BOOK REVIEW  By Peter Baker  A Race with Infamy: The Lance Macklin Story  As someone who lives in a small house and has never owned a coffee table I prefer my books small. In fact, the smaller the better. Thus, The Lance Macklin Story, in size dimensionally, not much bigger than a decent sized bar of chocolate, had, even before opening, scored good marks. Most of you I’m gu...

BOOK REVIEW  By Peter Baker PADDOCK TRANSFER – E.V. STARR SNAPS THE SUPERSONIC 70S – VOLUME 1 1970-74 Paddock Transfer, written with much thought from Tim Beavis and Guy Loveridge, is their second book using the photographic records of the late Mr. Edgar Vernon Starr. The Foreword is by multi-award-winning motoring books author Jeremy Walton. The lengthy detailed captions, ting...

Click HERE - At the Checkout enter Discount code RETRO10  BOOK REVIEW  By Peter Baker  BRM - RACING FOR BRITAIN  If you put co-authors Ian Wagstaff and Doug Nye in the same room, they only need one typewriter and five minutes before they’ve written the motorsport equivalent of Shakespeare. Put simply this could easily become my ‘Book of the Year’.Hard to im...

BOOK REVIEW  By Ken Davies  The Yorkshire Rally Mafia  I’ve recently reviewed several authoritative books recalling the golden 1960s/70s era of road and stage rallying, all written by authors who were active in the sport and Jonathan Pulleyn is no exception. Having joined York Motor Club aged 12 years, Jonathan enjoyed his rallying from the tender age of eight, when family f...

Click HERE - At the Checkout enter Discount code RETRO10  BOOK REVIEW  By Peter Baker    TRANS AFRICA LAND ROVER: The story of Philip Kohler and his epic overland adventure  Nowadays, why anybody should want to own, let alone drive, an old Land Rover is beyond me. Personally, I’d rather walk, or take a 93 bus. Of course, when they were new 63 years ago, and if you ...

BOOK REVIEW  By Peter Baker  RILEY & WOLSELEY CARS 1948 to1975 : A Pictorial History  Who would have thought so much useful information could be crammed into just 98 pages? Whether a buyer, or journalist, looking to check a few facts regarding Riley or Wolseley cars from 1948-1975, this is the perfect pocket reference book. Plenty of useful pictures, all colour, supported wi...

FORMULA 1’S UNSUNG PIONEERS: The story of the British Racing Partnership and how it launched motorsport into the modern era  Book review by Peter Baker I’ve known author Ian Wagstaff over a number of years; believe me, when it comes to recording motorsport history, nobody does it better. His groundwork is laboriously old-school, and exemplary, and when looking for the required i...

LOLA: THE T70 AND CAN-AM CARS  Book review by Peter Baker  Just mention of the words Lola T70 and my eyes glaze over. It is, in my view, simply the finest competition sports car ever to grace a race track. A couple of years ago, well-known Lola pilot Simon Hadfield offered me a ride in his T70 around Silverstone, but sadly engine problems intervened and it never happened. I cried like a...

Click HERE - At the Checkout enter Discount code RETRO10  BOOK REVIEW  By Peter Baker  CONCEPT CARS of the 1960s  I signed up a long time ago as a fan of the Richard Heseltine-style of book writing. Always seriously informative but, at the same time, written in character or, to put it another way, lifted out of the norm by the injection of wit and incorrigible dry humour. So...

BOOK REVIEW By Ken Davies  Through the Lanes and into the Forests  You didn’t really need expensive equipment to produce good images, just common sense and enthusiasm, combined with a discerning sense of pictorial composition. This adage is proved by Richard Jones who, as a teenager, captured many pivotal rallying images on his Ilford Super Sporty camera, a Christmas present from...

Click HERE - At the Checkout  enter Discount code RETRO10 BOOK REVIEW  by Peter Baker DRIVERS ON DRIVERS What better way to end 2021 than with a bit of controversy. Drivers on Drivers published by Porter Press International, in aid of Hope for Tomorrow (providing cancer treatment via an increasing number of mobile chemotherapy units), provides an unrivalled insight into who i...

Click HERE - At the Checkout enter Discount code RETRO10  Vanwall: The story of Britain's first Formula 1 World Champions Reviewing books from major publishers is something I’ve been doing for many years, and thoroughly enjoy, especially when on a depressingly wet Monday in early December the man from DHL delivers me a heavy package marked Porter Press International. I just know t...

BOOK REVIEW  By Ken Davies  MG Maestro Challenge  Essential reading for those involved in this championship - indeed all motorsport enthusiasts. Former Austin Rover apprentice Pablo Raybould thoroughly enjoyed his time in the MG Maestro Challenge and needed no persuasion to compile this painstaking biopic covering five seasons of the championship, including each event, driver and c...

BOOK REVIEW  By Ken Davies  FATAL WEEKEND  Fatal Weekend tells how those four unhappy days - 30th April to 1st May 1994 - unfolded from several perspectives, and Tom Rubython’s hard-hitting and painstakingly researched book leaves no stone unturned, rationalising how Senna’s death was a combination of several issues which conspired together on that fateful spring after...

BOOK REVIEW  By Ken Davies  Memory Lanes……rally tales 5   Without doubt, the 1960s and '70s were the most evocative eras in rallying and the latest book in Peter Robinson’s popular pentalogy is another cornucopia of ripping rally yarns, arranged in a series of eight easy-to-read chapters, written from the vivid recollections of those at the sharp-end of the sto...

Click HERE - At the Checkout enter Discount code RETRO10  BOOK REVIEW  By Peter Baker  CAMEL TROPHY: THE DEFINITIVE HISTORY  By using the word ‘definitive’ in a title, readers have every right to believe that this, folks, is the end, and there ain’t never going to be another Camel Trophy. In other words, collectively we are now saying goodbye to this outrag...

  BOOK REVIEW  by Peter Baker  MINI COOPER 1961-2000  From the outset it is necessary to point out that author of this little gem, Peter Barker, is in no way related to me, Peter Baker, book reviewer. However, as old friends we often joke about past acts of mistaken identity. Hotel rooms in Monte Carlo, booked and paid for by one, but slept in by the other. Rally championship ...

LAMBORGHINI COUNTACH  Book review by Peter Baker This is not the first book devoted to the Countach, but co-authors Thillainathan Pathmanathan and Anne Christina Peck, both deeply in love with all things Lamborghini, have attacked this 336-page history lesson with great verve, leaving no stone, or should that be flywheel, unturned. And with a retail price of just £60 it deserves a pla...

Colin Chapman: INSIDE THE INNOVATOR  Book Review by Peter Baker What kind of person was Chapman? Permanently irritable, twitchy, ruthless, unable to accept criticism. A pain in the neck. Unfunny. Or was he actually, not a bad bloke? It’s a good question. Guilt, maybe, brought about by a thousand Chinese whispers? In this 400-page book, composed by master craftsman Karl Ludvigsen, firs...

Click HERE - At the Checkout enter Discount code RETRO10  BOOK REVIEW  By Peter Baker  BREADVAN - A Ferrari to beat the GTO  Author Richard Heseltine, passionate Italian car enthusiast, and lover of a good juicy story, must have really relished writing this immensely enjoyable book. Most of us historic motorsport fans will have seen the ‘Breadvan’ in action. A ...