Books & Models John Fitzpatrick’s Group C Porsche years evaluated in a new tome, classic US car design, and imposing Rolls-royce and Maserati models rated

By Mark Cole, £225, porterpress.co.uk, ISBN 978 1 907085 88 8 This hefty, slipcased 320-pager recalls the Group C career of Classic Cars columnist John Fitzpatrick. Author Mark Cole was a constant presence on the pit wall as Fitz’s Porsches gained strength in a new era of endurance racing, and brings his perspective to vivid life here. Each race is described in detail, but it’s the off-track realities of running a racing team that make this book unique – John Fitzpatrick Racing’s key sponsor being imprisoned for fraud, for example, or fierce battles with IMSA and the FIA. Much of the book also concerns itself with the realities of running of the cars – men who raced the Skoal Bandit-sponsored 1984 962, both in period and in historics, all give their opinions and insight. A lot of money, but surely one of the most intense portraits of Group C racing life.

Imagine by Patrick G Kelley, £110, daltonwatson.com, ISBN 978 1 85443 306 0 Books about car design usually focus on Italian design houses, so Kelley’s American perspective makes for a refreshing change. Imagine – subtitled ‘Automobile Concept Art from the 1930s to the 1980s’ – is essentially an art book, showcasing the work of designers working for Detroit’s big three. Admittedly, its Fifties/sixties American focus seems to ignore stylistic developments elsewhere in the world but this doesn’t matter because it alights on the most fertile period of car design the industry has ever seen. Many designers in this book thought nothing of merely sketching spacecraft and adding wheels, but there are also compact commuter visions, alternative fuel sources and European influences on show. It’s expensive for an A4 325-pager, but it’s a wonderful look at a more optimistic era.

100 Years of Bentley by Andrew Noakes, £60, quartoknows.com, ISBN 978 1 78131 915 4

Classic Cars regular Andrew Noakes’ in-depth study of Bentley is lifted beyond the coffee table thanks to his access to the Bentley Drivers’ Club archives, telling the story from the perspective of Walter Owen rather than the VW Group’s PR department.

The result tells a tale of survival against the odds, be it as one of the many eager sports car manufacturers in search of Le Mans glory in the early days, almost torpedoed by the Great Depression, through to distinctiveness once again from the Eighties onwards after a 50year battle to assert itself under R-R control. Noakes’ attention to detail adds wry touches, such as an impromptu race between Rollsroyce and Bentley prototypes, which encountered each other in Northern France in the Twenties that has an almost filmic quality. A fitting tribute.