When Keith Helfet embarked upon an ambitious project to create a new body shape for a secondhand Triumph Spitfire using little more than foam offcuts and plaster of Paris, a life as one of the world’s most successful automotive designers seemed like an impossible dream. And yet that’s precisely what he would become.
After studying at London’s prestigious Royal College of Art, the South-African born youngster secured a job at Jaguar, where he would meet his mentor – marque founder Sir William Lyons. Thanks to his encouragement and guidance, Helfet would go on to create a number of iconic designs such as the XJ220 supercar, the XK180 and the beautiful F-type concept created in 2000.
With diversions into medical imaging, product design, power-assisted bicycles and electric vehicles, Design & Desire offers a personal insight into a unique and varied career that has spanned more than four decades – and counting…
Concours Year 2023: The only book to record every class and Best in Show Winner from over 50 of the greatest global concours of 2023.
Now in its fifth edition, The Concours Year, presented by Weathertech, is a celebration of the greatest Concours d’Elegance events from around the world. The book includes Special Awards, Best in Class and Best in Show results from more than 50 concours. The Concours Year is the most comprehensive review of the concours scene published. Nearly 300 pages, hardbound and with more than 1000 images of some of the world’s most important cars, this is a book to treasure.
A Year in Concours: The very best of 2023
- Class and Best in Show Winners from Concours events in 2023
- Concept Lawn
- Concours People: The Entrant – Fritz Burkard; The Judge – David Lillywhite; The Restorer – Clark & Carter; The Organiser – Byron DeFoor
- Highlights and Trends of 2023
- Concept Lawn (new concept cars shown at concours events throughout the year)
- Looking Ahead to 2024
- The India Experience – a behind the scene look at the 21 Gun Salute Concours d’Elegance in Delhi
- Concours Judging Rules Explained – a judging rules deep-dive written by the experienced judge Chris Kramer.
Also introducing the inaugural Concours Year Awards.
And documenting Class and Best of Show results from the following Concours:
Cavallino Classic Middle East, 21 Gun Salute, Cavallino Classic Palm Beach, Concours in the Hills, Intermarque Concours d’Elegance, The Amelia, Sydney Harbour Concours, La Jolla Concours, Motorcar Cavalcade, Lugano Elegance, Cavallino Classic Modena, Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este, Concours on Savile Row, Valetta Concours, Greenwich Concours d’Elegance, London Concours, Cincinnati Concours d’Elegance, Concours d’Elegance Suisse, Dinard Elegance, Rodeo Drive Concours, Philadelphia Concours d’Elegance, Poltu Quatu Classic, Heveningham Concours, Cartier Style et Luxe (Festival of Speed), Zurich Classic Car Award (ZCCA), Quail, A Motorsports Gathering, Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, Misselwood Concours d’Elegance, San Marino Motor Classic, Salon Privé, Classic-Gala Schwetzingen, Concours of Elegance Hampton Court, Radnor Hunt Concours d’Elegance, Concours d’Elegance Tegernsee, Antwerp Concours d’Elegance, Cobble Beach Concours d’Elegance, Ironstone, Detroit Concours, St Michaels, Ascona Concours d’Elegance, The Boston Cup, Audrain Newport Concours and much more!
Experience the entire history of Triumph sports cars in this comprehensive volume featuring stunning studio photography, rare archival images, and period advertising.
Triumph Cars chronicles the company and its remarkable vehicles, from the first 10/20 through a string of automobiles sought after by collectors, from the early Supers and Glorias through the entire TR and Spitfire ranges, and on to the legendary GT6 and the latter-day 1300, 1500, and Dolomite sedans—filled with images, history, and in-depth analyses of players, tech, and styling.
With roots extending to a London bicycle importer established in 1885, Triumph built its first car in 1923: the Triumph 10/20. By 1930, the Triumph Cycle Co. had become Triumph Motor Company and was on its way to establishing seven decades of automotive heritage.
Author Ross Alkureishi showcases how company visionaries developed the brand—and how the brand changed hands—in the trying economic times of the 1930s and during the war years. The Standard years beginning in 1944 are also examined, along with associations with Jaguar and the range of roadsters and saloons developed, arguably peaking with the introduction of the TR2 sports car in 1953.
Alkureishi proceeds through the stylish 1950s cars and on to the Leyland years beginning in 1960, and associated engine and styling developments. The story ends with the last Triumph model, the Acclaim introduced in 1981, and the marque’s subsequent mothballing. Along the way, Alkureishi also highlights Triumph motorsport exploits, particularly in the realm of rally cars.
From the 1923 steel-paneled 10/20 through a range of roadsters, saloons, and sports cars, Triumph Cars offers a definitive review of an iconic British marque. The book is illustrated with hundreds of historic, contemporary, and racing photographs, as well as detailed text. This is the one volume no sports car enthusiast can be without.
A rare and extremely important early motor racing book by the Englishman, Charles Jarrott, who was a very successful competitor in many of the major early international racing events in Great Britain and Europe from 1895-1906. The book has many black ad white photos and illustrations and a wonderful appendix that identifies the winners of each of the early competitions from 1895-1906, (by date, vehicle and race)! This is the personal story of a man who participated in the earliest days of motoring and the first international motor races including the: – the famous city-to-city races ( 1901 Paris-Berlin, 1902 Circuit Du Nord, 1902 Paris-Vienna, 1902 Circuit Des Ardennes, etc.), – and Gordon Bennett Cup events (1900-1904). The first English Edition was published in 1906 by E. Grant Richards in London.
This edition is a modern re-print.
People lie, cheat, steal and even kill for a variety of reasons, one of which is to go motor racing, a particularly expensive and egotistical sport. This intriguing book, the result of years of research, encompasses not just those who have been ‘driven to crime’ in order to pay for their sport but also characters within motor racing who have been involved in wrongdoing, sometimes through no fault of their own.
Over 60 true stories cover webs of deceit and numerous crimes including drug trafficking, corruption, embezzlement, robbery, fraud, murder and money laundering. The author investigates misdemeanours at all levels, from drivers, designers and mechanics to team owners, entrants and sponsors.
- Stories of motorsport chicanery from all over the world, including…
- Fraud: Southern Organs (lay preachers who faked suicide and hid on a remote Scottish island); Jerry Dominelli (a Ponzi scheme that funded top-level racing Porsches); Jean-Pierre Van Rossem (self-styled stock-market guru who bankrolled an F1 team); Dominic Chappell (serial bankrupt racer brought down after purchasing a British department store); David Thieme (the Lotus sponsor who vanished).
- Murder: David Blakely (the driver killed by his lover Ruth Ellis); Franco Ambrosio (F1 sponsor of Shadow and Arrows); Elmer George (American racer who married into Indy ‘royalty’); Ricardo Londoño-Bridge (Colombia’s first F1 driver); Mickey Thompson (1960s American drag-racing icon); Nick Whiting (casualty of the biggest gold bullion heist in British history).
- Swindles: James Munroe (accounts manager who embezzled his way to a racing McLaren F1 GTR); Lord Brocket (jailed for staging the theft of his classic cars, including Ferraris); Andrea Harkness (stripper who ripped off NASCAR).
- Drugs: Ian Burgess (sometime British F1 racer); Randy Lanier (drug-smuggling IMSA champion); John Paul Sr and Jr (talented son dragged into a racing father’s drug-running); Vic Lee (super-successful team owner with a dodgy transporter); the Whittington brothers (more misdeeds in IMSA circles).
- Other misdemeanours: Roy James (Great Train Robbery getaway driver); Bertrand Gachot (jailed after road rage in London); Juan Manuel Fangio (kidnapped by Cuban rebels in 1958); Colin Chapman (the unresolved ‘DeLorean Affair’); ‘Spygate’ (Ferrari design secrets passed to McLaren).
This book will appeal not only to motor racing enthusiasts and cognoscenti on both sides of the Atlantic but also to anyone who enjoys reading about true crimes.
Journallist and broadcaster Andrew Marriott writes with a light and humorous touch about a multi-faceted career covering some six decades.
He reckons he was the youngest ever person to report a Formula 1 race for a national publication and now the oldest person to regularly report from the pit lanes of Le Mans, Daytona and Silverstone.
He has covered every aspect of car and bike racing from Formula 1 to NASCAR as well as World Championship motorcycle racing plus inshore and offshore powerboat racing. Along the way he has interviewed thousands of competitors and, indeed, show business personalities . He says that he has interviewed or worked with every Formula 1 World Champion bar Farina, Ascari and Hawthorn.
He has been driven across Buenos Aires by Fangio, starred in a hilarious TV blooper episode with Mario Andretti, judged competitions with James Hunt, provided a flat floor for Jody Scheckter to sleep on, played charades with Jochen Rindt, persuaded Denny Hulme to go truck racing, covered up for Alan Jones after an altercation with a van driver and door-stepped Alain Prost as he came out of a Monaco portaloo. Ayrton Senna secretly signed his Lotus contract in front of Andrew but subsequently stood him up when the Brazilian decided that taking a ride in F16 jet was a better option than a Marriott interview.
Add to that ghosting road tests and much more from motor cycle world champion Barry Sheene, working with George Harrison on a sponsorship deal and for 25 years interviewing the Le Mans 24 Hour winners at the end of the great race. He says he is not sure how many times he has covered the French classic but at least 50 and he has worked at over 130 different race tracks. He came up with the idea of a feature film about Steve McQueen which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and is currently working on a follow-up.
Add to this a career in sports management and sponsorship embracing such events as the Hong Kong-Beijing Rally, various major Truck Races and the Birmingham Superprix. He has launched racing cars everywhere from London’s Albert Hall to a former carpet warehouse in Didcot. Add to that a brief career as a rally co-driver which included winning internationals in South Africa and the UK and finishing up stuck in a mud hole in Paraguay.
So he has plenty to write about and he says he has enjoyed nearly all of it all but as the title suggests – Is There Much More of This?
Located in an Observer Corps post on the top of a Martello tower on the seafront at Dymchurch in Kent, Mr E.E. Woodland and Mr A.M. Wraight were on duty on the morning of 13 June 1944. Shortly after 04.00 hours they spotted the approach of an object spurting red flames from its rear end and making a noise like ‘a Model-T-Ford going up a hill’. What they were watching was the first V1 flying bomb heading towards the South Coast. A new battle of Britain was about to begin.
The flying bomb that the two men had observed crossed the shoreline and continued northwards. Some ten minutes later it fell to earth with a loud explosion at Swanscombe, near Gravesend. It was the first of more than 10,000 flying bombs launched against Britain that summer, most of which were targeted at London. At its peak, Hitler’s flying bomb campaign saw more than 100 V1s a day being fired.
Much of the UK suddenly found itself back in the frontline of the war. In the weeks and months that followed, thousands of people were killed, many more injured. In this book the author takes the reader through the day by day battle. Accounts from some of those who survived the buzz bomb attacks bring the story to life as people tell about their fears and experiences.
To combat the threat, RAF fighter pilots flew round the clock patrols, desperately trying to shoot the robot rockets down and stop them from reaching their targets, whilst anti-aircraft gunners played their part on the ground. So successful was this joint effort that by the end of March 1945, the combined British defenses were accounting for 72.8% of all the reported V1s that were directed at the United Kingdom. This is the story of how that success was achieved.
London-born Peter Bryant gave up a career as a front-line Formula One mechanic to begin an entirely new life in American auto racing, where he eventually became a leading Can-Am car designer. His experiences, recounted here in vivid detail, offer a compelling and often very humorous look into one of motor racing’s most exciting eras. Peter fell in love with the United States when he visited to prepare a factory-loaned Ferrari for John Surtees in the 1963 U.S. Road Racing Championship. Peter returned to America as a mechanic for Mickey Thompson’s team at the fateful 1964 Indianapolis 500. This time he stayed, working first with Carroll Shelby’s Cobra team and later with the Dana Chevrolet and Carl Haas Lola Can-Am teams. It was in the Can-Am series that Peter made his mark as the designer and builder of several unique cars. The first was the innovative Autocoast Ti22, which featured the extensive use of titanium components and construction. In 1970 the Ti22 became the first American-made car to lead a Can-Am race since 1968. Peter continued to fight the McLarens and Porsches that dominated the series with his famous UOP Shadow cars in 1971 and 1972, which made pioneering use of ground-effect aerodynamics and ran on unleaded gasoline. In Can-Am Challenger Peter tells his own story in his own engaging style. Though packed with technical details and insights into building a successful race car, his account also includes a wealth of colorful characters and hilarious stories from a life spent behind the scenes with great cars, teams, and drivers.
The Blitz was one of the gravest threats the UK has faced in its long history. From August 1940 to May 1941, the island nation was subjected to a relentless campaign of aerial bombing. German night raids gutted towns and cities, rendering thousands homeless (250,000 Londoners were homeless by October 1940 alone), killing 43,500 civilians and wounding 139,000 more.
That the Blitz did not bring the UK to its knees is due, in large part, to a vast response by Civil Defence services and the British people themselves. Preparations for enduring a strategic bombing campaign began in the mid-1930s with the development of the Air Raid Precautions (ARP) organisation, and by late 1938 more than 700,000 people were serving in ARP roles. During the war itself, some 1.5 million people took up duties in the Civil Defence (General) services, in roles ranging from air raid wardens to ambulance drivers to heavy rescue parties.
Written in collaboration with Gerry Coker, the designer responsible for the iconic Austin-Healey 100 and Sprite, this extraordinary volume represents the most accurate and complete account of the sports cars built at Warwick, Longbridge, Abingdon and West Bromwich. The author had unprecedented access to Donald and Geoffrey Healey’s private papers, diaries, scrapbooks and photo albums, corporate and financial records from BMC, Donald Healey Motor Company and Healey Automobile Consultants, the files of Jensen Motors and Nash-Kelvinator, dozens of personal interviews and exhaustive research into previously unavailable primary source material. As a result, Healey: The Men and the Machines offers a compelling examination of the true story behind these incredible automobiles and the individuals who created them.
From his early childhood and heroic service as an aviator in the Royal Flying Corps during the First World War, this book provides a comprehensive account of Donald Healey’s motoring career, including competition outings and his involvement with Invicta, Riley and Triumph. The story of the Healey marque’s birth during the darkest days of the Second World War is told through the words of the men involved, revealing the myriad obstacles that faced the small team during a period of strict rationing, limited resources and government meddling.
Fast, elegant and endowed with excellent handling, the early Healey sports cars were among the fastest in the world, acquitting themselves admirably at events such as the Alpine Rally, Mille Miglia and the 24 Hours of Le Mans, but Warwick’s survival was constantly in doubt until the landmark agreement that resulted in the Nash-Healey erased many of small firm’s financial struggles. With access to Nash-Kelvinator’s internal correspondence for the first time, the authors are able to set the record straight about this crucial period in the marque’s history, including the controversial machinations behind the development of the Healey Hundred that made a smash debut at the 1952 London Motor Show.
Lavishly illustrated with previously unpublished photographs, Austin-Healey competition and record-breaking efforts are covered in exquisite fashion, seen through the eyes of legendary names like Rauno Aaltonen, Clive Baker, Paddy Hopkirk, Count Johnny Lurani, Lance Macklin, Timo Mäkinen, Roger Menadue, Don and Erle Morley, Pat and Stirling Moss, Carroll Shelby, John Sprinzel, and Ann and Tommy Wisdom. Equally fascinating are the stories behind the troubled Jensen-Healey and Donald Healey’s attempts to continue building sports cars well into the 1980s, refusing to enter a sedate retirement that would have been so richly deserved.
Destined to become the definitive reference on the subject, Healey: The Men and the Machines includes over 200,000 words, more than 700 detailed footnotes, and eight appendices that cover the competition and record breaking activities of the various models, specifications for every model produced, including the limited production variants, and Donald Healey’s personal musings on racing and sports car design. An instant classic, this is a work certain to inform and entertain enthusiasts of the men and machines that brought the world to its feet at a time when Britain was down on its knees.
When Valerie Pirie interviewed for her first real secretarial job after college, she did not expect to end up working for Stirling Moss. Regarded as the greatest driver who was never crowned world champion, he would become not only her new boss, but a lifelong friend. Here, in this playful and moving memoir, she opens up about the man behind the steering wheel.
With a joie de vivre and unparalleled pluck, Pirie details the highs and lows of her many years working and occasionally living at very close quarters with a true pioneer of Formula One, recounting anecdotes from the track, the office and nights out in the West End of London with one of the best-known names in motor racing. Whether at Goodwood, Le Mans or the Nürburgring, Pirie was often there beside Moss to witness the wins, losses and technical malfunctions and, of course, his career-ending crash in 1962.
If she wasn’t at his bedside in the hospital, managing his never-ending building works or on one occasion transporting his spare pair of dentures to France, Pirie was accompanying Moss wherever he needed her most. Never just colleagues, the pair were true companions, and this book brings to light the story of their enduring friendship from the classic post-war era of motor racing through to today.
Along with three fellow motor racing enthusiasts, Steve Matchett – Formula 1 world champion mechanic; accomplished television broadcaster; and best-selling author – is trapped overnight in New York: a fogbound JFK airport. With no sign of the weather improving, talk between the stranded passengers inevitably turns to Formula 1. During the course of their cloistered night, with conversation fueled by regular trips to the departure lounge bar, our protagonists draw on Matchett’s encyclopedic knowledge of grand prix engineering, his easy familiarity with F1 paddock life, to piece together the perfect dream-team Formula 1 race car.By use of his enviable signature talent, his ability to explain complex issues using straightforward, uncomplicated language, Steve Matchett shows us how the various F1 teams have arrived at their current state-of-the-art designs – lays out exactly how a championship winning grand prix car is assembled.Originally published by Orion (of London) in 2004, The Chariot Makers is Steve Matchett’s third book. Along with Life in the Fast Lane, and The Mechanic’s Tale, this compelling, insightful story – its warm text reading as a novel – forms the final installment of the author’s entertaining, timeless, and highly acclaimed Formula 1 trilogy.
A major three-volume work on the pre-war history and cars of the great British coachbuilder, Park Ward. The company was the most prolific coachbuilder on Rolls-Royce and Bentley chassis, ultimately completing over 4,300 cars. Volume I and II is the story of Park Ward & Co Ltd. – the men who worked there and the company’s growing relationship with Rolls-Royce Ltd. A photographic record of all the Rolls-Royce models from Silver Ghost to the Wraith that carried Park Ward coachwork is included, along with chapters on the W. O. Bentley cars, and the Rolls-Royce and Bentley experimental cars with Park Ward coachwork. The Derby-built Bentleys follow, supported by chapters on the London Motor Show cars, coachwork on marques other than Rolls-Royce and Bentley, and examples of Park Ward advertising literature and catalogues. An appendix contains a series of articles written by ‘Bill’ Ward, the company founder’s son, entitled ‘The Art and Evolution of Coachbuilding’. Volume III contains extensive tables detailing each of over 3,000 pre-war Park Ward-bodied Rolls-Royce and Bentley, as well as a listing of over 1,000 Park Ward bodies on other marques. In addition, and rarely seen before, there are over 700 sales order pages extracted from Park Ward’s Finishing books.
Author Malcolm Tucker is a past-Chairman of the Rolls-Royce Enthusiasts’ Club, and is an established Rolls-Royce and Bentley historian, writer and ‘after dinner’ speaker. This will be his fourth book for Dalton Watson Fine Books. Malcolm has owned thirty-five Rolls-Royce or Bentley cars, including, for forty-six years, a 1928 20hp faux cabriolet by Park Ward.
In the 1930s, Rolls-Royce’s Derby factory supplied Bentleys only as chassis, without bodies, and many customers for these refined, fast and enormously desirable cars would then turn to a particular coachbuilder to design and construct a body for them to meet their tastes and requirements. From Abbey of Acton, West London, to Worblaufen of Switzerland, by way of great names like Barker, Gurney Nutting, HJ Mulliner and Saoutchik, Coachwork on Derby Bentleys covers all the British and overseas coachbuilders on the Bentley chassis, and reviews the bodies they built on the 3.5-litre, 4.25-litre and the short-lived Mark V. The British coachbuilders are dealt with in alphabetical order, as are the overseas companies in a separate section, with details of the different types of bodies they supplied. Bentley aficionados will particularly appreciate the inclusion of chassis numbers for all the cars bodied by all the coachbuilders, which makes this a truly inclusive work. There are some 280 colour photographs, including in-detail shoots of 40 outstanding cars by the distinguished automotive photographer Simon Clay, and 80 black-and-white illustrations from the archives. Celebrating as it does the work of the leading coachbuilders of the era, as well as Bentley’s quite exceptional productions of the 1930s, this book offers an unrivaled store of knowledge for the many enthusiasts and owners who care passionately about the cars, and serves as a tribute to the people who made them.
This is the story as told by a man who was both a devoted fan and a loyal team member of British Racing Motors. He saw and was involved in the repeated failures and humiliating times of the 1950s, through the gradual progress of winning minor races to Jo Bonnier winning the first World Championship Grand Prix in Holland in 1959. It culminates in the ultimate honor in 1962, when, in East London, South Africa, Graham Hill drove the BRM to victory to win both the drivers World Championship and the Constructors Championship for the BRM team, thereby making a considerable contribution to British motor racing history.
Born 1906 in London as the son of an English mother and a German father, Rudolf Uhlenhaut was an engineer and designer for Daimler-Benz. He became famous for his achievements regarding the Silver Arrows, the 300 SL with the famous gull wing doors, the legendary Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR, known as the “Uhlenhaut Coupé” and the various experimental C 111 versions well-known for several speed records. Uhlenhaut joined Daimler-Benz in 1931 after finishing his studies of mechanical engineering in Munich. In 1936 he took over as head of the racing department and conducted the Silver Arrows and Rudolf Caracciola to their 1937 European championship. Based upon the 300 SL “Gullwing”, initially a thoroughbred racing sports car, he created the road versions W198 and the smaller open-topped W121, both launched at the International Motor Sports Show in New York 1954. Though Uhlenhaut never owned a car of his own, his official company car, a 300 SLR with a top speed of 290 km/h became famous as the Uhlenhaut Coupé – the fastest car of its day authorized for road use! This first ever comprehensive biography of Rudolf Uhlenhaut, illustrated with many previously unpublished photographs, depicts his life and technical achievements, presenting a complete compilation of all the patents he filed and exploring their significance. It also draws a vivid picture of the person behind the technical innovations and tries to explore his character and motivation.
