Porsche at Le Mans
By Glen Smale, £60, quartoknows.com, ISBN 978 0 7603 6905 0
In 2021, Porsches contested the marque’s 70th consecutive Le Mans 24 Hour race, making Glen Smale’s lavish retrospective timely and historic. Taking a year-by-year examination of the race, Smale charts the fortunes of each Porsche team, detailing rule changes, car developments and driver profiles en route. We see the way Le Mans shaped Porsche as it searched for its first major challenge in the Fifties, to a Le Mans shaped by Porsche itself – to the point of having the track’s curves named after it.
Smale is honest about the factory’s waxing and waning support for the race over the years but, even so, in the years without Porsche prototypes, he follows the production-class sports cars as 911s battle for GT supremacy. Both Porsche and motor sport fans will find much to enjoy here, not least the gorgeous photography.
James Bond’s DB5
By Simon Hugo & Will Lawrence, £36.40, 007store.com,
ISBN 978 1 85875 610 3
This glossy, officially endorsed paean to the film world’s most famous car is timed to coincide with its latest appearance in No Time To Die. Hugo and Lawrence are film journalists, so this story of the car taps into their extensive knowledge of that world.
As well as tracing the fate of every DB5 with an official Bond connection, they unearth things like correspondence between production company Eon and Aston Martin, directors’ storyboards and set designer Ken Adam’s sketches. It’s bang up to date too: the cars used in the more recent films are assessed. The lid is lifted on stunts – from Porschebased stand-ins to specially-built stuntprop cars from Aston Martin itself. A must for Aston and Bond fans.
Camel Trophy
By Nick Dimbleby, £60, porterpress. co.uk, ISBN 978 1 913089 37 5
It’s about time someone wrote in depth about the Camel Trophy, and Nick Dimbleby has excelled himself here. The Trophy was an iconic event that immediately conjures up images of Sandglow Yellow Land Rovers tested to their limits in remote areas of the globe but, as you read Dimbleby’s absorbing tome, it’s unlikely you’ll be aware of the full story unless you’re a committed off-roading enthusiast.
And yet, every rallying fan deserves to know the Trophy’s story because, as this book reveals, it’s unique. It draws on as many sources as possible, from former competitors to the Land Rover organisers who made it all happen.
Despite appearances, the event wasn’t actually a Dakar-style rally, but rather an adventure open only to genuine amateurs – no professional drivers or armed forces personnel were allowed to take part. Which makes the ensuing feats of exploration and endurance – illustrated with period photos so dazzlingly clear they might as well have been taken yesterday – even more remarkable. The most surprising motor sport book you’ll read this year.