take her a while, but she finally emerges along with George Orwell as the most articulate critic of this mindless, toxic form of self-imposed mental slavery. She writes of her fellow-traveling, communist-sympathizing friends as silly people, which strikes me as as good a way to think of them as any. Lessing provides, along with her political autobiography, a lovely evocation of Africa, the landscape and people, about whom she wrote as a young novelist and to whom she has continued to refer throughout her long and continuing career as a writer.

This is a candid autobiography with as main themes love, sex (good sex, as Doris Lessing calls it, is a right for everybody) and politics in South-Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) ruled by a blank minority.
It is a gripping, moving and realistic picture, wherein the author tries to find answers to personal and more general human questions: why was she so outspoken rebellious and, on the contrary, so strictly loyal to the communist movement?
Why are people fighting relentlessly each other, and on the other hand, striving for happiness?
Are the people of her generation all children of World War I? Why was her father a freemason?

This book is written like an irresistible waterfall. Not to be missed.

Under My Skin

Doris Lessing's autobiography traces her political and emotional development from her earliest childhood memories to her growing, overwhelming, disenchantment with provincial (as she saw it) small town life. "Small town" life for her was pre-WWII Salisbury in the (then) British colony of Southern Rhodesia. Salisbury was a complacent capital city of 10,000 white settlers in a country the size of Spain.
Lessing is quick to debunk the myth of the prosperous, close knit, white farming community - poverty was a real fact of life both for blacks and whites. Her most vivid childhood memories are of escaping from the family home and off into the limitless veld. The emptiness of the veld parallels her youthful emptiness and her growing convictions that the communist party represents a real hope for the world.
The book, a masterpiece of autobiographical writing, is brutally honest in parts and wilfully obscure in others. Some of her emotional mistakes are hardly glanced at (leaving her first two children, for example) but others (the joys of being part of a fast, hard drinking sect, embracing radical politics) are wonderfully engaging. Reading her thoughts you could be forgiven for thinking that the "party" was the only opposition to conservative white rule in Salisbury. This is what makes her book so appealing, her supreme skill as a novelist allowing us to enter the heady world of rushed meetings, leftist newspaper deliveries, drinks on the sports club verandah and back in time to find the cook still waiting to prepare supper. Naturally it couldn't last and Lessing is far too intelligent to think that that is all there is to life. The book ends in 1949 as she arrives in London, apprehensive and hopeful in the capital city of her parents.
This is more than a `who-did-what' from a long time ago, times and dates are (probably deliberately) rarely mentioned. It is the personalities and the ideas - most of all the ideas - sliding from youthful enthusiasm to mature realism which fuse the book with life and vitality. `Under My Skin', published in 1992, is that rare thing, a candid autobiography written by a consummate novelist with skills to spare. Doris Lessing is a national treasure.

Cool Book, Beautiful pictures. Lots Of Cars I have not seen before, Some I have. Worth The Price.

Great book, well done. It answered some questions i had.
Great job. Transaction was great.
Larry Sherrill

Very nice book loads of pix and info. Bought as gift. Guys who are into old GMC iron will be ingrossed for hours!

This book is an important, stylish look at a halcyon time in U.S. automotive history, when dreams became real and art and style were as significant as horsepower and torque. If you're an afficianado of the big cruisers Detroit cranked out in the late fifties and early sixties, this book shows you the wildest styles possible from the designers and how they were translated into what you drove into your driveway. It's a well put together compilation, and the book itself is heavy and durable. Any car collector or petroliana devotee will love it!

The General Motors company hit upon showcasing their new cars every year in a presentation that included automobiles from each of their various divisions (Cadillac, Buick, Oldsmobile, Pontiac, Chevrolet, GMC), as well as experimental or 'Dream' cars created to test public reaction to new ideas in automotive engineering and design. "GM's Motorama: The Glamorous Show Cars Of A Cultural Phenomenon" by David W. Temple (a freelance automotive photojournalist specializing in vintage cars) is a profusely illustrated history of these events and those 'Dream Cars' of the 1950s. Featuring both color and black/white historical photographs, the text is informed and informative. The result is a masterpiece of automotive history and an enthusiastically recommended addition to personal, academic, and community library American Automobile History reference collections and supplemental reading lists.

This is a very nice reference work for image processing professionals. It is a collection of articles by various experts in aspects of image processing, reporting on the state-of-the-art in their particular domains. The coverage is broad and deep. However, it is not for everyone. The writing style is that of a refereed journal. If you are not comfortable with that style of exposition, or if you are simply trying to find a snippet of code to implement a particular algorithm, this is not the book for you. At the other extreme, do not expect to find new and startling insights into the field that you did your dissertation on. However, if you want to understand the current state of the art of a colleague's field, or if you need to expand your expertise into a new area of image processing, this is a very good place to start.

This is an encyclopedia of image processing topics. It contains some introductory material to help people understand what images are and how to process them. The majority of the text, however, is for experienced people wanting to look up topics.

This book is big. It is about 8"x11" by 900 pages. It contains material from 100 different professionals on 50 different topics.

The style is academic. The editor is the editor of the IEEE Transactions on Image Processing. The page style is similar to what you would see in an IEEE Transaction.

There is plenty of math. The text explains the mathematics, but not to the depth I would like to see.

The authors illustrate the techniques with many images. If there are no "before and after" images in an image processing book, reject it. Well, this book has plenty of images. That is a strong point.

A week point is there is no source code illustrating the techniques and algorithms. I find this a major weakness, but one that is not unique to this book.

The authors leave much to the reader. This is not a read from cover to cover book. The reader must go slow, take notes, study, and read again to understand the material.

All in all, this is a good source of knowledge on image processing. If you work with images and write software to process images, you should have this book on your desk.

This is the book to have on the subject! It covers almost any aspect that you can think of in image/video processing. This is a MATH intensive book and it will not tell you how to directly implement any of its concepts in code. The author assumes that the reader will be able to do this on there own. Topics are very well explained, but sometimes I needed to reread a topic 3 or 4 times and go over the math a couple times to fully understand. Great book to have as an encyclopedia like resource on the shelf.

This book is just GREAT.
It covers almost every single ascpect of image and video processing. Everything is in deep and very good explained. A lot of before-and-after example pictures (important ones in color) are provided too. But beware. You need a fairly good understanding of math to read the book. It is not intended to explain how to use Photoshop, but rather how to write your own ;-)
This book is not a read-along book. Sometimes you have to read a section 2 or 3 times to understand it.
I think sometimes a good Snippet of C-Code would help to understand, but this is acceptable.
Again: A outstanding book, which fully covers all my needs.
The price of 100 us$ is ok, because it's a lot of a book...

There is a 2nd edition of this book that was published in July 2005, so all reviews earlier than that are referring to the first edition. Regardless, the second edition of this book is just as good as the first. There are many texts that do a good job of covering image processing, but few do such a good job of covering all of the aspects of video processing - motion detection and estimation, video enhancement and restoration, and video segmentation. There is an entire section on video compression which discusses the H.261 standard, wavelets and video compression, object-based video coding, and the various MPEG standards. There are also articles on video indexing and retrieval and a unified framework for video browsing and retrieval.
In the area of image processing, there is much good information here, but the basics are better explained in "Digital Image Processing" by Gonzales and Woods. Once you master that book, this makes a good secondary reference on image processing. Although this book does go over some image processing basics, it is better at explaining more advanced concepts such as multiframe image restoration, wavelet denoising, 3D shape reconstruction from multiple views, and statistical methods for image segmentation. There are many bad books out there that are collections of articles, but don't let that scare you off. This really is a collection of very good articles published together in a coherent fashion.
There are plenty of equations, example images, and instructive figures in the articles to help explain each concept. Highly recommended.

Bought this book for my 17 year old son. He loves it. A must have for anyone seriously interested in Chevy engines and car restoration.

A very helpful guide with easy to read text and super pictures.
Thank You
Jeff Lacy

I Purchased this book 1 year ago and learned more from it in that time than from 5 years of bench racing with buddies. It not only shows the levels of performance and economy attainable by the venerable Chevy V8, but the theories this book teaches can be applied to most other forms of automotive engine building. So much information in such a small book, that is written with such eloquence that even the most amateur of amateuers can grasp, and fully comprehend it's writings. David Vizard, the author, is an accomplished engineer with a background in the aerospace industry, and is also a seasoned automobile racer. This book is a true summary of several of his other books, which go much farther into detail than this one does. From basic cylinder head porting, to rotating assembly prep and carbuerator tuning, this book covers so many bases that it is a must have in any garage.

david vizard is the best performance auther i have ever read. he only relies on things he has personally proven, and he shows you how he has proven it. he doesn't seem to be as oppinionated as other authors. i would recommend reading any of his books

Vizard delivers exactly what the title is all about. He helps you balance power & longevity against the pocketbook. He also substantiates his claims with his own companies dyno or flow data. Rebuilds range from a minimum of $600@300hp to a maximum of $3000@550hp. Add some nitrous (he talks about this too) and you have a 800hp engine for under $3500 bucks! Be warned, he is blunt and opinionated but backs up his claims.

This book was certainly an interesting read. It provided some good insight into the history of the Porsche 911 and the innovations that were made. I was somewhat disappointed however in that I was hoping the book would tell me what was good or bad about a particular model; it didn't. I also would have liked photos of the models being discussed incorporated with the text. Overall, I enjoyed the book and better understand the decisions made by Porsche as the company matured.

I bought this book for my husband he he loves it. He is planning to buy one for a friend also.

This book has stunning photography and amazing writing. It provides a comprehensive, but not exhaustive history on Porsche's development. The book flows from topic to topic beautifully, making for a engaging read. This has been the best Porsche book I have read, and it was worth every penny. I would reccomend it to anyone who wants to learn more about Porsche, about its development as a company, about its amazing racing heritage, and about the making of the most captivating road car in the world. The Porsche 911.

An excellent 'coffee table' book, great photos and extensive, detailed information on this beautiful piece of machinery!

Randy's book sits prominently in my family room along side other Porsche books and is one of the few that is up to speed with some of the latest offerings from Zuffenhausen. Writing a book on the 911 is nearly impossible because there is so much out there. You have to know where to start and where to end,--and just how much to stuff in the middle. Randy pulls this off with a great selection of photos, most never before seen, and accurate detail of the nuances of the famous 911. The only negative I can find is what puts a book in the top 5% of books, and that is matching copy to photographs,--on the same page. This is extremely hard to do because it is generally unpredictable, where one paragraph or photograph will start or stop. That, along with a handfull of errors in photo IDs keeps it from perfection by design itself but it's nicely assembled and beautifully printed. Anyone with a 911 in their garage should have this book to help explain their addiction to normal people.

Like any good quality automobile book this one makes you want tou go out and buy a new sports car.

Porsche , the road from zuffenhausen is a wonderful book regarding the historical perspectives of porsche cars !! A great book for porsche fans,collector's and historians ! The complete history of all model porsche cars , many beautiful photos and original documents and posters ! A great reference book for the porsche owner ! The best porsche book on the market ! A great coffee table porsche book !

I bought this book for my daughter for Christmas, she is going through a "I love Porsche" phase right now. We currently live just down the road from Zuffenhausen, Germany and the book couldn't have been more appropriate. She has thoroughly enjoyed the pictures and has learned so much about how the company and car designs have evolved over the years.

Let me confess right off, I absolutely love cars designed by Porsche, I have always found the car to be sexy and elegant. When i see someone pull up next to me in a Carerra with the top down, I just sit and stare with envey. As for this book, it is quite simply fantastic, it is easy to read and well researched, almost scholarly and the images are crisp and well placed throughout the book. You see the evolution of the automaker and get a real feel for what has made the company so successful. If you have any interest in Porsche or just cars in general, then I highly recommend this book...pricy yes, but well worth it...the car and this book.

I bought this book as my main reference for a paper I am writing about Porsche for business class, but my use for this book will not end there. I found this book not only informative, but interesting, and insightful. The pictures were plentiful, but not over done, beautiful, and well described. I will undoubtedly have this book for the rest of my life, and is a must for every car-enthusiast!!

Wow, what a book!! I wish all engines had this much technical data and pictures.

This book is incredibly detailed, with many rare illustrations.
Graham White has done a thorough and interesting history of this
fabulously complex engine. Plus, his history of Allied Aircaft
Engines of WW2 is highly recommended.

I would recommend this book unreservedly. If you are at all interested in the history, development, production and usage of these amazing engines and the aircraft they powered, this is an investment you won't regret. I'm on my second read through and still being amazed at the info.

Graham White's book on P&W's R-4360 is a fine and thorough study of one of the greatest aeronautical piston engines ever produced. If you are at all interested in the general subject of aircraft engines, or even engines generally, you should obtain a copy to read and enjoy studying and savoring it slowly over the months after you first go through it. The text is clear and it is well illustrated, all that a book on an aircraft engine should be. My only quibble, and it is a quibble, is that the down-draught inlet ports, a distinct feature of the R-4360, have a much longer history than Mr. White seems to indicate, having been used by BMW in sportscar engines in the 1930s and by Miller in racing engines even earlier; however, since these examples are drawn from outside his field of study, Mr White may be excused, and even were this not the case, the general quality of this work would win him praise not criticism.

Graham White's monumental "R-4360: Pratt & Whitney's Major Miracle" is a comprehensive history of the largest, most powerful, most complex and most sophisticated aircraft piston engine ever built. The 28-cylinder, 3,500-horsepower-plus "Wasp Major" was truly the epitome of aircraft piston engine development. The big four-row radial pushed the engineering state-of-the-art in materials, cooling systems, ignition technology, manufacturing processes and many other areas. But, to the dismay of round-engine fans everywhere, it was also a dead-end. By the time P&W's famous "corncob" engine reached its full potential in the early 1950s, the new jet engines had taken both military and civilian aircraft markets by storm. There was no longer a need for big, heavy, noisy, temperamental piston engines.

This book is definitely not for everyone. If you are not of a technical persuasion, and if you don't enjoy poring over engineering drawings with literally nuts-and-bolts details of complicated pieces of machinery, then you should probably pass on this volume. If you're not interested in learning about the intricacies of intake and exhaust valve timing, turbosupercharger plumbing and carburetor design for this big radial engine, then you should probably look elsewhere for reading material. But if you are a confirmed technophile, and if incredibly detailed cutaway and exploded-view drawings make you salivate, then look no further--"R-4360: Pratt & Whitney's Major Miracle" is the book for you.

In addition to the R-4360's development history, Mr. White includes exhaustive descriptions of all the aircraft that used the engine--aircraft such as the Martin AM-1 "Mauler," the Convair B-36 "Peacemaker," the Northrop XB-35 "Flying Wing" and Howard Hughes' infamous "Hercules" seaplane, better known as the "Spruce Goose." The information is all here, sometimes in overwhelming detail. For example, there are 80 pages of specification sheets covering each and every version of the R-4360 ever designed or produced. With its hundreds of clear, sharp photographs and drawings, this book is a veritable gold mine of esoteric but interesting information.

It's big, it's thick, it's heavy, it's a little intimidating and it's not to be absorbed in a single sitting, but "R-4360: Pratt & Whitney's Major Miracle" is a valuable work of great significance and unique depth. I recommend it without reservation as the definitive chronicle of American aviation's largest, most powerful piston engine.