The Straight Eight Engine – Powering Premium Automobiles

£75, daltonwatson.com, ISBN 978 1 85443 306 0

This lavishly illustrated 404-pager is a celebration of an era as much as it is one of engineering. As author Keith Ray points out, there were good reasons why the straight-eight engine was short-lived, and designing one was risky – Ray devotes a section to a roll-call of manufacturers that went bust attempting to launch them – but it was glorious while it lasted.

It’s mainly a cavalcade of sumptuously-photographed art-deco monoliths, although interestingly Chrysler, Pontiac and Mercedes persevered with straighteights long after others had given up on them. Every manufacturer is profiled and their key straight-eight models explored in detail.

Cambridge mechanical engineering alumnus Ray writes with an icy clarity rarely found in engineering-focused books. Even readers with the most rudimentary knowledge of engine design will come away from this book infused with new knowledge; learned cynics won’t be patronised either.