Automobiles Books

My recommendations after a zillion hours of research
and travel
----------------------------------------------------
Buy 3 magnificent books and you are ready for Baja
If going Mexico mainland get Church's Mexico Camping
----------------------------------------------------
Baja California AAA 4th ed July 2001
544 pages new $8.44 s/h & tax included 5 stars
(5th ed $18.95 any AAA office-members $4 less)
----------------------------------------------------
Moon Handbooks Baja - Cummings Oct 2004
640 pages new $18.93 s/h & tax included 4.5 stars
----------------------------------------------------
Traveler's Guide To Camping Mexico's Baja-Church
256 pages new $15.26 s/h & tax included 5 stars
Sept 2004
----------------------------------------------------

I read this book , here in Brazil.This book is short,concise, correct and easy to read.Many photos; all of them black & white.There's a chapter showing that "very cheap" jeep was/is just a legend.As a short and very illustrated introduction, about the jeep's history, this a very good choice.

To me, Henry Gregor Felsen is an icon. He is the undisputed king of writing dime store novels about how boys and cars were intergrally linked in the 1940s and 1950s when "car mania" was probably at it's peak...well maybe the 50s and 60s. I have every paper back book that Mr. Felsen ever wrote. It took me almost 30 years to accomplish that. This was the last one to complete my collection. It was worth the wait. I am not sure how people, mainly young males, will react to Mr. Felsens's writing but I know that when we who were teen agers in the 50s we lived, breathed and ate all this stuff up. I was 17 and got a 13 year old 46 Ford 2 door coupe as my first car...Henry Gregor Felsen rekindled memories of that car with it's ....... glass paks, tail draggin, nose and frenched, shaved handles, blue dots and much more......I go back in time when I read Felsen. If you want to go back to the 50s or see how it was then...buy this book..you will not regret it...just don't get the urge to get all his books because they are so rare and costly...just ask me...and it took me 30 years. Just read the book and enjoy.

Example of Scarry illustration before he honed his style into that which he would become popular. Great drawings of fifties era cars, particulary commercial vehicles: Ice Cream truck, Flower Delivery, etc.

The page depicting a family on vacation is hilariously un-PC: The father is relaxing and smoking his pipe while the wife scrubs a pot at the sink in the camper. Outside, the toddler looks longingly from the confines of his crib as the boy shoots off his toy gun.

Purchased for our cruise which had a port stop in Barcelona. Very informative. Definitely recommend for the first time visitor to Barcelona.

Spike keeps barking when Stu is cleaning the car and he needs to get a part but Tommy and Chuckie think it will keep spike from barking.

I have followed the work of George and(the late) Sam Barris since 1953. Their work set a trend for all custom car builders and owners. George has done a great tribute to many car builders by showing these terrific photos of many cars that we all thought were lost. As one reads thru the book, you begin to realize that these rolling sculptures are true works of art, and several of these vehicles have been featured in museums and art shows. One can thank George for having the ability to photograph these (K)custom cars during the 1950s.

I'll start off this way, I bought this set of books for a Junior College Automotive Class, and read it before the class sesion even started - and I don't like to read. This is not a dry manual filled with borring specifications. This is an easy to read common sense book.

It covers the lingo we as car owners need to speak to get the right parts and service for our vehicles. (The glossary is in English and in Spanish).

It breaks up the automobile into it's separate systems, and describes them in detail. It prepares you for some fundamental troubleshooting.

Buy it!

Although expensive, this historical account truly is worth every penny. Any automotive historian or enthusiast would be amazed at all the information available in these fantastic volumes. Every make of car that ever existed in the world is described, many in detail unexpected in a work covering such a vast canvas. This is a reworked version of an earlier book, also edited by G.N. Georgano, which had such fine contributers as Michael Sedgwick and Hans Otto Neubauer. The current work has been written by many of the original authors, with fantastic new additions. Michael Sedgwick, one of the greatest automotive historians ever, passed away in 1983. The work has rightfully been dedicated to him. The fact that Lord Montague of Beaulieu is connected with this work is another plus, since his museum and reasearch center are second to none, and books he has authored are among the best, and occupy a proud place in my library. I find myself consulting the Beaulieu Encyclopedia of the Automobile almost on a daily basis!

This book describes all known coachbuilders. During the automobile's classic age, vehicle manufacturers offered bare chassis for the purpose of having coachbuilt bodies mounted on them. The coachbuilders who built these bodies created true works of art. Anyone interested in this fascinating segment of history is urged to buy this book. It is truly worth the price.