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.
Academy Award winner Jack Nicholson (Best Actor, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, 1975) stars with Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper (who also directs) in this unconventional classic which Time Magazine hails as “one of the ten most important pictures of the decade.” Experience the real, uncensored 60s counterculture in this compelling mixture of drugs, sex and armchair politics. In the role that catapulted him to stardom, Jack Nicholson portrays an alcoholic attorney who hooks up with two part-time, drug-dealing motorcyclists (Fonda and Hopper) in search of their “American Dream.” Heading from California to New Orleans, they sample the highs and lows of America the beautiful in a stoned-out quest for life’s true meaning. Nominated for an Academy Award(r) (1969) for Best Screenplay (written by Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper and Terry Southern), Easy Rider continues to touch a chord with audiences of all ages.
This is the muscle car history to own–a richly illustrated chronicle of America’s greatest high-performance cars, told from their 1960s beginning through the present day!
In the 1960s, three incendiary ingredients–developing V-8 engine technology, a culture consumed by the need for speed, and 75 million baby boomers entering the auto market–exploded in the form of the factory muscle car. The resulting vehicles, brutal machines unlike any the world had seen before or will ever see again, defined the sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll generation.
American Muscle Cars chronicles this tumultuous period of American history through the primary tool Americans use to define themselves: their automobiles. From the street-racing hot rod culture that emerged following World War II through the new breed of muscle cars still emerging from Detroit today, this book brings to life the history of the American muscle car.
When Pontiac’s chief engineer, John Z. DeLorean, and his team bolted a big-inch engine into the division’s intermediate chassis, they immediately invented the classic muscle car. In those 20 minutes it took Bill Collins and Russ Gee to bolt a 389 ci V-8 engine into a Tempest chassis they created the prototype for Pontiac’s GTO–and changed the course of automotive history. From that moment on, American performance cars would never be the same.
American Muscle Cars tells the story of the most desirable cars ever to come out of Detroit. It’s a story of flat-out insanity told at full throttle and illustrated with beautiful photography.
Academy Award winner Jack Nicholson (Best Actor, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, 1975) stars with Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper (who also directs) in this unconventional classic which Time Magazine hails as “one of the ten most important pictures of the decade.” Experience the real, uncensored 60s counterculture in this compelling mixture of drugs, sex and armchair politics. In the role that catapulted him to stardom, Jack Nicholson portrays an alcoholic attorney who hooks up with two part-time, drug-dealing motorcyclists (Fonda and Hopper) in search of their “American Dream.” Heading from California to New Orleans, they sample the highs and lows of America the beautiful in a stoned-out quest for life’s true meaning. Nominated for an Academy Award(r) (1969) for Best Screenplay (written by Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper and Terry Southern), Easy Rider continues to touch a chord with audiences of all ages.
A muscle-car book unlike any other, featuring the rarest vehicles on Earth. In the 1960s, something explosive happened in the automotive world: the United States’ evolving V-8 engine technology was met by 75 million baby boomers, all with an extreme need for speed and all entering the auto market at the same time. The result was the golden era of factory muscle cars, brutish machines that were unlike any the world had ever seen or will likely ever see again–they truly embodied the “sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll” generation. For some, even a factory muscle car wasn’t enough. Detroit automakers responded, secretly building some of the most outrageous muscle cars ever created behind their superiors’ backs and ultimately creating some of the most powerful vehicles ever sold to the public. In Top Muscle, author Darwin Holmstrom chronicles the ultimate collection of these super-rare high-performance beasts. Captured by the lens of renowned auto photographer Randy Leffingwell, these cars represent the absolute zenith of the most valuable collector cars in existence, with fascinating histories that illuminate the wildest age in American automotive history. The Brothers Collection features over 600 cars, including such rarities as:
– The very first Chevelle Z16 ever built, which was also the very first muscle car that Chevrolet ever built
– The very first Chevelle SS454 LS6 off the assembly line
– The only 1969 Mach I Mustang ever built with a factory sunroof
– The very first A12 (440-6) Roadrunner ever built
– The very last Hemi ‘Cuda convertible Plymouth produced, One of the eight convertible Trans Am Ram Air III Firebirds that Pontiac built in 1969
