Don’t Wash Mine

By Kirk F White, £75, daltonwatson.com, ISBN 978 1 85443 312 1

In some ways, this memoir’s aesthetics and story are more like that of an offbeat but engrossing indie film than a typical life story. You may never have heard of Kirk F White, but the first thing you learn on opening this book is that he passed away earlier this year. You’re then thrown into a hilarious prelude at Le Mans in 1971, in which a bewildered American traveller finds himself being all-but blackmailed by BP suits before being misidentified by the French press as a millionaire who held sway over Roger Penske and Ferrari. Cue a quip from Mark Donohue then the story begins, time shifting back to the Philadelphia home of a humble mechanic, and his son Kirk, fascinated by motor sport but not involved with it. Yet.

This is 393 pages of chance meetings, excitement, glamour, wheeler-dealing, race-winning engineering and sheer passion for fast cars. The price is steep for what it is but it’ll make you wish you knew the man in the opening obituary.