Jalopnik: Books

Chrysler Builds Buzz For Challenger In Memphis Airport

Matt Hardigree — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 17:02:00 EST

After spending a billion (or three) dollars on market research, the elite Chrysler media team achieved a coup de grâce in the Muscle Car Wars by getting the new Challenger SRT8 positioned on the front partition of the southernmost magazine rack at Memphis International Airport's "LiterAIRy" bookstore/Elvis memorabilia depository. It was the greatest achievement for the automaker since securing the covers of every automotive magazine and Salt Water Fishing Weekly for the Plymouth Breeze. Said Chrysler media executive Ed Gersten, "So goes the Memphis airport, so goes America."

Surveys show that people's beliefs are directly linked to the composition of magazines in airports, which explains the popularity of Mitt Romney and girls dressing like whores. Carthage, Tennessee homemaker Betty-Sue Hambone was brimming with excitement as she looked at the rack saying "Orange, orange, look at all that orange. I must have one. What is it? Oh look, Katherine Heigl in a blue dress." Based on this phenomenon, Chrysler plans to take orders for 500,000 Challengers in the next month. [Source: TheFirehouse.biz]

Awesome Dekotora Photography Now in Book Form

Ben Wojdyla — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 11:00:00 EST

Photographer Masaru Tatsuki has done the world a great service and captured the majesty that is Dekotora in a book for all to own. In an interview with PingMag, Masura recalls how he spent nearly ten years living amongst the Dekotora truckers, getting ensconced in their culture, understanding their passions. It was after gaining this understanding that he could dedicate the culture, not just the trucks, to film. The result is a tribute to the art called Decotora. Transliteration differences aside, we're leering in the direction of Amazon US since they don't seem to be stocking this at the moment.

Haynes Now Offers Shop Manual For Sex!

Murilee Martin — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 14:30:00 EST

As some of you may remember from all the talk about the Driveshaft Through The Skull warning symbol, I'm a technical writer by trade. That means that I'm sort of a snob when it comes to automotive repair books; if I'm going to use a book to tell me that how to fix a car, by God, it's going to be the factory-issued shop manual (pounds fist on table) or nothing! None of these Chilton or Haynes or other quasi-generic guides will receive my greasy thumbprints on their pages! But UK-based Haynes now has a shop manual that leaves the car manufacturers' books in the dust: The Haynes Sex Manual! Not only does it provide step-by-step how-tos (including, we hope, the guide to the best positions to use when steaming up the windows of a Reliant Robin), but you even get handy troubleshooting flowcharts! Thanks to LTDScott for the tip! [Haynes]

Jalopnik Holiday Gift Guide: Matchbox 50th Anniversary Commemorative Edition Book

Matt Hardigree — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 14:30:00 EST

Whether you're merely a novice Matchbox collector with a Rubbermaid container full of well-worn cars, or you're a pro carefully dusting your mint condition 1966 Open Diplomat, we think you'll enjoy this tome dedicated to the die-cast toys that filled our dreams. Filled with more pictures than details, the Matchbox 50th Anniversary Commemorative Edition Book will take you back to a time when your garage included a Porsche 914 and could fit under your bed. Product details below.

Product Description

For over half a century Matchbox vehicles have entertained children and collectors of all ages. This book is a celebration of the classic toy car from its inception to today.

Take a historical journey through the past fifty years with Matchbox vehicles. Along the way, you'll read about how Matchbox cars were invented, the history of diecasting, and the large variety of vehicles produced over the years.

Have you ever wondered why certain vehicles are considered more collectible than others? Or why Matchbox cars are numbered and what those numbers mean? The answers to these questions and more can be found throughout the pages of this authoritative book.

Accompanying the informative text are photographs of more than a thousand spectacular vehicles from throughout Matchbox history and its diverse product lines.

Jalopnik Holiday Gift Guide: Encyclopedia of American Cars

Matt Hardigree — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 14:30:00 EST

Though the Internet has mostly limited the need for printed materials, there's just something appealing about five pounds of inky paper dedicated to the American automotive experiment (j/k, keep reading blogs). There are many great resources out there for the car fan, but the "Encyclopedia of America Cars" is one of our favorites. Compiled by the auto editors of Consumer Guide, this beauty weighs in at nearly 900 pages and includes detailed descriptions of every car by every major American brand for the last 70 years.

Our own personal copy is of the 1996 vintage, and thus includes hilarious paragraphs such as this "At this writing there's talk of yet another Imperial, only spun from the striking "cab forward" of the 1994 New Yorker and LH-S. Perhaps that one will be a happier chapter in the history of Chrysler's premium make."

The writing is honest and sometimes quite funny, but the best part is the inclusion of the variations, weight, price, production and engine variations of every model from every manufacturer included in the book. This also includes photos of every major deviation, so you can compare a 1974 Mustang II Mach 1 Hatchback coupe to a 1974 Mustang II "Grande" Prototype. If you've got the money to spend, it'll occupy a treasured space on any true car lover's garage bookshelf.

Legendary Motorcycles

Jonny Lieberman — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 15:45:00 EDT

Yes, yes, we still love cars. And while we don't personally subscribe to the notion that 2 wheels are better than 4, some motorcycles are pretty sweet. In fact, some might say legendary. So writes good friend of Jalopnik Basem Wasef in his new book Legendary Motorcycles. In it he tracks down historically significant bikes ridden by the likes of Elvis, James Dean, Peter Fonda and of course, Steve McQueen. Here's part of the email Basem sent us:

This is easily the most epic creative task I've undertaken; my wife and I traveled cross-country twice to shoot bikes and interview owners, and the process was thrilling, daunting, and ultimately incredibly rewarding. Jay Leno was cool enough to write the foreword.

Hey, if it's good enough for Jay... And so you all know, Mr. Wasef has a very sweet 1983 Porsche 911 SC that he was kind enough to let us fling around Malibu, pre-firestorm apocalypse. So yeah, he loves cars, too. More info: legendarymotorcyclesbook.com

It Was All Part of the Fun

Mike Bumbeck — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 16:00:00 EDT

Chris Economaki slugged it out as an announcer for racetracks across the country before he took the helm of Speed Sport News, or wore the yellow jacket for Wide World of Sports. In the '50s Economaki had followed the promotional efforts of Sam Nunis to Sioux Falls, where he saw a bunch of guys unloading a sophisticated timing device from a truck parked on the infield before the race.

"They struggle to get it up the stairs of the judges stand, and they place it in clear sight of the grandstand. The device has a dial that's about 18 inches in diameter.
Qualifying gets under way and we're really hyping this timing device. 'Breaking the second into one thousand parts, timing these record speeds with absolute precision!'

The dial spun while the clock operated, and stopped when the car flashed across the finish line. The hand on the dial actually spun so fast you couldn't see it with the naked eye. I'm wondering while I'm looking at it, how could the clutch work properly to stop the hands of the dial without slippage? I was curious.
Winkley is sitting in front of the machine, operating the timer, and I'm calling out the times as they're given to me. 'The time, 24 and 232 one-thousandths of a second...' I'm talking away when I look down from the judges stand, and the wires from this timing device are lying in the grass, coiled up and are plugged into nothing.

It was a phony! It was simply something to hype these 'record' speeds, and Winkley was simply winding up the clock mechanism, and making the dial spin while the cars qualified.

Again, it was a little bit of a con. The fans of today simply wouldn't but that sort of thing, no doubt about it. But many people of the era always suspected that the things being hyped weren't necessarily on the level, but there was an underlying chuckle at the same time. It was all part of the fun."

Excerpt from: Let 'Em All Go! The Story of Auto Racing by the Man who was there by Chris Economaki [daveargabright.com]

– Mike Bumbeck

Tiny Jacky Ickx Book...in Texas!

Davey G. Johnson — Thu, 28 Dec 2006 08:00:00 EST

We sort of beamed when Jacky Ickx called the assembled journalists at the R8 press reveal in Paris "beautiful." Well, at least two of us did. At least we don't think it was all the pink bubbly... Anyway we were bumbling around the dusty corners of the World Wide Web this morning and found this fun little trinket in the University of North Texas Miniature Book Collection: it's a minitature (8cm high!) book on the life of the famed Belgian racing driver that could be earned by turning in stamps collected from packages of Franco-Suisse cheese. It's super-neat, and it also begs the question, how did Texas allow anything so small into its collection? Unless it's a mighty big collection of diminutive volumes. That must be it. – Davey G. Johnson

An overview of the career of Belgian race car driver Jacky Ickx [UNT Digital Library]

Related:
Jacky Ickx and Daughter Swap Leads [Internal]

Jalopnik Holiday Gift Guide: The Hot Rod World of Robt. Williams

Mike Bumbeck — Fri, 15 Dec 2006 19:58:21 EST

Hot rods and customs were not always as awful as the worst of them are today. If the latest from the hot rodding or custom car world leaves a sickly paint-by-numbers feeling in your gut then this book is for you. Gearhead Magazine Publisher Mike LaVella, Motorbooks, and Robt. Williams himself have teamed up to create the first book to examine not just the art of Robt. Williams, but also the events and people such as Von Dutch and Ed Roth that helped forge William's tenured position of artist and hot rodder. The book is chock full of color illustrations of Robt. Williams artwork and his hot rods, along with never before published photos from a period in American history that well deserves a chronicle. A steal from 27 to 40 bucks.

The Hot Rod World of Robt. Williams [Gearhead Magazine]; Also Available Here [Amazon]

Related:
Coop on Jake's '34 Fordor [Internal]

Jalopnik Holiday Gift Guide: Kumakubo and Tanaka Endorse Antonio's Drifting Book

Mike Bumbeck — Fri, 15 Dec 2006 17:56:56 EST

With the D1GP World Championship and World All Star events rolling out at Irwindale Speedway this Saturday and Sunday, it seems only fitting to have Team Orange drivers Kumakubo and Tanaka along with Antonio Alvendia himself wish you all a jingle bells. Antonio's book Drifting: Sideways from Japan to America is available at three different levels of amusement - 19.95 for the book itself, 22.95 for the book signed by Antonio, and 24.95 for a special edition book with a signature customized for you. The book can also picked up this weekend along with a pair of slightly used tires for that special someone out at Irwindale Speedway.

Drifting: Sideways from Japan to America [driftingbook.com]

Essential Reading From One B. Yates

Davey G. Johnson — Tue, 21 Nov 2006 18:00:00 EST

Brock Yates runs down his favorite automotive books for the Wall Street Journal. Topics? Henry Ford, Harry Miller, Moss, Dan Gurney and Daytona, but to name a few. Say what you will about Yates, and many have said plenty, but the man knows his history, so when dude drops science on the past of motor racing, it might behoove you to listen up. – Davey G. Johnson

Good From Start to Finish [Wall Street Journal via 0-60]

Related:
Brock Yates on Hist Car and Driver Departure [Internal]

Ah How-How-How: Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top to Publish Autobiography

Davey G. Johnson — Wed, 03 Aug 2005 10:13:42 EDT

The guy with the beard in ZZ Top who isn't named Hill, Billy F. Gibbons is nearly as well-known for his cars as his amped-up Texas boogie. Gibbons tells his tale this fall in Rock 'n' Roll Gearhead (Motorbooks). With accompanying photographs by the mighty David Perry, Gibbons will reportedly spill the beans about life on the road, his amazing collection of cars (we've heard he drives an Aspire when he wants to roll incognito, although "Cruisin' down the road in my inline four," just doesn't quite have the same ring to it), and his astounding plethora of guitars. He's bad, he's nationwide, and the book drops October 15th.

New Book Tells ZZ Top Frontman Billy F Gibbons' Life Story Through His Amazing Collection of Custom Automobiles and Guitars [Autowire]

Jalopnik Read of the Week: Six Men Who Built The Modern Auto Industry

Davey G. Johnson — Thu, 05 May 2005 17:35:09 EDT

Automotive News Managing Editor Richard A. Johnson's new book is a fascinating look inside the incestuous world of the auto industry. Focusing on Henry Ford II, Soichiro Honda, Lee Iaccoca, Bob Lutz, Ferdinand Pi ch and Eberhard von Kuenheim, Johnson tells the tale of the postwar auto industry through the stories of these men, with a nod to Wolfgang Reitzle as well. We learned a lot we didn't know; for example, we had no clue Mr. Honda was such a poon hound. Lutz seems to get the most sympathy from Johnson here, although he's also remarkably sympathetic to Pi ch as well; a man who's probably the least well-liked of the six. The book also features the only interview with Pi ch since he stepped down as head of VW. While Johnson has a penchant for repeating anecdotes in attempts to tie things together, it's a small flaw in a book that tells an incredible story.
-Davey G. Johnson

Six Men Who Built The Modern Auto Industry [Motorbooks]

Related:
BMW's Comic Book Adventure [Internal]