The history of Chrysler Corporation is, in many ways, a history of a company floundering from one financial crisis to the next. While that has given shareholders fits for nearly a century, it has also motivated the Pentastar company to create some of the most outrageous, and collectible, cars ever built in the United States.
From the moment Chrysler unleashed the Firepower hemi V-8 engine on the world for the 1951 model year, they had been cranking out the most powerful engines on the market. Because the company pioneered the use of lightweight unibody technology, it had the stiffest, lightest bodies in which to put those most powerful engines, and that is the basic muscle-car formula: add one powerful engine to one light car.
When the muscle car era exploded onto the scene, Chrysler unleashed the mighty Mopar muscle cars, the Dodges and Plymouths that defined the era. Fabled nameplates like Charger, Road Runner, Super Bee, ‘Cuda, and Challenger defined the era and rank among the most valuable collector cars ever produced by an American automaker.
Featuring cars from the incomparable Brothers’ Collection, The Art of Mopar: Chrysler, Dodge, and Plymouth Muscle Cars celebrates these cars in studio portraits using the light-painting process perfected by Tom Loeser. It is the ultimate portrayal of the ultimate muscle cars.
Climb inside these stunning muscle car drop-tops, straight from the classic era of American high-performance cars!
Today’s rarest, priciest, and most highly sought-after muscle cars are also the least practical. These are the striking convertibles of the 1960s and 1970s that were optioned out for drag racing. Wide-Open Muscle showcases these rare cars and proves that sometimes it pays to throw practicality out the window in order to make something purely cool and fun to drive.
At the peak of drag racing popularity, it was common knowledge that racers needed the lightest, most rigid-framed cars available. Convertibles represent the exact opposite of that description, so it’s amazing that these drop tops ever emerged amid the circle of full-throttle dragsters. While typical convertible drivers cruised around listening to the latest Lovin’ Spoonful release in the eight-track tape deck, these muscle-car convertibles were equipped for rock ‘n’ roll speed. These topless muscle cars are so rare because few people had the dedication (or money) to buy a vehicle this impractical. They’re valuable because they represent the absolute extreme of the entire muscle-car genre.
Wide-Open Muscle celebrates these rare and fantastic cars in studio portraits using the light-painting process perfected by author Randy Leffingwell and photographer Tom Loeser. It is the ultimate portrayal of the ultimate muscle cars.
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Art of the Hot Rod is a feast for the eyes–a gallery of gorgeous hot rods, the best you’ll see from the world’s top hot rod builders!
A hot rod is art on wheels, and this book contains a whole gallery of the best you’ll ever see. In this exclusive collector’s edition of Art of the Hot Rod you’ll find a jaw-dropping array of beautiful hot rod photos, plus special gatefolds, updated text, and exclusive frameable photographic prints.
Art of the Hot Rod: Collector’s Edition celebrates the uniquely American marriage of mechanical know-how and an inspired sense of style and design. Built from the ground up, pieced together from salvaged or hand-built parts, rebuilt with classic looks and modern technology–these automotive works of art are as powerful on the page as they are on the street. The book profiles top builders such as Pete Chapouris, Roy Brizio, Vern Tardel, Troy Trepanier, and fifteen others and features studio portraits of their most outstanding custom creations. Through the stunning portraiture of master photographer Peter Harholdt, Art of the Hot Rod captures these magnificent vehicles as they’ve never been seen before. In addition to full-color photography and updated text, this special collector’s edition features two gatefolds with new photography and four garage art photo prints.
Two Summers offers a fresh, revealing and highly personal window into the culture of Grand Prix racing as it was during the 1954 and 1955 championships. The core of this book is devoted to individual portraits of the twelve races that comprised the 1954-55 seasons in which the W 196 R participated. Of those races, Fangio won seven and Moss won two.
With its carefully-crafted observations and conclusions, given added drama by its richly-detailed illustrations, there are numerous examples of the energy and dynamic nature of these racing seasons â?? not the least being abundant evidence that Fangio was indeed the ultimate master of the art and science of racing a Grand Prix automobile, and that the W 196 R was the instrument with which he honed his skills. This book captures the decisive moments when victory – hanging in the balance – was tilted towards Fangio by his own steady hand on the wheel and iron discipline.
The W 196 R’s racing days may be long gone, but it remains a shining star of Mercedes-Benz’ participation in motor sport heritage events worldwide.
It’s this timeless appeal of the W196R that gives this book its vitality, charm and enduring attraction.
Steve McQueen found it hard to balance worldwide fame with a desperate need for solitude. Through performances that were effortless yet powerful, he connected with the people who saw him on stage, on television, in movie houses, and on magazine covers anywhere on earth. Sometimes more comfortable racing a motorcycle than in front of a camera, twice at the height of his stardom he took more than a year off from movies. Despite this, and despite dying young, he left an indelible imprint. Images, his own words, and the words of others chronicle his rise from juvenile delinquent to the highest paid star in Hollywood. The Hollywood Icon series: People talk about Hollywood glamour, about studios that had more stars than there are in heaven, about actors who weren’t actors but were icons. Other people talk about these things, Taschen shows you. Hollywood Icons is a series of photo books that feature the most famous movie icons in the history of cinema. These 192-page books are visual biographies of the stars. For each title, series editor Paul Duncan has painstaking selected approximately 150 high quality enigmatic and sumptuous portraits, colorful posters and lobby cards, rare film stills, and previously unpublished candid photos showing the stars as they really are. These images are accompanied by concise introductory essays by leading film writers; each book also includes a chronology, a filmography, and a bibliography, and is peppered with apposite quotes from the movies and from life.
“Three Points of Contact is a dramatic series of portraits that reveal how the world’s greatest drivers use their eyes, hands, and feet to control their cars, outpace their rivals, and become champions.
Renowned director and photographer Jeff Zwart (author of the award-winning Porsche Rennsport) created these images at The Race of Champions, held in Paris and London, where top drivers from Formula One, the World Rally Championship, NASCAR, X-Games, and other series compete directly against each other driving identical cars.
Each driver is revealed in amazingly vivid detail, from seven-time Formula One World Champion Michael Schumacher to reigning NASCAR champion Jimmie Johnson. Zwart’s meticulously produced portraits focus on the eyes, hands, and feet—the three points of contact that every driver employs. The book’s large 13-inch by 11-inch format and high-quality printing bring out all of the nuances of Zwart’s close-up, specially de-saturated color photography.
Each copy is signed by the author and individually numbered.
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These heretofore-unseen pictures illustrate a time that was unique. As the years have swept past I’ve come to appreciate how lucky I was to have been there to capture many of those moments on film.” -Jesse Alexander.
In a career spanning more than 50 years, Jesse Alexander has captured some of the most unforgettable moments in motorsports history on film. From his revealing portraits of famous drivers to his vivid images of action at Le Mans and classic grand prix circuits, his work has appeared in countless magazines, books, galleries, and museums. Many of his images-such as his famous portrait of Jim Clark, or his behind-the-scenes shots of the Ferrari and Porsche teams, have become icons in their own right.
But these well-known images represent only a small portion Alexander’s total body of work. For every photograph that racing fans already know and love, there are thousands more that have remained largely unseen. Inside The Archives brings the best of these rare images to light for the first time, revealing a fresh, often unexpected side of Alexander’s art and the world of cars and racing.
Some are new takes on classic events, such as a sweeping shot of Stirling Moss leaping into an Aston Martin DB3 at Le Mans, or the procession of red Ferraris lined up for the start at the Targa Florio. But many others treat the reader to unusual cars, lesser-known drivers, and startling settings that have never appeared in Alexander’s other books. There’s the innovative, championship-winning Vanwall driven by Stuart Lewis-Evans at the 1958 Grand Prix of Morocco, a race that would prove fatal for the Englishman. There are the beautifully prepared Ecurie Ecosse Jaguar D-types waiting to face American Indy cars at Monza’s short-lived “Race of Two Worlds” in 1957. And in a stunning departure from the pageantry and lush scenery found at so many European venues, there is a startling mix of home-built hot rods and exotic land-speed racers set against the otherworldly background of the Bonneville salt flats in 1965.
Regardless of the subject or setting, each of the images in Inside The Archives reflect Jesse Alexander’s unique gifts as a photographer as well as a fascination with the world or motorsports that has endured for more than half a century.
From the development of the U-2 to the Stealth fighter, the never-before-told story behind America’s high-stakes quest to dominate the skies Skunk Works is the true story of America’s most secret and successful aerospace operation. As recounted by Ben Rich, the operation’s brilliant boss for nearly two decades, the chronicle of Lockheed’s legendary Skunk Works is a drama of cold war confrontations and Gulf War air combat, of extraordinary feats of engineering and human achievement against fantastic odds. Here are up-close portraits of the maverick band of scientists and engineers who made the Skunk Works so renowned. Filled with telling personal anecdotes and high adventure, with narratives from the CIA and from Air Force pilots who flew the many classified, risky missions, this book is a riveting portrait of the most spectacular aviation triumphs of the twentieth century.
“The painter laureate of the car” —AutoWeek
Be dazzled by gorgeous paintings from award-winning automotive artist Harold Cleworth. From illustrating the elegant curves of the multimillion-dollar 1936 Bugatti Atlantic, to perfectly depicting the brilliance of the head-turning red of Ferraris past and present, Cleworth brings an incredible photo-like quality to his work that not only captures the beauty of a car, but elevates it. With a precision that is beyond photography, it is no wonder that he is one of the world’s most sought-after artists: commissioned by car companies to paint originals of their newest models, and by celebrities and private collectors to create portraits of their beloved automobiles.
CLEWORTH: an ARTFULLlife is the first publication to compile his life’s work, and is a captivating visual journey of an illustrious career that has spanned almost four decades. A must-have for automobile aficionados, it features Cleworth’s most highly coveted paintings to date, and the fascinating stories behind them.
