The Roaring Season

Rather than clutter up Gerard's thread with more pictures of book covers I thought I would start a new thread specifically about books that deal with fictional motor sport themes.

I have around eighty novels, both paperback and hardback, that deal with motor sport in its various forms.

Thses are some of the older ones that have interesting covers.


A Shriek of Tyres by Douglas Rutherford first published in 1958.



Grand Prix Murder by Douglas Rutherford first published in 1955.



Mask of Dust by Jon Manchip White first published in 1953.



The Red Car by Don Stanford first published in 1954.



Road Race by Philip Harkins first published in 1953.

Eighty novels on motor racing! Wow. I only have three.



..... Oh, and I have Alfred Neubauer's Autobiography too, which I think is case of 'not letting the truth stand in the way of a good story'.

Seems to be the next big thing!
http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/maserati/390892-little-red-racing-car.html

My dad had a copy of the Green Helmet - I must have read about 10 times when I was a kid.

"Gilt Edge Cockpit" and "Rally to the Death" are 2 more by Douglas Rutherford.

And then there are Burt Levy's books - the last one I 'read' was Toly's Ghost. It is massive - I'd be interested to see if anyone actually read the whole thing - I gave up and started skimming...indeed speed skimming.

"Speed Six" that brings back memories!

I think I probably still have about five.

"Carlotti Takes The Wheel" - Mike Hawthorn
"Monza" - Bob Judd
"The Monza Protest" - Andrew Neilsen - more of an espionage novel than a racing novel
"Pole Position" - Tess Stimpson - tenuous link to motor racing
"The Seventh Royale" - Donald Stanwood - about a supposedly extra Bugatti Royale. I wonder if he wrote that after Tom Wheatcroft's re-creation!

Powder

Your copy of The Green Helmet looks like a hardback edition which would explain why it is different to my two paperbacks.



Fontana 1961
Horwitz 1963

Milan Fistonic wrote:Powder

Your copy of The Green Helmet looks like a hardback edition which would explain why it is different to my two paperbacks.

Yes it is, Published by Collins in 1957.

From the covers it looks like the main character had made a bit more progress with his woman by 1963.

Thanks for that guys. I am not an avid reader so I have ordered a copy of the Green Helmet in DVD form. It should arrive in a few days.

An Ebay buy, neat old american comic featuring race driver 'Clint Curtis' chasing down the Mclaren Can Am cars.

There have been some real shockers written by people who obviously have no knowledge of motor racing.

One of the worst is Racers by Sally Armstrong - The scorching bestseller of Formula 1 racing, on and off the track.



Despite acknowledging receiving assistance from, among others, Creighton Brown, John Blunsden, Gerald Donaldson, Nigel Roebuck, Charlie Creighton Stuart, Frank Williams. The Silverstone press office and Nigel from Brabham she still comes up with this.


The tension on the grid where the cars were lined up before the start was unbearable…The mechanics were now making the final adjustments to the cars. The blue and yellow outer shell, or monocoque, of Max’s car was lowered ceremoniously over him, like some mystical ritual. It was then screwed into position, Max sat strapped in his seat, staring straight ahead while people busied themselves around him.

I have a few copies of Auto Action. Do they count. lol

MarkQ wrote:[ATTACH=CONFIG]16316[/ATTACH]An Ebay buy, neat old american comic featuring race driver 'Clint Curtis' chasing down the Mclaren Can Am cars.

.....have a got a couple hundred of these along with some 15000 ,Hot Rod style magazines from mid 50's to present day, USA/UK/NZ/AUST,
most of them in individually sealed plastic envelopes, no!! the question has been asked,I'm not a collector, I still buy them for thier content value and when I was asked ,"are they 'For Sale'??,I said 'YES' ,next Question was "How Much?'........Thought for a Moment ,"$3 dollars Each"...."Great, I will come on over and sort out the one's I want"....."Sorry, You Buy The lot,or don't bother comming over"!!!...."Shit !!thats $45k, I'm not paying That, thats bullshit,you will Die with'em"..."So Be it,but let me explain one point,Today you spend $12.95 for one copy of the USA/ Hot Rod Mag and its full of stories on 'nostalgia'....this is genuine,mint copies that have become 'Nostalgic',there are number one's and two's of most titles,collector editions, that where collector editions before they had to print it on the cover, Annuals, Little pages, pictorials annuals,.. "so, 'sir,' I would rather 'Pulp'em than have you pick the eye's out of whats there,thank you for your enquiry"....Hang the phone up ,I shout so the Workshop next door comes out to see whats going on ... 'GO,GET FUCKED!!! YOU PRICK!!! ....felt much better after that out burst, you see they are my Books/Mags,for my pleasure and yes!!,if somebody want's to buy them 'ALL' I would sell them.............Mind you, I would ,now, have to think about it..........MJ

thunder427 wrote:next Question was "How Much?'........Thought for a Moment ,"$3 dollars Each"

So why did you tell the guy they were $3 each if they weren't for sale individually ?????

Milan Fistonic wrote:There have been some real shockers written by people who obviously have no knowledge of motor racing.

One of the worst is Racers by Sally Armstrong - The scorching bestseller of Formula 1 racing, on and off the track.

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Despite acknowledging receiving assistance from, among others, Creighton Brown, John Blunsden, Gerald Donaldson, Nigel Roebuck, Charlie Creighton Stuart, Frank Williams. The Silverstone press office and Nigel from Brabham she still comes up with this.


The tension on the grid where the cars were lined up before the start was unbearable…The mechanics were now making the final adjustments to the cars. The blue and yellow outer shell, or monocoque, of Max’s car was lowered ceremoniously over him, like some mystical ritual. It was then screwed into position, Max sat strapped in his seat, staring straight ahead while people busied themselves around him.

..."screwed into position"...then I look at the cover, hmmmmmmm!

It's not fiction, (but I bet some would like to claim it is) but the book called "The Pits" written by Beverly Turner is a good expose on F1.
I have never read the Green Helmet, but you have intrigued me enough I shall endeavour to find a copy and have a go. My collection of motor racing books are all non-fiction, but does not include the plentiful annuals or multitudes of autobiographies

Off topic (just), but when I valued my "best shelf" of larger motoring books, using realistic valuations I was staggered that they amounted to twice the written down value of my 2002 Cooper S, which is fully insured... I then took a photograph of the spines, listed them and put the values alongside as I would hate to think that on my demise, the non-car mad dependents would either chuck them into a skip or just get a local book dealer around, who would probably rip them off big time or not understand the real value.

So there comes a point in life thunder427 when you do indeed decide to sell off all or part of your personal collection(s) to fund your retirement lifestyle. No real point in accumulating assets in your youth and middle age only to live out a frugal old age! The trouble is timing. I sold off a major part of my Dinky Toy collection last year. Do I miss it? No. It was all buried in boxes anyway.

"Grand Prix" was released as novel. Remember reading it years ago. I assume it was published after the movie, essentially a re-written screenplay as I can find no record of an original novel

ERC- Can relate to this. I am selling my 90 Biggles books ( collected since 1964) Donald Duck comics-Dating to 1940s and Rupert Bear sets to fund my improvements to XA Coupe.