After 92 years of designing, manufacturing and operating their own blimps, The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company will move to an all new airship, the Zeppelin NT. Follow one of the last blimps as she makes her final flights into retirement, and ultimately history. You’ll see what it takes to operate the blimp, see views from vantage points no one has ever seen before, and get a glimpse of what it’s like to be a crew member working for one of the most recognizable American icons. Watch the blimp perform its last working flights right up until its final flight including deflation and dismantling. You’ll laugh. You’ll cry. You’ll see a side of the blimp no one has ever seen before. Filmed in 4K UltraHD, presented here on Blu-Ray for the first time.
Includes a piece of the last blimp.
SIGNED
Nazis, Communists, Formula 1, Ferraris, the Cannonball Run, the Olympics, even a true love lost then found nearly 40 years later—Andrew Frankl’s memoir reads like a work of fantasy. But it’s all true. Inside this full-color 208-page hardcover book, complete with dust jacket, you’ll find Frankl’s reflections on his 80 years of life, love luck and automobiles.Each copy will be individually hand-signed by the author, making this a collectible book that can be treasured for years to come by anyone in the motorsports industry.
—Learn how Frankl’s story started in late 1956, when, at just 18 years of age, he was issued an AK47 and ordered to shoot the Russians
—Find out about his early career in motorsports when he left automaker Ford to join the annual publication Autocourse, and within a few years moved on to CAR.
—After selling CAR to Rupert Murdoch in the late 1980s for a tidy sum, Frankl set his sights on the Olympic Games, organizing and running a bobsled team in 1994, 1998, and 2002.
—But he couldn’t stay away from publishing. In 1996, he joined the staff of the internationally-known Ferrari magazine, FORZA, where he has served as Grand Prix Editor every since.
—Right around that time, he was reunited with his first love, Suzie, from whom he had been separated by the ’56 Revolution.
The story of a man that brought his own personal style to the world of industrial design, from automobiles to powerboats. Some 50 years after his design masterpieces wrested styling leadership away from General Motors – Harley Earl. Thirty four years after his untimely death, Virgil Exner’s name still remains inexorably linked to the Chrysler Corporation in the minds of car enthusiasts worldwide.
For an all too brief period, Exner’s name epitomised all that was great and exciting in America. His thrilling automobile designs from the mid-fifties took the world by storm and put Chrysler at the top. His work was nothing less than a revolution. Until the mid-fifties, engineers, creating cars that were reliable but invariably staid and conservative, had dominated auto design. Exner introduced to Chrysler, firstly with his ‘idea cars’ then with production models, vehicles that were wanted for their looks but at the same time, were soundly engineered; automobiles that carried classic proportions and gave the illusion of movement even whilst stationary. His design of the 1947 Studebaker established the design pattern for all modern cars and was a huge success. Along with automobile styling, his talents stretched to many other areas of industrial design, from trains to trucks and boats to Buicks.
This book gets behind the character of the man, his strengths and weaknesses, his personal tragedies and his vision of modern transport. Uncover why he set up in competition with Raymond Loewy, get the real facts behind historic inaccuracies and why he was made scapegoat for the sales disaster of the early sixties, Then delight in his fine artwork and his love of motor racing. With many previously unseen works of art and family photos among the 150 colour images throughout this is a unique and fascinating insight into a pivotal player in the development of the modern automobile.
GIs returning after World War II created an entirely new automotive market niche when they bought surplus Jeeps and began exploring the rugged backcountry of the American West. This burgeoning market segment, which eventually became known as sport utility vehicles (SUVs), numbered about 40,000 units per year with offerings from Jeep, Scout, Toyota, and Land Rover. In 1966, Ford entered the fray with its Bronco, offering increased refinement, more power, and an innovative coil-spring front suspension. The Bronco caught on quickly and soon established a reputation as a solid backcountry performer. In Baja, the legendary accomplishments of racers such as Parnelli Jones, Rod Hall, and Bill Stroppe further cemented the bobtail’s reputation for toughness.
Ford moved upstream with the introduction of the larger Bronco for 1978, witnessing a huge increase in sales for the second-generation trucks. The Twin Traction Beam front end was introduced in the third generation, and further refinements including more aerodynamic styling, greater luxury, and more powerful fuel-injected engines came on board in the generations that followed. Through it all, the Bronco retained its reputation as a tough, versatile, and comfortable rig, both on and off the paved road. With the reintroduction of the Bronco for 2020, Ford is producing a vehicle for a whole new generation of enthusiasts that looks to bring modern styling and performance to the market while building on the 30-year heritage of the first five generations of the Bronco so dearly loved by their owners.
From the development process and details of the first trucks through the 1996 models, author Todd Zuercher shares technical details, rarely seen photos, and highlights of significant models along with the stories of those people whose lives have been intertwined with the Bronco for many years. This book will have new information for everyone and will be a must-have for longtime enthusiasts and new owners alike!
The Science of Speed Book 1
A Driver’s Step-by-Step Guide to Finding Their Own Optimal Line Through the Physics of Racing.
- We will take you through an intuitive and fun lesson in the physics of racing and then we’ll apply it as you learn to optimize your driving technique.
- We will look at real-world racetracks and provide an exact procedure to find the ideal approach all from the driver’s-eye point of view.
- Regardless of your current level of driving experience, you can apply these methods today and remove any doubt about what you should be doing on track for good.
The works Minis had a long and distinguished competition history between 1959 and 1970, when British Leyland bosses closed the Abingdon Competition Department. The car started its competition career chasing class awards with the diminutive 850cc Mini, but once race car designer John Cooper persuaded BMC that they should build a hot version, the Mini Cooper was born and things moved up a gear.
With the introduction of the Mini Cooper S, the car soon became a world beater. Winning the 1964 Monte Carlo Rally in the hands of Paddy Hopkirk was a watershed moment which the Abingdon team repeated three times. During that 11-year period, 77 works Minis were built, competing in more than 300 events, most of them international rallies. The 1969 season, when the works Minis went racing, is also covered, along with the rallycross events.
Works Minis in Detail covers each one of those 77 cars which, in their distinctive red and white paintwork, were a force be reckoned with wherever they competed. Build details of every car are provided, drawn from factory build sheets, with information also on when cars were reshelled and identities swapped. The details of the events entered and the drivers are the result of analysing hundreds of contemporary race and rally reports.
The result is the most in-depth study of the works Minis ever published, made possible by years of research by Robert Young, a lifelong Mini enthusiast. As the Mini Cooper Register’s ex-works registrar, club chairman and for many years archivist, he is well placed to write with authority. A proud owner himself, he has intimate knowledge of the little red cars.
Don Garlits on flying saucers, God and politics, Hand Grenade Harry with tales from the Pond, Sal fish, John Force, Jocko Johnson, Malcolm Bricklin, the Surfers, the Prince of Monaco, Danny Thompson, Bill Maverick Golden, Connie Swingle, Wild Bill Shrewsberry, Emmerson Fittipaldi, test pilot Darryll Greenamyer and Chris the Greek Karamesines.
Chock full of nostalgic knee-slappers from Squires of Chatham, lurid never before told craziness from the vortex of custom van movement, the Cannonball Run, indoor drag races, 46.2 g’s of deceleration, the best car practical joke ever, Europe by low rider, the incredible Car Craft Hemi Cuda, my ten favorite car events, 80 foot flamethrowers and more…
Fred Wacker, Gentleman Racer covers a special time in racing history. Fred played several important roles in the early years of sports car racing competition in post-WWII America. Fred competed in a range of events as a driver. He started out in an MG, moved up to a Cadillac-powered Allard, and drove internationally for both Briggs Cunningham and the French racing team in the Grand Prix format. Additionally, he helped to found the Chicago region of the Sports Car Club of America, serving as National President of the SCCA in 1952 and 1953.
Whether driving for his own team or others, or helping to organize the sport, Fred played an important role in this golden era of racing. This is his story.
Based upon many hours of conversations taped exclusively for ‘Inside Track’, together with other material accumulated over many years of friendship with John Lamm, Doug Nye and others, The Racing Autobiography tells the story of Phil Hill’s life in his own words, from his childhood in 1930s California through his later years as co-owner of the highly successful Hill & Vaughn car restoration business, a respected motor sport writer and TV commentator, and much loved elder statesman of the American vintage and classic car movement with an unrivaled knowledge, in particular, of the Packard marque and its cars.
Illustrated by numerous photographs, letters, race posters and programmes, and other automobilia from the Hill Family archive, plus many other photographs of Phil’s racing career and beyond – including his last great victory in the charismatic Chaparral 2F at Brands Hatch in 1967 – the book offers an unrivaled view of this remarkable man.
The Racing Autobiography is hardbound with a cloth-covered case and inset photographs to match the two volumes of the Collector’s Edition, with the same page size and 428 pages, and is presented in its own cloth-covered slipcase.
This is the story of Captain Marendaz, a pilot in the RFC in the Great War and his life as a manufacturer of cars in the 1920s and 1930s when he competed extensively at Brooklands and elsewhere, before moving on to designing and building aircraft. He was closely associated with Stirling Moss’s parents and Kaye Don, being involved in trialling and record-breaking with his own cars and the American Graham-Paige. His passage through life was not smooth, being frequently coloured by disputes, ending up with him being arrested under the notorious Category 18B regulations in 1940, causing him to move to South Africa after the war, where trouble followed him before his return to England in 1972. The book also contains a considerable number of first-hand accounts, by people who worked for Captain Marendaz, of life in a small car and aircraft factory before the war, giving a revealing insight into the social history of the period. His sports cars are attractive with good lines, a point brought out in the many illustrations taken in period and more recently of survivors. His correspondence with the author and others provides an insight into his controversial life.
Dave Wolin’s new book, “Showroom Stock” hits all the buttons, covering some little known but important segments of auto racing history, forgotten or ignored by the sanctioning bodies. The introduction by Bill King, former marketing guy at SCCA, points the way.
“Showroom Stock” begins with early road racing history, when everything was showroom stock, and proceeds through the evolution of showroom stock club racing and the birth of showroom stock endurance racing at the Nelson Ledges circuit in Northeast Ohio, the “Longest Day”‘. The “Longest Day” events, promoted by “Road & Track” and “Car and Driver” magazines, produced interest by auto manufacturers and tire companies, creating SCCA Pro Endurance Racing, the SCCA Playboy and Escort Series and IMSA’s Firehawk Series, Helping to fuel the interest was the Volkswagen Bilstein Cup, Renault Cup, Coors Racetruck Challenge and Corvette Challenge, all now gone and practically invisible.
Compiler in Chief Wolin (he says he’s not an author) has collected comments stories and quotes from drivers, team owners, crew and press (sometimes they were all the same person), along with some never before seen photos and insider information (who had trick tires, how did you tweak the boost etc.) into a fun read that will be enjoyed by anyone who watched, raced or wished they had attended any of these events.
Wolin, incidentally, was one of the prime movers in the creation of pro showroom stock racing and ran the successful Mitsubishi racing efforts back in the day.
COMING MAY 2020
The officially licensed Corvette Stingray: The Mid-Engine Revolution chronicles the full development story behind Chevrolet’s re-imagined sports car with an engaging, detailed text and photography from GM’s archives and Corvette team members.
Corvette is Chevrolet’s iconic performance car. Its importance to the brand cannot be overstated. Thus each new generation is sweated by Chevy’s designers, engineers, marketing staff, and executives to ensure that it sets the bar higher than the preceding version.
With the eighth generation, Chevrolet has done more than raise the bar or move the goalpost—they’ve torn down the stadium and started from scratch. For the first time ever in a production version, the new Corvette features a mid-engine configuration. Though Corvette engineers have experimented with this engine placement over the past several decades, 2020 marks the first time GM has committed it to production cars.
Corvette already had prodigious power on tap, but its front-engine configuration put some limitations on its handling and traction. The new mid-engine Corvette eliminates any final performance barriers and takes the battle to supercar rivals like Ferrari, Lamborghini, and McLaren.
It’s the story every Corvette fan needs to read.
This is the story of Niki Luada’s racing career.
- Climbing the ladder: starting against his family’s wishes with a Mini in 1968, Niki Lauda drove a Formula Vee Kaimann in 1969 and had a disastrous Formula 3 season with McNamara in 1970 before switching to a Porsche sports car; with progress stalling, he took out a loan to buy a Formula 2 seat at March in 1971.
- Faltering in Formula 1: he debuted with March at the 1971 Austrian Grand Prix, then stayed with the team in 1972; he moved to BRM for 1973, still paying his way with further borrowing
- and some income from racing touring cars — but in all this time he had only one points-scoring Formula 1 finish.
- The Ferrari years: finally Lauda fulfilled his promise after receiving the call to Maranello, winning the World Championship twice in his four years there, in 1975 and 1977, but he left after tensions with the team arose in his final season.
- The Brabham years: Lauda famously won the 1978 Swedish Grand Prix in Brabham’s ‘fan car.’ but thereafter the team’s competitiveness declined and he retired at the end of 1979, tired of driving round in circles’ and focused instead on his new airline, Lauda Air.
- The McLaren years: tempted by a salary of unprecedented size, Lauda returned in 1982 after a two-year absence, silenced doubters by winning his third race, and in 1984 secured his third World Championship; at the end of 1985, with a career tally of 25 Grand Prix victories, he hung up his helmet for good.
THE OFFICIAL REVIEW OF THE 2019 FIA FORMULA ONE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP™
- 21 races.
- Record-breaking wins.
- An unforgettable year of Formula 1®
Relive the thrills, spills and battles of the 2019 FIA Formula One World Championship™ with hours of intense racing action from a fiercely-fought season, featuring commentary from Martin Brundle and David Croft.
This edge-of-your-seat review includes on-board footage of every pole position lap, new angles of crashes and additional qualifying coverage – plus loads of bonus features. Get ready to relive the heart-pounding pinnacle of motorsport:
Hamilton and Mercedes make it six
Enjoy the triumphs and tribulations as Lewis Hamilton wins a sixth FIA Formula 1
® Drivers’ World Championship, to move within one of the great Michael Schumacher. And see Mercedes become the first team in history to win both the FIA Formula 1
® Drivers’ & Constructors’ World Championships for the sixth time in a row.
Charles Leclerc enters the scene
A star is born as Ferrari new boy Charles Leclerc takes his first F1
® victories and clinches the Pole Position Trophy ahead of Lewis Hamilton, Valtteri Bottas and Sebastian Vettel.
Rookies rise to the challenge
See the new faces on the 2019 F1® grid lay down the gauntlet, with the likes of Alex Albon, Lando Norris and George Russell showing just why they deserve their seats in F1®.
Triumph and heartbreak
Strap in for a last-gasp pass in Austria, craziness in Germany, a Monza masterclass, brilliance in Brazil, three new podium finishers and much more…
McLaren begin their comeback
McLaren shine once again with incredible drives from rookie Lando Norris and Carlos Sainz’s best season yet, capped off with his first-ever F1® podium – from the back of the grid, no less.So get comfortable, relax if you can, and relive all the emotion and excitement of the 2019 FIA Formula One World Championship™.
THE OFFICIAL REVIEW OF THE 2019 FIA FORMULA ONE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP™
- 21 races.
- Record-breaking wins.
- An unforgettable year of Formula 1®
Relive the thrills, spills and battles of the 2019 FIA Formula One World Championship™ with hours of intense racing action from a fiercely-fought season, featuring commentary from Martin Brundle and David Croft.
This edge-of-your-seat review includes on-board footage of every pole position lap, new angles of crashes and additional qualifying coverage – plus loads of bonus features. Get ready to relive the heart-pounding pinnacle of motorsport:
Hamilton and Mercedes make it six
Enjoy the triumphs and tribulations as Lewis Hamilton wins a sixth FIA Formula 1
® Drivers’ World Championship, to move within one of the great Michael Schumacher. And see Mercedes become the first team in history to win both the FIA Formula 1
® Drivers’ & Constructors’ World Championships for the sixth time in a row.
Charles Leclerc enters the scene
A star is born as Ferrari new boy Charles Leclerc takes his first F1® victories and clinches the Pole Position Trophy ahead of Lewis Hamilton, Valtteri Bottas and Sebastian Vettel.
Rookies rise to the challenge
See the new faces on the 2019 F1® grid lay down the gauntlet, with the likes of Alex Albon, Lando Norris and George Russell showing just why they deserve their seats in F1®.
Triumph and heartbreak
Strap in for a last-gasp pass in Austria, craziness in Germany, a Monza masterclass, brilliance in Brazil, three new podium finishers and much more…
McLaren begin their comeback
McLaren shine once again with incredible drives from rookie Lando Norris and Carlos Sainz’s best season yet, capped off with his first-ever F1® podium – from the back of the grid, no less.So get comfortable, relax if you can, and relive all the emotion and excitement of the 2019 FIA Formula One World Championship™.
The long and successful cooperation between Porsche and the Stuttgarter Karosseriewerk Reutter & Co. GmbH was, right from its beginning, more than just a marriage of convenience. It was based on mutual sympathy of two unique companies within the automotive industry.
In 1931 the Reutter coachwork company, founded in 1906, started building prototypes of what would later be known as Volkswagen on behalf of the Porsche engineering office. In 1949 Porsche gave the order to Reutter to produce 500 bodies for the Porsche sports car, and around Easter time 1950 the first Porsche 356 ever to be constructed in Germany was finished in Reutter’s factory I. Porsche bought ground from Reutter within the plot of its factory II in order to build a new construction site for manufacturing motors. At the same time Reutter moved the complete bodywork to factory II in Zuffenhausen and from that moment most of the legendary Porsche 356 were manufactured in intensive cooperation and side by side.
Besides those vehicles made by hand in serial-production Porsche 356 presents many prototypes and special cars made for Porsche up to the point of collective evolution of the later called Porsche type 911.
The book’s focus is on the description of the development of a Porsche 356-body, colorfully illustrated and detailed as never before. Much of the material used was taken from the Reutter-family archive. Previously unpublished documents and pictures were found in several institutional and private archives, especially the archive of Porsche itself.
Mickey Thompson offers a now-impossible (Thompson and his wife were murdered in 1988) first-person telling of the legendary racer and motorsport impresario’s high-speed life, from his earliest days through the height of his competition exploits on drag strips, at Bonneville, the Indy 500, Baja, and more—complemented by some 200 rare images culled from family archives, the NHRA museum, and the collections of friends and fellow racers.
Four decades after his tragic death, Mickey Thompson’s name and accomplishments remain legendary among motorsports and automotive enthusiasts. Thompson did it all on four wheels: land-speed racing, drag racing, off-road, NASCAR, Indianapolis…anything involving speed. Armed with a restless mind and a keen business sense, Thompson moved from success to success.
In the early 1970s, motorsports writer (and former drag racer) Tom Madigan and Thompson embarked on a project to write the latter’s autobiography. After two years, extensive interviews, and a near-finished manuscript the whole enterprise fell apart for a number of reasons. Type-written sheets, neatly stacked, were boxed, stored, and mostly forgotten.
Mickey Thompson: The Untold Story of the Original Speed King is that never-published work—an amazing biographical artifact from what many consider the golden age of automotive racing.
These Desired Things, Steve Matchett’s much anticipated fourth book, is a stimulating, philosophical offering; a tour de force in creative writing. Although, defining the book’s genre seems largely superfluous, for its immersive, lyrical text is part fiction, part memoire, part autobiography. Complete with a suitably insightful foreword by Manish Pandey (writer of SENNA – the movie) and with its chapters illustrated throughout by the visually enthralling artwork of Renée French, Matchett’s new book is both engaging and exceptionally pleasing on the eye.The chapters of the work are presented as a collection of eleven short stories: all of them varying in their individual plots, their settings and their style, yet all of them remain essential elements of the whole; for running through each is a series of subtle, uniting threads. And through Matchett’s captivating telling of these affectionate tales, the author’s (already renowned) written ‘voice’ attains a whole other level of intimacy: The reader feels truly bonded to the writer’s emotions.It is also encouraging to note, These Desired Things is no continuation of the author’s previous works: Matchett’s F1 trilogy stands complete. This latest book, therefore, represents a refreshing new mission. Indeed, by introducing to us his pair of delightful (if mysterious) fictional characters, creations so readily brought to life by the author in two of this book’s short stories – The Chestnut Tree and The Shadows Cast of Candlelight – it seems that Matchett is already laying out his plans for a future novel.Undoubtedly, the diversity of all eleven stories – and the inimitable style of the storytelling – is sure to introduce a whole new readership to Matchett’s writing. That said, the author has been most careful to include stories that will appeal to those already familiar with his earlier books – those readers with a knowledge and passion for Formula 1 motor racing. And, most likely, these same passionate readers will be moved to tears on reaching the closing lines of the book’s penultimate chapter, Breaking Bread with Ayrton Senna.Steve Matchett gives abridged readings of this truly atmospheric story during his public appearances, his after-dinner events. Now, however, for the first time in print, this most endearing homage to the fallen, three-time world champion driver, Ayrton Senna, is presented in its full, unabridged form.
