Epic Alfa Giulia work hits the shelves

By Paul Parker, £50, behemothpublishing.co.uk, ISBN 978 0 9928769 7 5 The latest in the Sports Car Racing

In Camera series is predictably dominated by Group C, before runaway budgets and the early Nineties politicking brought it crashing down. The book’s a fairly in-depth guide to the cars contesting the World Sports Car Championship and the American IMSA GT series that ran to similar rules.

What’s most remarkable, is how haphazard much of the decade’s racing was away from the slick PR operations that presented it to the public, with grids made up largely of cash-strapped privateers. The book’s early part is most interesting, portraying a time of great uncertainty in Sports racing which saw Sixties cars dragged out of retirement, battling with cutting-edge Lancias and Porsches. A beautifully-illustrated chronicle of a surprising era. Lancia Rally: Code Name 037 By Sergio Limone & Luca Gastaldi, £39, ISBN 979 1 2200297 7 3 Lancia insiders Limone and Gastaldi have dug into the archive again, telling the full story of the Stratos’ successor, with reference to Abarth’s own archive and key personnel.

Intriguingly, the authors avoid any analysis of the 037’s rallying career, which resulted in six wins and the 1983 World Rally Championship.

The book’s focus is on the engineering, development and project origins, making it an Abarth rather than Lancia story. We see the drive to replace the 131 Mirafiori and the ideas that abound at the dawn of Group B, which also include the projects which became the Delta S4 and Integrale, originally destined to be Fiat Ritmo-based. Incredible value for such revelatory work.