Objects of Desire: Car Books of the 1970s

There's something I just love about car books of the 1970s.  They are often just packed so densely with archival photos and detailed history, plus the layout design is often really cool. They usually have a great old-book smell, too.  I think the 70s was the golden age of car publishing, when printing technology was good enough to make affordable books with tons of high quality photos (many 1960's books have lousy printing quality, especially in color), and when the market really was open -for whatever reason- to geeky books about automotive arcania.  The historians of the 70s took their job seriously, and fortunately for us, the protagonists of the 20 century's motoring history tended to still be alive and accessible in that era, providing a lot of great first-hand accounts of racing and automotive history which are increasingly hard to obtain today now that folks are dying off, or just tired of being interviewed.

In today's landscape of auto books, things have increasingly polarized.  At one end are the high-end glossy art books with stellar photography, beautiful layout and mind-blowing printing quality, but often light on substance. Then there are the car geek books full of B/W photos and chassis numbers, but these usually are written by passionate amateurs and hobbyists for small imprints, and have low standards of layout and printing. Many of the color photos will be taken by the author at historic racing meets, and aren't of high artistic quality. It's rare in today's book market to see a book like those from the 70s that combines all the best of historical rigor and depth, great photography and layout, all in a beautiful and satisfying package.  Fortunately for all of us, such special books are still being produced from time to time, and we'll have a review of one next week! Stay tuned!

Monaco Moment of Zen

All in a day's work for this intrepid gendarme.

Elf Scan 23: Matra MS 7

The MS 7 was Matra's highly successful F2 car, which dominated the 1968 and 1969 F2 seasons before new regulations ended its run in 1970.

This photo of an airborne Henri Pescarolo at the Nurburging marks the final installment of our weekly Elf Scan series here at Automobiliac. I hope you enjoyed all the wonderful period imagery and learned new facts--as I did!--about Matra, Alpine and the French racing scene of the late 1960s.

Automobiliac at the Deutsche Classic!

Longtime readers know we love our Italian cars over here at Automobiliac, but vintage German machinery can also be ever so cool. There was plenty of it on display at this weekend's Deutsche Classic German car show in Fleetwood, PA.  The weather was fantastic and the drive out from the city was about 2 hours of rolling countryside.  The show was roughly evenly divided between classic BMW, Porsche, Mercedes and VW, with a smattering of Opel GTs and other unique vehicles for good measure.In addition to the beautiful cars on display, there was a small swap meet area with vendors selling all manner of replacement parts for German cars.  My personal highlights of the day were a pristine BMW 3.0 CS (The owner seemed less than interested when I told him his car was my favorite at the show...) and a really cool Porsche RSK.  There was also a gorgeous Mercedes 300SL gullwing in attendance, and Herbie the Love Bug also made an appearance. Click any of the photos to see my entire gallery of the swap meet and car show!

Friday Mystery Car

Spotted this in Park Slope a number of months back. Had to rub my eyes in disbelief.  I can't tell if the fact that I actually identified this weird car on sight impressed my date, or if the nerd power simply overwhelmed her.  Needless to say i didn't get any action that night.