Car Books We Love – The Holiday Gift List
Cuba’s Car Culture
Author(s): Tom Cotter and Bill Warner
Publisher: Motorbooks Press
Price: $35.00 / £24.99
Come for the photography, stay for the history.
Cuba’s Car Culture delves deeply into the mythological world of the long-lost cars of pre-1960s America. The book disturbs the romance of The Cars of Cuba, while building its own tale of the passion, perseverance, and truth about these frozen moments in history. For a car enthusiast born after 1959, this book will provide insight, understanding, and facts that clarify some of the myths of the pre-Castro days of the Cuban car world. For those aware of the changing dynamic as it occurred, Tom Cotter’s simple, but well-researched, writing finds the truth in the romance of this Atlantis of classic cars.
The book is well organized, with emphases on racing, restoration, and the role of history on these classic cars and the people who own them. Incredible photography by Bill Warner dominates every page, but Cotter’s writing style and focus is clear, concise, and incredibly valuable. The book weaves a tale of the history of the car and the history of the world, from Cuba’s first automobile race in 1903, to the politically driven kidnapping of Juan Manuel Fangio in 1958. A foreword by Sir Stirling Moss, who raced in the Cuban Grand Prix that same year, adds a sense of urgency and importance to the book, as the reader recalls the political and social environment of Cuba then, and now.
While Cotter and Warner do set the book against a modern-day Cuba, exploring the difficulties of finding parts, the lack of junkyards – their translator had never even heard of one – and the role of the economy in keeping this internationally beloved, but domestically reviled tradition of classic American cars, the book does not focus upon Cuba as a political entity. Instead, it is a deeper exploration into a totally alien car culture, one that car enthusiasts from any country can appreciate. Some owners are simply happy to own cars, and would be equally as pleased to drop them for a new model, if money and resources ever allowed. Others are the impassioned enthusiasts of their own country, car club presidents, and classic car collectors that will stop at nothing to find the single 1954 Corvette on the island.
For many classic car enthusiasts, Cuba’s car culture is shrouded in myth and romance, a time capsule of Chevrolets and Cadillacs and Lincolns. Warner and Cotter delve deeply into the fable to find the truth in the people and the cars of Cuba, and they do so in brilliant photography and remarkable research. Whether you read the book cover to cover, or simply marvel over the starkly beautiful images of luxury set against poverty set against a background of history, Cuba’s Car Culture is a book that will astound any car enthusiast. It might just teach them a few things, too.
Airstream
Author(s): Patrick R. Foster
Publisher: Motorbooks Press
Price: $45.00 / £30.00
Airstream takes you on a journey, both through history, and around the world. In nearly 200 pages of remarkably researched and well-written storytelling, author Patrick R. Foster brings a sense of wonderment, wanderlust, and passion for the open road.
He explores the Airstream almost as a foil for the American lust for The West, as Airstream Founder Wally Byam forges his way through the American Dream, and travels the world in his very own invention. It is the story of economy, exploration, and history, building upon America’s, and later the world’s, lust for the unknown. Byam, himself, became a world traveler, as his own Airstream hit the far reaches of Ethiopia, Paris, Cairo, and India. Black and white photos highlight a handsome man in a white pith helmet, which is all anyone could have ever wanted from an early American explorer.
This book is fairly text-heavy in the beginning, but Foster does a remarkable job keeping reader attention, as well as integrating the resources of black and white photography from magazines, advertisements, and The Airstream Company into the early section of the book. Eventually, there is a shift to color photos, and they begin to dominate the pages in spreads of open wilderness, empty roads, and canoes parked atop Ford Station Wagons, ready for a long haul.
The Airstream speaks so much to the soul of the car enthusiast, who needs to drive, to see what’s around the next mountain top, to break constrictions and challenge limits. It values the drive as much as the destination, a sentiment many of us understand all too well.
Airstream is a well-organized, impassioned history of travel, dreaming, and cars in America and the world. Patrick R. Foster guides us through an influential element of automotive and travel history, with well-researched writing and a treasure trove of automotive photography. For lovers of the open road, and the stream of air on your face, Airstream is a must-read.
Amazing Barn Finds
Author(s): Ryan Brutt
Publisher: Motorbooks Press
Price: $35.00 $28.00 / £23.00 £18.40
Ryan Brutt does the hard part for us. Barn finds have recently come into style as the next fad in the automotive world. It is partly due to necessity – an aging culture that must find ways to adapt to the turning of time – and partly due to the rising tide of nostalgia, no different from uncovering a weather-worn dress in the back of your closet, or the faded black and white photography of your grandparents’ wedding. Only, as Brutt takes us on an exploration of history and America, this time, it’s cars.
This book is simple, pure joy. Brutt’s personal barn find story, his introduction to the world of the car enthusiast, is something everyone can identify with. The book is a collection of vignettes, stories that take place all across America, where beautiful treasures are uncovered in fields, garages, and, occasionally, barns.
The stories are heartfelt and happy, sad and forlorn. These cars get one last shot at the gold, before they melt away into the forest around them for good. In a lot of ways, barn finds are bitter-sweet. They can mean new life for an aged rock star. They can mean a putting to sleep, to spare the pain. Some are a challenge and some are beyond hope, and Brutt captures that sense of frozen, fleeting time in his collection of photography and stories.
Fundamentally, car stories are people stories, and Brutt does a wonderful job recognizing the story in every car enthusiast he finds. They are tales of lifelong muscle car lovers, of family sedans, collections of memories, and reminders of the past that some folks want to hold on to just a little bit longer.
Amazing Barn Finds is a beautiful telling of the American automobile culture, and the impact it has on most of our lives. Cars often become members of the family and each one tells a different story. They may be old, rusted, coated in a fine sheen of dust and flies, but they are the true, real tales of cars and the people who loved them. We’ll take that over shiny any day.