(first posted 11/4/2014) If you’re growing up a car nut in 2014 you have all sorts of information at your fingertips, with as much detail and context as you’d like. I grew up a car nut in the 1970’s, and I can now see that a diverse set of automotive interests was kindled in me by a crazily diverse collection of books:
When I was very young Canada was still very British. This played out in everyday life, our Television programmes, our food, our cars, and even our books about cars were heavily influenced by the Mother country.
The first two car books I had were British: The Car Makers (1968) covered the engineering and assembly of the Austin Mini.
Published by Ladybird, the same folks who brought us Dick and Jane, it was a basic overview; I don’t recall them mentioning labour strife or per unit profit figures on the Mini.
Much more informative was JD Scheel’s Cars of the World (1963). This gave me the history of the motor car from Cugnot’s steam powered wagon through to the not-quite-present age, along with hand rendered drawings of cars from every auto producing nation of the world. Because of the very British slant to this book I initially thought that England made pretty much all the worthwhile vehicles on earth.
My intense study paid off handsomely, upon seeing my first Humber Super Snipe I was able to say “Wow, a Humber Super Snipe!” whereas most normal people would say “What is that thing?” Ditto for the Fairthorpe Electron, Jowett Jupiter and many other obscure British models. Additionally this book had a section of essays on auto racing, which introduced me to the famous (and long gone) Brooklands circuit, and to the land speed exploits of Sir Malcolm Campbell and John Cobb.
In elementary school I first encountered the works of Henry Gregor Felsen, a name most American gearheads of a certain age will recognize. These books rocked my world, I read every bit of his work that I could find in the library, multiple times.
Felsen was a prolific Iowa writer who in 1950 was asked by the Des Moines Safety Council to write a cautionary tale of teens and cars, to try and do something about the rising tide of injury and death from motor vehicle crashes.
Hot Rod was wildly successful, my well-worn 1966 edition is from the 18th printing. Felsen authored a string of books with automotive lessons within, and I must say it worked for me. Street Rod (1953) was the one that scared me straight, and taught me to respect machinery and what it could do. His daughter Holly has brought them back into print, so if you can’t quite remember what happened to Bud Crayne I’d encourage you to enjoy them again.
I made sure to balance my intake of Felsen’s sobering words against more upbeat, enabling fiction of teen car adventure. Books like John Tomberlin’s The Magnificent Jalopy (1967), which tells the story of teens who rescue a 1931 Packard from a chicken barn and enter a long distance challenge.
Or W.E. Butterworth’s The Wheel of a Fast Car (1969), which covers a young man’s adventures tagging along with his uncle and cousin as they work the stock car circuit. The descriptions of the scope and culture of mid 60’s NASCAR racing made it sound like honest work by real people, a far cry from the bloated corporate circus it is today.
Opened to the Duesenberg page in honor of our recent trip to the ACD museum
An abrupt change of direction happened when another Uncle gave me Markmann & Sherwin’s The Book of Sports Cars (1959), a well-researched and weighty 320 page tome on the genteel world of sports cars and sports car racing, with a foreword written by Briggs Cunningham.
Of course I devoured this book 20 years too late, learning about the budding careers of Masten Gregory and Stirling Moss, and sports car races held at Watkins Glen and Put-In-Bay. I had thought that a 1957 Ferrari Mondial or a curbside Lotus Eleven might be pretty cool cars to own one day, not knowing how impossible that would be, or that the sun had long set on that golden era of sports car racing.
Although I never tested my admiration of drivers like John Fitch and Denise McCluggage against the favourites of my school mates, one area where we did come into conflict was the subject of Hot Rods.
In addition to his direct involvement in my young life, my Uncle Peter had gifted me his six inch high stack of Rod & Custom magazines dating from the late sixties to early seventies.
During this period R&C staffers like Bud Bryan, Tom Medley and Gray Baskerville pioneered the Street Rod movement, moving the focus from the stagnating show car scene back to the road. They conceived and staged the first Street Rod Nationals in Peoria Ill in 1970. Contributor Jim Jacobs performed the first Hot Rod Restoration on the storied Bill Niekamp roadster, then DROVE it 1,800 miles from Los Angeles to Memphis for the 2nd Nats.
At speed in the desert, Tom Senter and Jim Jacobs on the way to Memphis
These magazines are still great reading, the excitement these guys felt still springs from the page, and defined hot rods for me, except that outside of my world it was now the 1980’s. Tubbed Pro Street rods were in, Boyd Coddington was setting hot rod trends with his smoothed style and I argued with my high school friends that no, THESE are hot rods:
And to top it off, when you were done building your own car with your own hands, you had to grow a beard and drive it cross country.
My friends thought I was crazy, and as with most adolescent car arguments I didn’t convince anyone. Although I haven’t built a hot rod myself (yet) a lot of the backyard technical instruction came in very handy later on, as did the emphasis on self-reliance and a spirit of fun. Ironically, in 2014 the market value of traditional hot rods with provenance has escalated to the point where they are now shown at Pebble Beach, which seems very serious and un-fun.
The Niekamp roadster sits silent in the Petersen museum, and will nevermore be driven cross country by guys wearing funny hats.
To mark the end of childhood, I read Harold Stevens & Al Podell’s Who Needs a Road? (1969) in my mid teens. I was perusing travel books at the local library when I saw the cover, and was hooked before I even turned a page.
A round the world trip in a Toyota FJ40 Land Cruiser, one of my childhood dreams come true! The book turned out to be all I expected, and so much more; deserts, danger, jungles, kidnapping, breakdowns (mostly the trailer, not the FJ) all told in swashbuckling style by the two bachelor travelers and the various companions they met along the way.
This story also opened my young eyes to a whole other facet of adventure travel that I hadn’t considered, because among the companions were South African nurses, an Australian lounge singer, and various other ladies they encountered in their travels. If you haven’t read this, I’d heartily recommend it whether you be a kid or a grownup. It sure was a different world then.
When you look at these influences, these diverse, out of context influences from different decades they’re like pieces from random puzzles, never made to fit together. What possible activity or purpose could this have prepared me for?
Why, this of course..
My detailed car knowledge started with books such as A to Z Cars, the American Car Spotter’s Bible 1940-1980, and of course brochures. During my early-teens, Wikipedia and various car review websites played a huge role in increasing my knowledge of cars.
Scheel’s Cars Of The World was a fabulous book. Also a big fan of Henry Gregor Felsen’s works, even if they didn’t turn out so well for many of the characters
Cars of the World was fantastic. As a young lad in NZ I must have borrowed it from the public library at least 20 times (my mother: ‘Not that book again!’). I found a copy in excellent condition at a second-hand book shop in the Blue Mountains (NSW) a few years ago: $40 well spent.
don’t forget the Crestline series of US makes.
Indeed! Lots of information, grainy little black and white photos.
How about all the Crestline books – 60 Years of Chevrolet, Illustrated History of Ford etc. I remember saving up my allowance to buy these books at the local B. Dalton Bookstore at the mall – I think they were around $20
Oh yes, the Crestline books – many an evening around a birthday or Christmas was spent devouring the arcania contained therein. “The 1956 Mainline Tudor sedan weighed 3125 pounds and cost $2242. This did not include the Ford-O-Matic which was first offered in the Mainlie series this year.” Or a paragraph something like that for every single model of every year. I still have all of them, too.
I remember going to either B Dalton’s or Walden Books and paying $19.95 or $24.95 for the Crestline series of books. Great memories. There were other automotive books for sale but being a teen, I only had so much money. Fortunately, I have now been able to find all those other books that I then could not have afforded on line today.
A fabulous education, Mr. D. This is similar to mine from a few years earlier. I read some big hardbacks by Floyd Clymer on some of the early stuff, and had a book done in 1953 by the editors of Motor Magazine celebrating the 50th anniversary of something or other.
The car novels were a staple, as were biographies of people like Henry Ford and Walter Chrysler. Didn’t ever car novel involve a plot about finding an old car, fixing it up and driving it? I had one called The Jeep – same plot as the old Packard novel you read.
By the time I hit my teens, the old car press was in full swing, and the Classic Motorbooks catalog was like porn to me. And I still have darned near every one of them, too. Then there was the borrowed stuff, like issues of Special Interest Autos and Automobile Quarterly that I would get on loan from various car-mentors.
I learned about cars from a variety of sources, including my grandmother’s stacks of National Geographics (where I discovered the ad for the 1972 Olds 98 Regency, Thunderbirds and various Cadillacs), and my other grandmother’s stack of old Readers’ Digests (from which she let me take a special pullout section that had all the 1968 GM cars. I was in heaven!) Later, I got a copy of the Tad Burness American Car Spotters Guide 1940-1965, and devoured it, even though my tastes were starting to sway more toward his 1966-1980 Spotters Guide, which I never ended up getting. I also started collecting car brochures during our annual visits to the Auto Show at the State Fair of Texas, then foolishly purged them sometime around high school (or was it my parents who did that?) I’ve gotten most of them back, and a lot more.
+1 to grandparents’ Nat Geos.
I’m too young to remember some of these books. I grew up in the late 70s and mid 80s. While magazines like Car and Driver and Road & Track are still being published, I haven’t seen anything from Hot Rod or Rods & Customs. I’m not against the internet as a means to read articles about my favourite cars, trucks, etc., I still like to read a real newspaper made out of paper (or similar materiel) or to read a real magazine made out of paper (or similar materiel), and I hope that never goes away anytime soon. 🙂
The car books that stick the most are Nick Georgano’s comprehensive guides, “The Upper Crust” by John Bolster and the various works of LJK Setright. Plus of course the automobile Club of Italy’s World Cars annuals.
Ahh, someone else who knows Setright! 🙂
I miss him and Michael Sedgewick.
Nick Georgano is always good.
The “Consumers Guide” series of books on cars from the 40s, 50, 60s,70s, etc.along with their editions of Muscle Cars, Ford and Pontiac performance cars,the Corvette Story,`55,56,and 57 Chevies, Chrysler performance cars,and Grease Machines. Great color and black and white photos with a year by year review of American cultural trends. I used to like “Motor Trend”, “Hot Rod”, “Street Rod” which I haven`t bought in years. I also had a picture book on how cars are made that featured pictures of `54 Packards on the assembly line. I still buy “Scale Car Modeler”. I also used to enjoy the car reviews in “Popular Mechanics” and especially the reviews by Tom McCahill in “Mechanics Illustrated”. Great auto writer!
Uncle Tom! Scion of the simile, master of the metaphor!
Don’t forget The Red Car by Don Stanford.
I’ve heard of that one but never read it
Read it.
That was one of my childhood favourites 🙂
An all-time classic; I read it aged 14 in 1988.
One of my all time favorites.
Ya beat me to posting this!
I thought I wanted a V8 Ford before reading this absorbing novel.
I never did get a MG TC; had to make do with a Fiat 124 Spyder.
In a similar vein is The Red Red Roadster, by Gene Olson, about a schoolmarm who buys an Alfa Romeo Guilietta Sprint Spider (I think).
I do recall reading that one also.
> And to top it off, when you were done building your own car with your own hands, you had to grow a beard and drive it cross country.
I started with the beard. Still working on the rest. 🙂
Good write-up Doug. I recognize the Magnificent Jalopy. I think I read that one before. Not too long ago I finally got my hands on a copy of John Z DeLorean’s “On a Clear Day…” and am getting through that when I have time.
Brock Yates’ “The Decline and Fall of the American Auto Industry” (1983) makes a good companion to DeLorean’s book. It seems GM is not very good at learning from its past mistakes.
I’ll keep my eye out for that one. The last book I read was “All Corvettes Are Red” (1998), which showed that GM still hadn’t got their act together. The only reason the C5 Vette came to fruition was because the people involved ignored the rules.
I would really like to find a copy of “Taken for a Ride: How Daimler-Benz Drove Off With Chrysler”.
I’m not much of a Brock fan, but I have to give grudging respect to that book.
My parents would buy the Daily Express car show magazine each year,this introduced myself and brother to cars(little sister wasn’t much interested til she could afford one).
Yep! I picked up the ’69 one with all the Dinky and Corgi cars on the cover – had quite a few of them myself! Only stopped getting it in the ’80s.
A book that deeply influenced me was “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” which I read long before I saw the Disney-ed movie version. It also introduced me to Ian Fleming as a writer and lead me to appreciate James Bond books not just the movies.
The book fell into my lap as a 6th grade student.
Mom brought home the April ’67 Hot Rod from checkout at the local Foodland. I was ten.
That was it. There was a red ’55 gasser on the cover, my cousin next door had raved about ’57 Chevies and I soon put it together about the whole “Tri-Five” thing and the rest is history. My obsession with those cars goes back to that point.
I’d read a book called “Hot Rod Road” somewhere along that time. Two young guys buy a ’55 Chevy and prepare it for drag racing.
Within two years I had subscriptions to Car Life, Motor Trend, Car & Driver and of course, Hot Rod. Kept ’em all until I moved out of my parents’ house…unfortunately they tossed them – or maybe they ended up in the garage, water damaged. I don’t remember.
Circa 1983, I started another collection of Hot Rod and that one is still growing. Also I joined Classic Chevy Club (now Eckler’s) and have been getting that magazine since 1984. And yes, I’ve kept every one of those too.
How’s this? It’s from from Ken Purdy’s, Kings of the Road, 1949
“You’re driving an automobile that can do 100 miles per hour. Not just on the speedometer but an honest 100 by stop watch. You are at the beginning of a five mile stretch of concrete so you stick your foot in it and hold the 100 mph mark. Ahead of you is a car parked. White, low and mean looking. As you pass, the fellow behind the wheel guns his engine and starts after you. You keep your foot hard down and well before you have covered a mile you hear a brutal scream, a roar that sears your ear drums, a woosh and the white car has passed you. Another quarter mile and he is out of sight.
“That, gentlemen, is acceleration. He spotted you 100 miles per hour and a running start and almost blasted you off the road when he went by you within a single mile. At that time the car was a 15 year old model of the Mercedes W125.”
I saw a W125 at Laguna Seca maybe 15 years ago and you could hear it all the way around the track.
“Ken Purdy’s Book of Automobiles” was my favorite. I think it’s strange that his work has no presence anymore, even among gearheads.
There was this book called “Car of the Year” that I checked out of the public library as a kid. That was my gateway drug. After that I discovered the magazine section and got heavily into CandD, R&T and MT. I was so obsessed and wasted so much time reading about cars that I often wonder what would have happened to me if there was an internet back then with 1000X more stuff to read.
Thanks for this trip down memory lane. I was a voracious reader of anything automotive, and if I tried to start listing them here, I’d be at it all night. I will say that my first exposure to Automotive Quarterly was one of the more memorable milestones.
I used to hook school a lot, starting quite young, and in the winter months, I’d happily spend the day in a library with anything automotive. I loved old magazines from decades before my time. The Enoch Pratt main library in downtown Baltimore had a treasure trove of old magazines, going back to the 40s and 30s.
My first books were German, as my father had a couple from the 40s, when he took the driver’s license prep course (but didn’t actually get the license). There were two that I’d die to have, but they’re long gone: a 1938-1939 book about the KdF Wagen (VW), with all kinds of details, and another book about the fast and streamlined cars being built in Germany in the late 30s for the autobahn, called “Mit Zig Sachen”. Loved that title.
I was a ‘Library Kid’ pretty much my whole primary/secondary school years, and remember a series of books from grade school (1-5th) that were along the lines of the Hardy Boys or Three Investigators, only it was teens and hot rods solving various mysteries or participating in races. Don’t remember the name of the series at this point, but I do remember consuming every one on the shelf multiple times.
The first movie I ever saw was Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and my Dad bought a copy of the book at the theater (which I still have). That Christmas brought a Corgi scale replica of the car (which I also still have, though it’s in pretty tattered condition).
My brothers and I built scores of plastic models, and after reaching a modest skill level, began customizing various car kits with bigger engines, tires, and the like, based on some of the creations we saw in Hot Rod magazine, etc.
One of the first books I remember was Richard Scarry’s “Cars and Trucks and Things That Go”. It was a wonderful tool for introducing children to the marvels that are automobiles.
A more mature adult oriented book was “Collector’s History of the Automobile” which was published around 1977. It covered all the way back to the 1770 Cugnot and has nice coverage of all European and Asian cars in addition to American Cars. There is a picture of a RHD Rolls Royce I remember just starting at in awe.
I purged a lot of books a few years ago in a fit of spring cleaning. Thankfully, I kept my Crestline book about Ford and some various others with production numbers. Those have certainly proven their value numerous times.
Doug, thank you for this. I fully agree that all the exposure over the decades has culminated in being more prepared for CC.
“Cars and Trucks and Things that Go” taught me that the ladders on RVs are for reaching the swimming pool on the roof. And that roads are smoothed by “tamper-downers” and “bigshot cars” are driven by pigs smoking cigars. 🙂
Loved “Drag Racing”, a Scholastic title from the prolific Charles Coombs.
When I was 10 I got a coffee table book, “Supercars of the Seventies”.
Lots of big photographs, lots of daydreaming.
Gotta love Henry Gregor Felsen, but I’m a bigger fan of W. E. Butterworth’s juvenile titles. I’ve acquired ten or twelve soft cover titles, and keep them on the bookshelf for “rainy day reading.”
In addition to Wheel of a Fast Car, there’s the following titles:
Fast Green Car
Grand Prix Driver
Red Line 5100
Crazy to Race
Marty and the MicroMidgets
Susan and her Classic Convetible
Dave White and the Electric Wonder Car
Return to Daytona
Road Racer
and finally (Thanks to Scholastic Book Services)
Road Race by Philip Harkins
Cool, I read several of his books but can’t match up the plots vs the titles that I remember. You should do a CC on them someday.
I think I read Road Race as well, but had forgotten the title. Is that the one where some guy makes a big deal out of removing the chronometer from a car he is selling? Might need to find that one again somewhere..
Yep- Road Race included the chronometer scene (the car was a Duesenburg), but was really the story of a kid named Dave, who turned a Model A into a Hot Rod. The story was set in the East (Connecticut?), during the infant years of the SCCA.
Obviously, a protagonist named Dave resonated in my life, so I’ve kept a copy close at hand since sixth grade.
I remembering reading The Year of the Jeep in grade school. I must have liked it since I can still see the cover picture in my head
Also called “The Jeep,” and written by Keith Robertson, who also wrote the Henry Reed book series.
I always thought it was ” The Red MG ” as those fascinated me as a youth .
Struggling to remember the car books I read 50 + years ago ~ I saved most of the Shop and Parts Manuals I picked up along the way but didn’t save any of the story books =8-(
I seem to recall the very first one in the 1950’s was a story about a Farmer’s ‘A’ Model Ford that was impatient to go to market and left without him & got gobsmacked by a steam train .
Lots of car based adventure stories were written in the teens and twenties when many could not yet afford automobiles , these usually had a group of boys who collectively owned one large touring car and drove it about .
I recently found and English books called ” T.W.o.C. ” a coming of age story about Auto Theft , it must have been good as one of my Foster boys stole it when he left ~ =8-) .
-Nate
Kandy-kolored Tangerine Flake Streamline Baby by Tom Wolfe.
When I was sixteen and desperate to find the perfect used car for basically no cash, I think I read every lemon aid guide ever published! Wound up with a 74′ Impala 2 door hard top for 75 bucks (1996). Loved the glossy mags, but after getting to doing my own wrenching Petersons 4wd was the first one I would read at the library. In many ways that Impala was more like a truck then most cars. That was how I treated it anyhow.
As for fiction, Christine, the only King novel I ever thought was worth a re-read. Later during a bout of PTSD I bought a Fury. That car was spooky, and fast. But I was the one that was haunted.
I read a really interesting biography of Rudolf Diesel, titled Diesel. Not specifically about cars, but as a budding gear head, very formative.
I read anything car I could lay my hands on reread Beruit to Baghdad recently I found a copy in my friends shed the story of the Nairn transport company driving mail and passengers across the desert in Cadillacs and Buicks, I’ll still read good stuff if it crosses my path.
Lots of familiar titles above.
I’ll add “Famous Indianapolis Cars & Drivers” by Brock Yates.
I don’t have much interest in current racing, but man can I tell you stuff about races from 2 decades before I was born. 🙂
“My love had a Black Speed Stripe” about one mans love/obsession with his modified
Holden. From memory he ends up sleeping under his garage garage workbench.
‘Wheels’ by Arthur Hailey.
I had a lot of automotive related books when I was younger, but the two that stand out by far were Chevrolet Chronicle, 1911-1991, and Encyclopedia of American Cars from 1930. I read both books so many times that the dust jackets were torn to shreds and the hardcover bindings completely destroyed. I still have both and continue to reference them from time to time.
Did anyone read There’s Adventure in Automobiles?
I’m a tad late here, but what a great read! With my Dad being a mechanic, and close family who loved cars, I don’t remember a specific time when I became aware of the mysteries and marvels of cardom. But I do remember the book along the way. The first was my Uncle’s Ladybird Book of Cars, from 1959ish, with all its beautifully hand-drawn pictures. I remember falling in love with the hand-drawn black Mercedes-Benz 220SE, and the pink ’59 Buick Electra convertible, and marvelling at the stylistic difference between the two.
Like Gem, the Daily Express World Car Guides were my main childhood car bible. Starting around 1967 my grandparents bought each year’s issue, so by the early 80s I was poring over them every time I visited. They also bought a few of the competing Daily Mail Car Guides too. I read them cover-to-cover so many times! They now reside on my bookshelves, and thanks to the advent of internet auctions, I’ve now completed the set of the Daily Express guides.
Once I hit my teens, Australia’s Wheels magazine was my #1 source and influencer rather than books, but reading Don Stanford’s The Red Car was a delight. I also read a brilliant story along the same lines about a teen who buys and rebuilds (and possibly races) a Renault Dauphine. I wish I could remember the title/author so I could track it down – I’ve asked before, but anyone in CCland have any idea?
Renault Dauphine?
Could be W. E. Butterworth’s “Dave White and the Electric Wonder Car.”
As part of the plot, the hero arrive at college and helps to convert a Renault Dauphine to electric power. The car then enters in a college alternative fuel vehicle competition where it races against a number of competors.
The hero grew up in a NASCAR family, so he entered engineering school with a solid understanding of automotive mechanics, which led to his inclusion in the build team.
Sound familiar?
Once I hit my teens, Australia’s Wheels magazine was my #1 source and influencer rather than books, but reading Don Stanford’s The Red Car was a delight. I also read a brilliant story along the same lines about a teen who buys and rebuilds (and possibly races) a Renault Dauphine. I wish I could remember the title/author so I could track it down – I’ve asked before, but anyone in CCland have any idea?
Try a chatboard called Aussiefrogs.com The whole gist is French cars- old, new, inbetween. I post frequently on the Citroen section. You might find your answer there in the Renault section- gigantic amounts of information in the membership and everyone willing to easily share. Tell them that Yank Hotrodelectric sent you.
Back in the day (1980s) I really liked the Consumer Guide series, the various “Used Car Rating Guides” that could be found at magazine racks and had photos and specs on all sorts of cars going back 10 years. My favorites were “Pontiac Super Performance” and of course the big hardcover “Complete Book Of Collectible Cars 1930 – 1980”.
As a teen, I used to collect dealer brochures every year and raid old magazines in doctors’ offices for full page ads, which I scotch taped together into my own “book” about two inches thick. Wish I still had them all. Read all the Felsen books, too.
A couple more favorites not already mentioned:
Neely, William – 505 Automobile Questions Your Friends Can’t Answer
Stein, Ralph – Treasury Of The Automobile
Yost, Stanley – They Don’t Build Cars Like They Used To
I remember having one of those “History of the Car” books when I was a kid. Also had a book that showed every car for sale in the U.S. at the time (down to Panhard and Borgward) along with specs and prices. Starting in 62 my parents bought me subscriptions to Motor Trend, C/D, R&T, Car Life, and Sports Car Graphic. Never got into Hot Rod – that was too greaserish for me. One Saturday every fall, my dad would take me on the rounds of the local dealerships to collect brochures, which I would pore through over the winter, when I’d bug Dad about why couldn’t we have a car with air conditioning or why wouldn’t he get a Thunderbird. Then in Spring we’d go to the New York Auto Show and I would collect import brochures. At the town library I borrowed an account of the 1908 New York-Paris race, a biography of Stirling Moss, and one of Wilbur Shaw. The magazines (R&T for Formula 1 and MT for NASCAR) got me interested in racing, and I would watch every tape-delay broadcast on ABC’s Wide World of Sports (generally limited to Monaco, Daytona, Charlotte, and Atlanta) and listen to live radio broadcasts of Indianapolis and Sebring. Beginning in 64 Dad took me to Trenton to see the 3 annual Indy-car races, and in 69 on a road trip out west we took in a Can-Am race at Mid-Ohio (left Mom in the motel room in Columbus for the day). In retrospect Dad showed remarkable patience with my growing fanaticism about cars over the years.
In the early ‘70’s when I was in the 7th grade I read a book about a teenage boy who took an old car and fixed it up. In the end he beats his nemesis in a road race, but he falls asleep at the wheel and the car drifts off the road. If I remember correctly, his girlfriend was also asleep in the car. I’m sure it was fiction. Does anybody here know the name of that book?
Sounds like Street Rod by Felsen
I remember in 5th grade, circa 1990, I checked a book out from the school library called “Dinosaur Cars”. The dinosaur part was a reference to all the former independent American makes that were now extinct, like the dinosaurs. It was a collection of brief histories of the likes of Nash, Hudson, Kaiser, Studebaker, etc. While I’m pretty sure I already knew about Studebaker thanks to the Muppets, that book was probably the first I’d learned about most of those cars.
I know I checked out numerous other car books from the library, but the one above is the one I specifically remember for whatever reason. And I know when I was in earlier grades I got plenty of car books from the book fair — I think that Charles Coombs Drag Racing book was likely one of them. And other picture books about race cars and hot rods and such.
Back in the early 1960s, my local library had a copy of “A Pictorial History of the Automobile – Motor Magazine 1903-1953”. I borrowed it often and read it cover to cover, all 256 pages.
My Aunt Dorothy, knowing that I was a young car nut, bought for me a copy of “Veteran and Vintage Cars”, by Peter Roberts and published by Paul Hamlyn of Westbook House of London in 1953. I still have it.
And around 1964, my Uncle Al gave me a stack of his hot rod and custom car magazines. I was hooked.
I borrowed so many other car books from local libraries. The library in Kearny, NJ had a great collection of old books, not only about cars, but about so many other subjects. I remember finding a geology book there from the 1890s. I used it as a reference for a science paper when I was in 7th grade.
This stirs up an *early* memory. When I was 5, my dad was working on his master’s degree and doing a lot of research in the university library. (This was 1955.) He usually brought me along to get me out of Mom’s hair, and turned me loose in the library. I immediately found the car section and spent hours looking at pictures and text. I remember specifically the Nash bed, and some descriptions of Fluid Drive and HydraMatic which I didn’t understand but enjoyed anyway.
This isn’t exactly a childhood memory, but you reminded me of the time in college when I was in the library researching something for a class (If memory serves I might have been researching the Japanese auto industry, so I had legitimate reason to be in the car section). While scanning the shelf for the book I was actually looking for, I stumbled on a 1959 Import Car Buying Guide, basically a book of reviews of every import on sale in the US in 1959. Based on the stamps inside the cover it looked like it hadn’t been checked out in over a decade (this would have been circa 2000) and had just been collecting dust on that shelf. Besides the familiar VW and Renault and Fiat and other European makes, it actually included a contemporary review of the Toyota Toyopet, which of course we now know is an extremely rare car in the US.
I read Hot Rod by Felsen in Grade school. Great book! I couldn’t put it down! I read it so fast, that when it came time to give my oral book report to the teacher, I couldn’t remember the guy’s name in the damn book! But I did read it, honest Miss!
I would love to borrow that book from you some time unless I can find it on Amazon.
I also used to read car magazines my Dad would bring home from work that one of his buddies would give him for me.
Lee, get Paul N to send me your PE or the other way around. I can mail it to you or we can meet up for coffee sometime if you’re passing through.
A lot of the books mentioned in this article have migrated to who knows where in the house, but Hot Rod is still here in the office. 🙂
Thanks, Doug. I will follow up.
Dating myself here, but……
Any/all columns from Warren Weith in “Car & Driver” magazine, in the later 1960’s and early/mid 1970’s, were like reading the autobiographical novel of his automotive life in serial form each month.
I can still fondly recall the entry about finding a used MGB for his son and them driving it home.
Peter Eagan’s “Side Glances” column in “Road & Track” were perfectly formed literary gems…and not just about cars.
Often the first entry I would read when my mail order subscription arrived each month.
Read all the Felsen books several times plus a bunch of others like “Road Race” and “The Red Car”. I had old copies plus a subscription to Popular Science and devoured the car articles and the Gus Wilson “Model Garage” stories.
Ah, yes… the Hot Rod book and the Magnificent Jalopy. Along with my Dad’s Road & Track and a plethora of other car books, these were well-read in my formative years.
Thanks for sending me on a sentimental trip.
This brings back great memories-I got interested in cars reading Tom McCall’s road tests in Mechanix Illustrated and also Hot Rod. The kid who lived next door had an uncle who did a lot of racing and and had a huge stack of Hot Rod magazines which I used to read.
Also, back in the early 60’s I would get my parents to take me to rod and custom shows-I always loved looking at all the customized vehicles!
I never read any of the novels mentioned here, but I did read lots of magazines, including the British Motor and Autocar when I could get downtown to the good bookstores. In 1964 my family went to Europe to visit my aunt. In Paris I went into W. H. Smith and bought my first copy of the Observers Pocket Book of Automobiles edited by L.A. Manwaring, with a foreword by Stirling Moss.It is a small (3”x5”) book containing a wealth of information about many obscure makes. It was perfect for a 14 year old car nut. It starts with Abarth, A.C., Alfa Romeo, Alpine, Alvis, Aston Martin, Austin (Australia), and finishes with Wolseley, Zaporgets and Zil. It really is remarkably comprehensive. I found a place to buy it in Toronto, so I have a collection of about 10 of them. So if you ever want to know the compression ratio or turning circle of a Humber Super Snipe, I can supply them (8.0 to 1 and 38 ft).
When I was an early teen in the mid 70s, the local library still had the 69-73 or so Motor Trend new car guides for each year…also the Crestline series of maker histories. Those were expensive for a kid then so only managed to get a couple..til decades later when I bought them all off eBay. Now most of them are pricey..over a $100 each. Also memorized the Burness 40-65 American Car Spotter Guide. Back when you could often see most of them on the street…
I read my first Henry Gregor Felsen books in the fourth grade. Hot Rod and Street Rod. I became a huge fan and found the other titles during the next few years. Almost twenty years ago I found a paperback edition of Hot Rod at a library sale. I re read it and found that the magic was still there. My Wife bought me the boxed, reprinted editions of his classic titles, signed by the author. It is one of my most treasured possessions. Henry’s daughter Holly wanted to bring out a new release of Hot Rod but felt that she should reach out on the HAMB (Hokey Ass Message Board) to she if there was sufficient interest to make it a worthwhile investment. She was very impressed by how many people contacted her, and told her that her Father’s books had made a lasting impact on their lives. She had never known just how these books had been taken into the hearts of automotive enthusiasts. I pre ordered my copy of the new release. My favorite title is Boy gets Car, probably the sweetest and most innocent of these stories.
I’ve got quite a collection of juvenile reader automotive novels, the Black Tiger series among them. My Son, also a car guy has read them. Who knows about the next generation.
I read and subscribed to numerous car magazines for many many years. Still had a couple subscriptions until last year. Now with the web, we’ve got sites like Curbside Classics and a few others that I regularly contribute comment to. I got so enthused I started my own blog six years ago. Just trying to do my part to keep the flame burning. Kudos to Paul and the others that keep this site such a great place.
I read Black Tiger at Le Mans and loved it. “Dinna think I’m gonna use 12 sets of racing gears in me truck?” 🙂
I just checked now and am surprised to see there’s 6 in the series, I never encountered any of the others.
The Jeep from SBS (student book services or student book stores or student book sales?) was a book I bought through school in 2nd or 3rd grade. Read that cover to cover in about a day. I loved getting books to read every month. Glad my parents could afford my affliction.
“My Love Has a Black Speed Stripe” Read it at 13 and loved it. Reread it in my 30s and I wondered why I had ever liked it! https://aussietheatre.com.au/reviews/review-love-black-speed-stripe
I was regular reader of Wheels & Modern Motor, I’d by Wheels, my mate Wayne bought Modern Motor and we’d swap. A TV programme called “Torque” was a must see too. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6yAozhmp6E
Does anyone else remember Gumdrop by Val Biro? Or a whole series of hot rod books by some guy called Ed Radlauer? Fascinated to share memories of J D Scheel Cars of The World. How good are those line drawings?
Robert Manke I also read The Red Car as a teenager. My first car magazine was the November 1965 issue of Motor Trend. It was a buyers guide for the 1966 model year, which I still have, along with buyers guides for every year after.
Another one: Speed Six! Hardcover. Published January 1, 1956 by Bruce Carter. It’s a fiction story about the improbable premise of an old 1930-era Bentley running at LeMans in the mid-1950s. Aimed at young teens or younger, perhaps. I remember reading it when I was a kid and I enjoyed it.
That one I remember! From memory, the preface mentioned that someone actually took a 1930 Bentley to an early ’50s Lemans and it finished the race.
Or is memory playing me false? Thanks Allan for the memory.
I an trying to source a book I read sometime between 1976-1979. It was written in the late 50s to mid 60s and was in the school library.
It was a form of young adult quasi-fiction that was rooted in reality. It was about a young man that gets into sports cars.
There was no great “romantic” struggle like some, no big redemption story, just a young man learning the ropes of performance driving and finally succeeding.
It was full of technical stuff like oversteer, understeer, drift, weight transfer. It described club racing, endurance races, sprints etc.
I remembered it as “Sports Car Racer” but I can’t find that title anywhere. I have found the two books “The Red Car” and “Road Racer”.
The descriptions of those don’t seem to quite fit my memory but I have ordered them anyway.
Any help appreciated if anyone knows about other YA fiction that might fit this description.