Modern Classics

by Rich Taylor

Book Overview

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0684155257
• ISBN13: 9780684155258
• Release Date: January 1978
• Publisher: Scribner Book Company
• Length: 364 Pages
• Weight: 3.25 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Far and away the best book on vintage sports cars

If I had only one vintage car book on a desolate island - this is my choice. I have hundreds (literally) of old car books but this is the one I read over and over. I have owned it for just about thirty years - paid $25.00 for it back in the late 1970's. That was back when $25.00 was a lot! Divide 25.00 by the number of hours I have read it and it comes to pennies per hour! What a bargain! You will keep asking yourself, "How in the heck does Rich Taylor know all this stuff!" Obscure details, important overviews - all there. If you have any interest in what are now vintage sports cars, you should - no, make that must - own Modern Classics. Yes, it's that good.

This is the book that made me love cars.

When I first read this book in the late seventies, it was to check out what this automotive journalist thought of some of my favorite cars, like the Avanti, the Austin-Healey and the Porsche Speedster. The reviews were so honest and funny that I shelled out thirty part-time-job dollars to buy it. I look back on it now as one of the most influential books I ever read, because it opened up a world of fabulous cars that I had only vaguely noticed previously. The book is divided into three main sections detailing the postwar/pre-Opec sports cars of the United States, Great Britain, and Europe. Each region produced cars that reflected a certain national character, and Mr. Taylor describes, in roughly chronolgical order, all the cars that best exemplify it. Using a conversational and salty style, he traces each chosen car's history in the context of the time it was made, its competion history where applicable, and the good and bad points of owning the car yourself. Most importantly, he tells the stories of the men who made the cars, men who put their own personality and blood and fortune into producing the kind of cars they wanted to drive. Although each car's history can be read as an entity unto itself, the book is so arranged to give you a continuous overview of the whole era. I was particularly impressed by his inclusion of lesser-known and sometimes maligned cars, finding reasons for loving and admiring the Crosley Hotshots and Meyers Manxes along with the Ferraris and Gullwings and Corvettes. He expresses opinions that may rub some humorless enthusiasts the wrong way, but he can usually back up his remarks, and he is so engaging a writer that the unflattering comment is almost always followed by some redeeming compliment. And it's hard to fault his choice of the ultimate manifestations of each region's most characteristic sports car (the 427 Cobra for the US, the Morgan for Britain, and the Mercedes 300SL Gullwing for Europe.) So if you like the kind of cars that seem to be made only by the Franklin Mint these days, I highly recommend Modern Classics. Every page is an engaging read, and may inspire you to pursue your own modern classic yourself, like I did.