found in 1932, probably still buried in the sands of the Iraq desert

A lot of Dodges, Fiats, Buicks, a Staer, and a Rolls Royce.

Found in the desert 3/4s of the way between Damascus and Baghdad, near Ramadi

In 1936 Robert Fulton Jr, grandson of the Fulton Steamboat famous guy, talked himself into a motorcycle ride around the world. He really put his foot in his mouth. Young and dumb type of thing.

18 months later, and 22 countries... he made it. He wrote a great book about it too, One Man Caravan

While near Rutbah Wells, Bob met travellers on the desert trail, and one of the company was Edward Herrington, president of Marmon-Herrington motor trucks. Why was the company head of an American truck manufacturer in Iraq in 1932? Might be due to the Nairn Transport Company which bought a 1923 Marmon Herrington for bussing people from Damascus to Baghdad http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2012/08/1923-marmon-harrington-love-their.html

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A friend of mine has some 1966 Olds chassis manuals to sell to a good home, anyone interested?

And a couple others

Let me know, jbohjkl@yahoo.com

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a car that stands out in history, but you've likely never heard of it. It's that rare and uncommon. The 1967 Jaguar Piranha - Gandini designed for Carrozzeria Bertone

first thing I noticed is the spelling variation on the license plates vs the chrome emblem. It's due to a legal issue at the time, and licensing I suppose

In 1967 a concept car based on the E-type was commissioned by newspaperman of the Daily Telegraph in the UK. In less than six months, the car that would become known as the Jaguar Bertone Pirana Coupe, was styled by Marcello Gandini for Carrozzeria Bertone. The fully functional Pirana made its debut at the 1967 Earls Court Show owing some of its styling to Bertone's Lamborghini Marzal concept car and it served as the preview for the styling treatment for the production Lamborghini Espada which debuted just a year later.

 For more than 40 years the Pirana virtually disappeared from view, it surfaced briefly in 2010. It was sold to collector Ed Superfon who commissioned a complete restoration, to a silver metallic finish that represents its original presentation back in 1967. It broke cover at the 2012 Concorso Italiano where it surprised many attendees, knowledgeable Italian car fans, most of whom knew little of its existence.

A book about the Jaguar Bertone Pirana Coupe, just released, contains 13 pages of historical text and images, a specification chart comparing the Jaguar Bertone Pirana Coupe to the Jaguar E-Type 2+2 that served as the donor chassis, and 33 full-page color plates.

 The Jaguar Bertone Pirana Coupe book serves to document this unique collaboration between The Daily Telegraph Magazine, Jaguar, and Carrozzeria Bertone.

It transports the reader back in time when an audacious editor, John Anstey, had the power and budget to commission the building of a dream car.

 Under the able hand of stylist Marcello Gandini and the direction of Nuccio Bertone, Carrozzeria Bertone was able to bring the Jaguar Bertone Pirana Coupe from design concept to auto show star in just five months.

It is a remarkable story, one that will likely never be repeated.

https://www.createspace.com/3970905 to order.


Author and photographer Richard Truesdell has been a full-time automotive photojournalist since 1995. Over the past 20 years his work has been published in Car and Driver, Motor Trend, Road & Track, Cars and Parts, Musclecar Enthusiast in the US as well as Octane and Classic and Sports Car in the UK as well as many other automotive and travel publications.

With more than 1,000 published automotive, mobile electronics, and travel features along with more than 50 magazine covers to his credit, Richard's experience is both comprehensive and wide-ranging.

Since 2007, Richard has also been the co-founder and editorial director of the digital-only magazine Automotive Traveler and its companion website, AutomotiveTraveler.com.

 The Jaguar Bertone Pirana Coupe is Richard's first self-designed and self-published edition. It is the first in what is a planned series that will cover his passions of muscle, vintage, classic, and orphan cars.

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Book review: Art Of The Hot Rod, by Ken Gross and photography of Peter Harholdt

above is the softcover edition cover, below, the 2009 hardcover cover

by the number (thank you John for that phrase!)
20 Chapters
122 pieces of paper between the covers

Quality photos. Well, this is my usual location to tell you how many hi def, hi res color images you'll find... normally I have to count between old black and white and new hi res hi def. Not this time. Every single photo is a stunning image by Peter Harholdt and without getting every car into a controlled studio environment. Amazing photographer, stunning photos that earn your respect as delivering on your expectations that were formed when seeing the cover, and reading the title

But you aren't reading this review to see that I think it's a deal. You already know I ain't gonna waste your time with a book I don't like and recommend.

So what's inside that's got my admiration? Photos of hot rods that are awesome, both the photos and the hot rods.

You'll think that some of these are museum quality, of course they are. But the So Cal Speedshop Belly tanker wasn't built to be a museum piece. Neither was the So Cal Speedshop 3 window "Kong", the Norman Timbs Special, James Hetfield's 37 Ford 5 window coupe by Rick Dore, the Nuemeister 29 roadster, the Bell 303 Crankshaft Special, the Berardini Bros deuce roadster, the Dick Flint 29 roadster, Eddie Dye's 29 Roadster, the Doane Spencer deuce roadster, and Billy Gibbons' 66 Chevelle and 35 pickup are most definitely not museum cars. They are frequently near museums... http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2011/02/nhra-museum-in-pomona-has-rat-rod-out.html  as the 35 truck was at the front of the Wally Parks NHRA Museum during the 2011 Grand National Roadster Show.

Not museum cars in this book. Not Chip Foose cars. Not Boyd Coddington's cars.

See the connection? Well maybe not yet.

The book is 20 interviews/write ups from Ken Gross (ought to be given a doctorate in hot rods and writing in my opinion, he's all that and a tank of nitro) when he went around the US and got talking with car makers and put into each chapter the interview, opinions, and pages of photos of the cars they've made. Not every one, but ones that you can see demonstrate the masters touch at building, restoring, painting and designing hot rods.

Ridler winners? Probably a couple in here. Out of the 20 builders, a couple have won the Ridler, and the Grand National Roadster award, and the AMBR award, and other awards. These builders are that exquisite in their finished cars, that perfect in their designs.

You know most of them by name, Troy Trepanier, Rolling Bones, Don Orosco, Pete Chapouris, Roy Brizio, Rick Dore, Posies, Bobby Alloway, Alan Johnson... and maybe you know the others, but they were either new to me, or I don't recognize the names but know the cars. You know.. like the car, never meet the builder? I have a lot of those. Thousands.

Back to the book, you can sum up the feeling I got when reading the interviews, with remembering that way some easy going down to earth type of people have when you get a moment to chat with them. No pretentious or unsettling conversation, just satisfying and enjoyable. Ever talk to some one like that? They are famous, genius or accomplished more than anyone else at their skills, but seem as cool as the guys at work? That's the way the interviews read.

I talk to Gene Winfield every time I see him, just to say hi, and damn it's good to see you again. He's that nice, and so are the guys interviewed here. Vern Tardel is maybe a bit like a "What are you doing here" flathead traditionalist in his interview when approached to be in a book about cars that are this beautiful, but I get the sense he's one of the hardworking old timers that is fed up with Boydsters, people wanting to buy his cache of treasured impossible to find hot rod parts, and fiberglass wanna be's. I got no problem with this approach to hot rodding at all.

The others are a bit more business casual, but all seem to have the deep values of made in the USA, no billet, and master craftsmanship that  you expect from the best in the business. For guys like Trepanier that can make million dollar rides, or 100 thou hot rods... to Don Orosco who went back to the bench to build Ardun Heads and Veda Orr knockoffs... or Chapouris who has Thom Taylor and Chris Frogget doing the artwork to set the wheels in motion.

These are the best, with the most incredibly rich traditional ways of not knocking the competition, regarding the 40's and 50's ways of building, and making cars ride like bimmers and benzs when it's apropos.

How they took such great photos without a studio is demonstrated at http://lowreysautorestoration.com/coverage/hotrodart.html

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Corvette Sixty Years, by Randy Leffingwell

By the numbers
 5 chapters
129  pieces of paper between the covers

 Quality photos: about 378 (I may have miscounted a couple) 232 are color photos. Regardless of color or black and white, the images are outstanding and high quality

 Period ads: none, but plenty of period publicity photos. Good ones. Plus plenty of design sketches and drawings

Something that is important to remember when reviewing this book, the primary focus of it was information and photos NOT in the authors previous 4 Corvette books, and the other best Corvette books on the market. It makes it less simple to judge the book based on information you might be looking for but not finding, as that might be very well left out intentionally if published in "Corvette 50 years".

form and layout
Lots of photos per page to illustrate the text.

Chapters
1 In the Beginning, the birth of the Corvette
    the design process, the prototypes, and the mistakes made

2 Domination to Disco, the 2nd and 3rd generation Vettes

3 Reclaiming the throne, the 4th, 5th, 6th generations

4 Racing, Beating the worlds best

5 Community action, the people and places

what do I know about Vettes not covered in the book
  Most expensive, most rare, and stats like that. This book has each model stat by engines, convertible vs hardtop, etc, and purchase price.

things I learned that I did not know
 The author, Randy, has 4 books previous to this on Corvettes. I'd say that makes him an expert. Randy has 130 Corvette books in his collection, and unknown amounts of magazines
  The breakdown of options that customers preferred, as in, the most ordered option, the most ordered color, the least desired option almost no-one bought.
 Duntov's rocky road and near firing when working at GM. Intriguing reading of how GM design, engineering, and management mishandled the Corvette.

overall impression
  Thoroughly well done, you're getting more than your dollars worth with this book. It's a damn good book, a damn fine written documentary, and exhaustively researched look at the Corvette history

Surprise
  The last chapter on the Corvette specific car shows, websites, car clubs. Very cool to see this in a book, as most authors ignore the mundane reality of what happens when a car is in use, by it's owner. Randy did a great job of telling the history of the Carlisle event, the NCCC, etc plus websites dedicated to the Vette

Complaints
 I had hoped the engine designations would be explained so they are understandable ie: L71, L79, L36, L68 etc etc
 The 4 sidebars of the V-8 engine, isn't that a good clue that you should have made a chapter on the engines, power trains, and engineering, instead of breaking into the chapter storyline like a news bulletin?
  Editing was not good (I'm self editting for years, and it's easy to criticize if you can tell how to improve it) and print on pages 98 and 103 was blurry (printed in China)
 The U-6S was mentioned once, but never explained, (so I still don't know if it meant the paint, turbo, or outsourced engineering)  page 135
an example of how Google book search works:
http://books.google.com/books?id=qgFK7fwC9v0C&pg=PA135&lpg=PA135&dq=rpo+%22u-6s%22+corvette&source=bl&ots=STRzuPP-Bw&sig=0cJmvbgvanjOPxGvXpSyF3ogj_I&hl=en&sa=X&ei=RpkdUKqmKKyujAKU3IGABA&ved=0CD0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=U-6s&f=false

I don't like the "Continued on page ..." format when I'm reading. I read books, and that's not the way to make a good book. Take all the interruptions, and make a chapter of them. A chapter on Zora Duntov alone would have been a good editing choice, instead of interspersing information about his moments throughout the other chapters

In this book, the interruptions of the storyline are all the biographies of the guys, and some design sidebars, that made the Corvette happen in many ways, those are great. No complaint about the number, quality of research, editing, or plethora of information ... just the inappropriate locations that are out of context, and better off as a chapter to themselves

Sidebars

Bios: Sloan, Earl, Duntov, Mitchell, McLellan

Design: The Blue Flame engine, Corvettes in American culture (x2), fiberglas, the V-8(4 sidebars), fuel injection, 63 Split Window inspiration, acronyms of the body models, smog legislation, factory show cars, Callaway Vettes, production numbers by year chart, product change vs model longevity (engrossing and thought provoking), the 2013 model convertible news, CERV I, CERV II, Grand Sport, pace car editions, Le Mans,

For a terrific interview with the author, from the experts on Corvettes, Vette Magazine http://www.vetteweb.com/lifestyle/vemp_1204_corvette_history_0_to_60_years/index.html

Price, about 30 dollars from various retailers on Amazon http://www.amazon.com/Corvette-Sixty-Years-Randy-Leffingwell/dp/0760342318/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1344118702&sr=8-1&keywords=corvette+60+years

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Book I just learned of "Adventures of a Motorcycle Despatch Rider During the First World War"

 I can see that these seem the same by topic, but have different authors, and I don't have an answer for that, other than to say I think they are likely to either be the same, or similar.

Looks interesting, I'll get a copy one day when they come down in price

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