Autoblog

Former CEO Whitacre says he blocked GM move out of Detroit

Zach Bowman — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 13:30:00 EST

Filed under: Etc., GM

Former General Motors CEO Ed Whitacre has served up a few revelations about his time at the automaker in his new memoir, American Turnaround: Reinventing AT&T and GM and the Way We Do Business in the USA. Among the choice tidbits is word that in August of 2009, Whitacre says he blocked a plan that would have seen GM workers abandon their downtown Detroit Renaissance Center global headquarters just one week before the move was to be set in action. The whole operation was to be relocated to Warren, which would have allowed GM to either lease or sell the Ren Cen outright. Oddly enough, GM apparently planned to keep the company's CEO and a few others on the premises, which would have put management some 30 minutes away from the rest of the company.

Whitacre says the move would have cost around $100 million to implement. The city of Detroit eventually offered GM substantial tax incentives to stay put, and the automaker announced its plans to stay in the Ren Cen in August of 2010.

The memoir also touches on Whitacre's successor, Dan Akerson. Whitacre says Akerson called GM "one of the worst companies he'd come across in his entire life" and notes that he admitted he didn't like GM vehicles.

Former CEO Whitacre says he blocked GM move out of Detroit originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 15 Oct 2012 13:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Go Faster celebrates the 70s heyday of race car liveries

Jonathon Ramsey — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 09:01:00 EST

Filed under: Videos, Design/Style, Racing

According to Sven Voelker's book Go Faster, it was American driver Briggs Cunningham who ushered in the era of the "go-faster stripe" when he put two of them on his white Le Mans racer in the fifties. The next year, according to Voelker, stripes were everywhere, and so began the era of wild and memorable race-car liveries that would peak in the 70s and 80s.

The surprise of the book is that the in the days before massive corporate sponsorship, color schemes weren't conjured by graphics departments. Usually, they came from the engineers and grease monkeys who built the cars. It's an observation that helps make sense of some of the luridly hued racers shown in the archival footage. Follow the jump to watch Voelker discuss the book and the war-painted cars within - all the period racing footage makes it worth a look.

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Go Faster celebrates the 70s heyday of race car liveries originally appeared on Autoblog on Sun, 22 Jan 2012 09:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Ex-BMW design boss Bangle writes book, launches contest

Jonathon Ramsey — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 16:01:00 EST

Filed under: Etc., Design/Style

Chris Bangle's latest novel idea is, in fact, an actual novel. The designer has penned fiction tome called Peter Teufel, A Tale of Car Design in 3 Parts.

There's more to the work than Bangle laying out a potential future of transportation via the Teufel character's story. The prologue contains descriptions of six different kinds of vehicles, and Bangle wants readers to draw those concepts and submit them. The grand prize winner will receive a trip to the studios of Chris Bangle Associates (CBA) in Italy or €2,000. Ten other winners will have their designs showcased on the CBA site and published in the second edition of the book.

A cynic might suggest that this is merely a ploy to get readers, but you can read and download the text for free - and Bangle's interest in the future of the automobile is nothing new. The contest is open to "design students of all disciplines" who are not paid professionals.

Ex-BMW design boss Bangle writes book, launches contest originally appeared on Autoblog on Sat, 21 Jan 2012 16:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Bring the Mullin Automotive Museum to your coffee table

Jeff Glucker — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 07:58:00 EST

Filed under: Classics, Etc.

We've been big fans of the Mullin Automotive Museum ever since it opened its doors over a year ago. The Oxnard, California shrine to French Art Deco automobiles should be on the must-visit list for any enthusiast.

Still, traveling to Oxnard isn't ideal for everyone, so Peter Mullin, chairman of the museum, has teamed up with French automobile experts Richard Adatto, Claude Figoni and Shana Hinds to create a book highlighting some of the most beautiful automobiles on the planet. Titled French Curves: Delahaye - Delage - Talbot-Lago, the book provides an up-close look at some of the all stars of the Mullin Automotive Museum collection.

The book will make its debut at the 2011 Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance. A fitting entry for a tome that will certainly class up even the fanciest of coffee tables. You'll be able to purchase a copy for yourself later this year through the Mullin Automotive Museum website. Read all the details in the press release after the break.

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Bring the Mullin Automotive Museum to your coffee table originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 03 Aug 2011 07:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Book Review: Porsche, A History of Excellence by Randy Leffingwell

Michael Harley — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 19:35:00 EST

Filed under: Classics, Performance, Etc., Porsche

Porsche: A History of Excellence - Click above for image gallery from the publication

Randy Leffingwell is a Porsche enthusiast - serving as primary reason why this book isn't just another regurgitated account following the history of one of the world's most celebrated marques. Porsche: A History of Excellence is a comprehensive look at the automaker's past, from 1938 to near present day, told within the confines of a 348-page coffee table book.

Researched with the tenacity of someone who truly appreciates and understands the brand, Leffingwell did much of his investigation in Germany, working side-by-side with Dieter Landenberger (director of Porsche archives) for this fully authorized book. The author conducted more than 60 interviews to answer questions such as: Why did Porsche feel it necessary to go into the SUV market? Did some of Porsche's 917 racing program funding come from Volkswagen Marketing? What were the design and engineering challenges to creating "two cars with one face," both the Boxster and the 996, at the same time?

The book is loaded with beautiful and interesting imagery - the color pictures occupy more space than text on most of the pages. According to Leffingwell, about half the images in the book came from Porsche's own archives, which have been published in this book for the first time. The balance was shot by the author himself, a noted world-class photographer, in the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Austria and Italy.

While it is an interesting chronological read, with plenty of eye candy to hold the reader's attention, we did note that the book abruptly ends its history lesson at the year 2008. Sadly, there is no mention of current technology like the "Porsche-Doppelkupplungsgetriebe" (PDK), direct-injection or the Porsche 918 Spyder (even though an image of the supercar oddly emblazons the cover). Nevertheless, it's not a deal breaker as the balance of the content more than makes up for the minor shortcoming.

Before you rush out to put a copy on your family room table, we need to warn you that the book isn't completely new - explaining the date cutoff. Leffingwell reveals that most of the copy was first published as Porsche 60 Years, a six-pound hardcover, in August of 2008. While that book received excellent reviews, it went out of print after just one run (new copies of the original text, if you can find them, are selling for over $150.00). Thanks to the popularity of a German language edition, the publisher chose to re-release this updated and revised version called Porsche: A History of Excellence. Printed as a three-pound soft-cover, the book carries a list price of $30.00 (it is $21.90 right now on Amazon). That's a literary bargain if you're a fan of European sports cars.

Book Review: Porsche, A History of Excellence by Randy Leffingwell originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 10 Jun 2011 19:35:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Bentley builds a bespoke Bond book

Noah Joseph — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 07:57:00 EST

Filed under: Etc., Bentley, Design/Style, Luxury

Bentley edition Carte Blanche book - Click above for high-res image gallery

While you might associate James Bond with Aston Martin, it's been a few years since we've seen 007 piloting his DBS on the silver screen. And it'll be at least another year until the 23rd Bond film makes its debut, if not longer. In between, fans can keep up on the spy's adventures through the pages of new Bond novels, in which the secret agent drives a Bentley. And so to commemorate the launch of the latest volume, Crewe has designed a special edition enclosure for the occasion.

Now Bentley, of course, is in the business of making cars, not books, so you know that when they were brought on board to make this unique edition of the latest Bond novel, Carte Blanche, it'd have to be something a little more unique than the paperback you'd find at your local drug store. And indeed it is: the special edition is printed in red and black ink on ivory paper, book-ended, as it were, by red leather endpapers, and covered in white Nappa leather into which the title and logos are embossed.

Very nice and all, but what really sets this edition apart is the polished aluminum case - crafted on a machine specially commissioned for the task - which represents the form of the new Continental GT that Bond drives in the story. And for one last special touch, the pages are pierced by a "bullet hole", in which sits an individually-numbered and polished 9mm round. Only 500 examples will be made, each fetching £1,000 (approximately $1,650). Follow the jump for the official press release, and check out the images in the gallery below for a closer look.

Gallery: Bentley edition "Carte Blanche" book

[Source: Bentley]

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Bentley builds a bespoke Bond book originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 29 Apr 2011 07:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Hot Rod Art Book for iPad teaches you how to draw cars [w/video]

Jonathon Ramsey — Mon, 17 May 2010 09:28:00 EST

Filed under: Etc.

Hot Rod Art Book app for the iPad - Click above to watch video after the jump

If you want to draw hot rods and learn the basics of drawing cars, then you'll want to check out the Hot Rod Art Book for the iPad. A combination of the text-only book and the videos you'll find at the book's site and Vimeo, it contains 100 pages of guidance and tips from 13 professional hot rod artists and 1.5 hours of videos. It's not going to instantly turn you into Hot Wheels designer Dwayne Vance, one of the contributors, but you'll know how to pen the Powell Motors Homer just like you've always wanted.

Follow the jump for a sample of the video tutorials you'll find in the book.

[Source: Apple iTunes]

Continue reading The Hot Rod Art Book for iPad teaches you how to draw cars [w/video]

The Hot Rod Art Book for iPad teaches you how to draw cars [w/video] originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 17 May 2010 09:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Book Review: Legendary Race Cars by Basem Wasef [w/VIDEO]

Jonny Lieberman — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 14:57:00 EST

Filed under: Motorsports

Maserati 8CM number 3011 from Legendary Race Cars - Click above for high-res image gallery

Confused as to what to do with all the Barnes & Nobles and Amazon.com gift cards your in-laws pelted you with this Holiday season? Be confused no more! Legendary Race Cars is the book every pistonhead needs sitting on their night stand in 2010. We really hope you haven't gone all Kindle on us, because Basem Wasef's coffee table-sized book is loaded bow to stern with gorgeous photographs of some of the most desirable cars ever built, let alone raced. Wasef took all the non-vintage pictures, too, and they're quite stunning.

What cars? Well, that's the really fantastic part. Put it like this: had we been asked to write such a book, our choices wouldn't have been much different. There are 25 legendary racers in all, spanning from motorsports earliest days right on up to the present. In truth, a great mix of racing machines.

The first car discussed is the Ford GT40 and the last is Sterling Moss's Mercedes-Benz 300SLR - the No. 722 car. In between you get Carroll Shelby's Aston Martin DBR1 and Cobra Daytona Coupe, all the Auto Union Grand Prix Cars, Senna's McLaren MP4/4, Fangio's Maserati 250F and of course the brutally awesome Porsche 917. Each car is discussed in informative, enthusiastic and playful detail, yet the text is never slavish or obsessive. If you want to know who cut the Maserati 8CM's splines, look elsewhere.

And that's not even the half of it, as Legendary Race Cars is loaded with more winners like Richard Petty's Plymouth SuperBird, the first round the world winner, the Thomas Flyer, the Indy-dominating Marmon Wasp (first car to ever employ a rear-view mirror!), Audi's Group B killer S1 Quattro, Schumacher's Ferraris, McRae's Subarus and even Ecurie Ecosse's Jaguars.

Some of you might be familiar with Basem Wasef's first book, Legendary Motorcycles. If you are, you'll no doubt remember that Jay Leno wrote the introduction to that one. Not bad for your first book. For his second book, Basem got none other than Sir Stirling Moss to pen the foreword, which, for you whippersnappers who have no clue who Sir Stirling is, would be like getting Snoop Dogg to help you write an essay about gangsta rappers and marijuana.

Here's part of what Moss has to say, "Selecting these 25 legendary cars cannot have been easy. Automobiles, like paintings and other works of art, have different effects on different people... I would hate to have been making the choice - but I am enormously proud and happy to have been invited to write the foreword for this book." All we can do is say wow. For his third book, Mr. Wasef will no doubt be writing it in Colin Chapman's blood. Until then, pick up a copy of Legendary Race Cars (It's $23.10 right now at Amazon). You won't regret it one iota. Make the jump to watch Basem Wasef discuss Legendary Race Cars with none other than Jay Leno, and don't forget to check out the gallery that's filled with some choice stills from the book.

Gallery: Legendary Race Cars

Continue reading Book Review: Legendary Race Cars by Basem Wasef [w/VIDEO]

Book Review: Legendary Race Cars by Basem Wasef [w/VIDEO] originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 23 Dec 2009 14:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Tobey Maguire to play Phil Hill in The Limit

Noah Joseph — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 17:20:00 EST

Filed under: Celebrities

Gentlemen, Start Your Engines. The late, great Formula 1 racer Phil Hill is poised to come back to life in the near future on book shelves and the silver screen. First up is "Limit", a book by Michael Cannell that chronicles the relationship between Hill and his Scuderia Ferrari teammate Wolfgang von Trips over the course of the 1961 F1 season. That season saw (spoiler alert!) Hill crowned World Champion and von Trips killed in crash at the penultimate Italian Grand Prix. But for those of us who are too A.D.D. to crack the spine of a book, the movie rights are already being acquired for big screen production.

The project is being spear-headed by Maguire Entertainment, the production company headed by Tobey Maguire of Spiderman fame, who is slated to take the wheel as the legendary Phil Hill. Screenwriters and producers are already being lined up, but no word on who would co-star as the ill-fated von Trips. Given all that goes into a major Hollywood production these days, don't expect The Limit, as the film will be billed, to come to a theater near you quite so soon, but when it does, we hope it'll be closer to McQueen's Le Mans than to Stallone's Driven.

[Source: The Hollywood Reporter | Image: Noah Graham/Getty]

Tobey Maguire to play Phil Hill in The Limit originally appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 02 Apr 2009 17:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Jeremy Clarkson deemed literary giant by UK libraries

Dan Roth — Fri, 18 May 2007 13:03:00 EST

Filed under: Trends, Etc.

England's Education Secretary Alan Johnson has published a list of tomes intended to catch the interest of teenage boys. Monies have been set aside so that schools can take their pick of 20 titles from the 160 book list, and house those selections in their libraries. Absent from the register are works considered classic, such as Dickens, Shakespeare, or others from literary history. High on the new list is "I Know You Got Soul" by Top Gear's Jeremy Clarkson. Clarkson's book, rather than being total fluff, celebrates elegant engineering and design work covering everything from Ferraris to the Hoover Dam. Clarkson delves into the history behind some of his favorite machines, and we would have gladly traded the Car Craft hiding in the leaves of our literature textbooks for Clarkson's work. As such, we fail to see how presenting history and engineering in an engaging manner is going to harm students.

[Source: Daily Mail]

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Jeremy Clarkson deemed literary giant by UK libraries originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 18 May 2007 13:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Top Gear turns nostalgic with 'My Dad had one of those'

Jonathon Ramsey — Thu, 03 May 2007 09:06:00 EST

Filed under: Etc.

Top Gear writer Giles Chapman and script editor Richard Porter assembled a collection of Cars That Dad Had. As one synopsis put it, the book reflects "a time before people carriers and lifestyle off roaders, when the nearest thing to an airbag was hiding behind your fat brother." Being a British book, it doesn't detail the cars our dads waxed lyrical over -- unless your dad was that one guy in the neighborhood who had an original Mini or a Datsun Sunny (the 1200 in the US). The book also puts dads into categories based on what kind of car he bought. A Robin Reliant dad, for instance, is Frugal Dad. We wonder if they've categorized the dad who bought the never-completed-project-car-that-rusted-under-a-gray-tarp. The full book press release is posted after the jump.

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Top Gear turns nostalgic with 'My Dad had one of those' originally appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 03 May 2007 09:06:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Kelley Blue Book names coolest cars under $18k

Noah Joseph — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 19:28:00 EST

Filed under: Car Buying

Cool doesn't have to be expensive. At least that's what the folks over at Kelley Blue Book figure. The website of the authoritative car-buying resource has put together a list of what they figure are the ten coolest cars you can buy with less than $18,000.

There are some definite good choices on the list, but some of their choices - and how they arrived at them - leave us scratching our heads and wondering if their cool-meter doesn't need recalibration. Rather than taking the entirely subjective Top Gear "Cool Wall" approach and anointing a car cool or not based purely on image, KBB.com came up with a list of criteria. A cool car, they figure, should have folding seats. Huh? Yeah, versatility was their first criteria, including such features as "clever cubbies and innovative storage solutions" as a prerequisite for classifying a car as cool or not. (That way you've got more places to hide your coolness.) Also taken into consideration were such factors as safety, fuel economy and cabin space, before subjective assessments came into the mix.

The resulting list includes a Chevy pick-up at the top, followed by a Focus, a tiny Honda, an Hyundai, a Jeep, a Mazda3, a Nissan hatch, a Scion, a Suzuki and a VW. Each was included in the sub-$18k list based on Kelley's own proprietary blue-book value; follow the link to find out what made each of these cars cool enough to make the cut.

[Source: Kelley Blue Book]

Kelley Blue Book names coolest cars under $18k originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 25 Apr 2007 19:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Iacocca to pen new book, address auto industry

Eric Bryant — Fri, 09 Jun 2006 15:01:00 EST

Filed under: Etc., Daimler

Retired Chrysler chairman (and Snoop Dogg homey) Lee Iacocca will be releasing a book in approximately one year, tentatively titled "Where Have All the Leaders Gone?". It's said to cover several topics, among them the state of the American auto industry and the threat that the US manufacturing economy faces from China and India.

Iacocca is said to be writing the book because he "flunked retirement" and "there is too much to be done to sit on the sidelines." The octogenarian has not been quiet since leaving Chrysler in 1992, having attempted a $20B buyout of the automaker in 1995 (with Kirk Kerkorian and current GM board member Jerry York), along with campaigning for George W. Bush in 2000 and John Kerry in 2004.

[Source: Houston Chronicle]

Iacocca to pen new book, address auto industry originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 09 Jun 2006 15:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Bentley book wins prestigious award

Joel Arellano — Sat, 08 Apr 2006 15:01:00 EST

Filed under: Etc., Bentley

British motor journalist Andrew Frankel's book, 'Bentley - The Story', recently won the 'Best Book on Car Design' by Motor Presse Club e.V., a prominent German organization. The book, which charts Bentley Motors history, defeated four others in its category.

Judges included such figures as BMW design director Chris Bangle and Holger Jung, Jung von Matt AG.

'Bentley - The Story' was first printed in 2003 with a second edition published late last year.

(full press release after the jump)

[Source: Media Bentley Motors]

Continue reading Bentley book wins prestigious award

Bentley book wins prestigious award originally appeared on Autoblog on Sat, 08 Apr 2006 15:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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