Formula 1 Car by Car 1950-59

PETER HIGHAM, Evro, £50, ISBN 978 1 910505 44 1

‘There were fears that the 1951 British GP would be the last to be held at Silverstone.’ Then the British Racing Drivers’ Club agreed a four-year lease, ‘guaranteeing the event’s immediate future’.

Sounds familiar; clearly it’s been a feature of the Formula 1 calendar pretty much since the first F1 championship race was held at that venue 70 years ago. And it’s one of several nuggets you’ll find within the overviews of each season in F1’s first decade.

Yet the meat of this 300-oddpage book is in the descriptions of the cars, carried out team by team for each racing year. Although there are plenty of obscurities in the early years, it’s dominated by Ferrari, Alfa Romeo and Maserati before giving ground to Vanwall, Cooper and so on, and it isn’t solely about Fangio’s utter superiority.

Order of mention lacks a little logic: not alphabetical, not by marque, not by driver, and the completist approach necessitates some brevity. Otherwise it’s thorough, encyclopaedic in approach, and the colour photography later in the decade is especially gratifying. GW

Designed to mark the 110th anniversary of Alfa Romeo, this leather kit bag features handles made from 1960s seatbelt webbing, and, inside, a print of Fangio steering his Alfa 158 to victory in the 1950 Monaco GP.

Even the most moneyed of moneybags might hesitate to spend £42,000 on a garden toy for the kiddies, so it’s a good job that this beautifully detailed, Aston Martin-approved and two-thirds-scale DB5 is big enough to accommodate dad, too.