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Ford's Mustang is the most iconic pony car. This lavishly illustrated work conducts readers through the Mustang's forty-plus years of continuous production--a rich and varied history unmatched in the automotive world.
 
An exhaustive review of American high performance, from the first six-cylindered ’Stang of 1964 1/2 through today's fire-breathing, world-beating Mustang, The Complete Book of Mustang offers an in-depth look at the prototypes and experimental models, the anniversary and pace cars, and the specialty packages for street and competition driving that have made the Mustang a living automotive legend. With extensive details, specs, and photographic coverage, this book is the ultimate resource on America’s favorite pony car.

When Mickey Thompson and his wife Trudy were assassinated in their driveway in the pre-dawn hours of March 16, 1988, the salacious details of the crime and the years of legal wrangling that followed made for hundreds of splashy headlines and sexy television soundbytes.

After all, the story had it all . . . unknown hooded gunmen riding into a gated Southern California community on bicycles, ambushing their victims and brutally ending their lives while neighbors ate breakfast and read the morning paper.

Leaving behind more than $70,000 in jewelry, the killing was an obvious “hit,” and those close to Mickey and Trudy immediately pointed to Mickey’s hot-headed former business partner Michael Goodwin as the mastermind behind the tragedy. Nearly 20 years later, Goodwin was found guilty by a Pasadena Superior Court jury in 2006 of two counts of first-degree murder. The actual gunmen were never identified or apprehended.

John Walsh and America’s Most Wanted did multiple episodes leading up to the conviction. Robert Stack featured the murders on Unsolved Mysteries. CBS’ 48 Hours Mystery got in the act. Everyone wanted a piece of the story.

A good story, however, has much more than a powerful ending.

Who was Mickey Thompson? What made him more than just another victim of violent crime in America? This is what Mickey Thompson: The Fast Life and Mysterious Death of a Racing Legend explores.  

Mickey was one of the most influential figures in early American motorsports. While he did have loyal and longtime friends, Mickey always did things one way . . . his way. And he did it with speed . . . he did everything with speed.

            From his 1950s adventures in the Carrera Panamericana, ending with five dead and dramatic pictures in Life Magazine in 1953, through making a one-way run of 406.60 miles per hour at the Bonneville Salt Flats in 1960 in his famed Challenger, through multiple trend-setting entries in the famed Indianapolis 500 and into the creation of some of the most popular off-road racing series and motor sportsstadium shows, Mickey’s life was full of “firsts.”

And in a world that seems to be moving faster than even Mickey Thompson could have imagined, the complete story of this true American legend is one worth slowing down for.

He made movies best remembered for their wild car chases, mad motorcycle dashes, and hair-raising races, but no one forgets the man at the wheel--Steve McQueen, the King of Cool. No other Hollywood star has been so closely linked with cars and bikes. It is this connection that McQueens Machines explores, giving readers a close-up look at the cars and motorcycles McQueen drove in movies, those he owned, and others he raced.



From the 1968 Ford Mustang GT Fastback he drove in Bullitt (in the greatest car chase of all time) to his Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow in "The Thomas Crown Affair", from the Triumph motorcycle of "The Great Escape" to the Gulf-Porsche 917K he actually raced in "Le Mans", the cars and bikes that McQueen made famous in films make another appearance here.



The book also features the cars, motorcycles, and even airplanes that McQueen owned over the years, including two motorcycles that fetched record prices at a recent auction: a 1937 Crocker "Hemi-head" V-Twin and a 1920 Indian Powerplus Daytona. Among notable cars profiled in the book are a 1959 Porsche Speedster bought new by McQueen, a 1957 Jaguar XKSS, a 1963 Ferrari 250 Lusso, a 1953 Siata 208S, a 1965 Ferrari 275 NART Spyder, and a 1969 "Le Mans" Porsche 911S.



With a foreword by Steve's son, Chad McQueen, and a wealth of details about the stars amateur racing career, his movie stunt work, and his car and motorcycle collecting, McQueens Machines draws a fascinating picture of one outsized mans driving passion.

The best hot rods are art on four wheels, and this book is nothing less than a gallery of the best of American hot rods.  Profiling top builders and featuring studio portraits of their most outstanding custom creations, this book celebrates the uniquely American marriage of mechanical know-how and an inspired sense of style and design.  Built from the ground up, pieced together from salvaged parts, rebuilt with classic looks and futuristic technology--these are automotive works of art, as powerful on the page as they are on the street.

 

Reviews:
“Tom Cotter's sequel to last year's best-selling The Cobra in the Barn relays one great tale after another, with players unearthing rare cars to die for. The treasures include an armored Mercedes-Benz Aktion P command car discovered in pieces in Russia, a desirable Dodge Daytona Hemi virtually abandoned behind bushes in a guy's yard, a bushel of Bugattis in a barn, the ‘Divorcee Cobra,’ and a GTO owned by a mobster. These are great stories about great cars.” - Edmunds.com

“The book is highly entertaining, often exciting and should hold universal appeal for all car enthusiasts.” - Hemmings Muscle Machines

About the book:
It's every car lovers fantasy: the perfectly preserved classic automobile discovered under a blanket in some great-grannys garage. And as Tom Cotter showed us in The Cobra in the Barn, it's a fantasy that can come true. Cotters' adventures in automotive archaeology continue in The Hemi in the Barn, with more than forty new stories of amazing finds and automotive resurrections. Avid collectors big and small recall the thrills of the hunt, the tips and hunches followed, clues pursued, the heart-stopping payoff. There's the forgotten Duesenberg--the only unrestored one around--that Jay Leno found in a Burbank garage. There's another 1931 model Dusenberg Leno found in a parking garage in New York City that was parked in 1933 and was never moved. There's a Plymouth Superbird found buried in a hedge out of sight in Alabama. There's the rescue of the first 1955 Corvette ever built. There's the find of legendary race builder Smokey Yunick's Boss 302 Trans-Am car. And there's the story of the original Cobra Daytona Coupe built by Peter Brock and sold to Phil Spectre--a story that somehow involves a chauffeur's daughter setting herself and her rabbits on fire. As entertaining as these tales are--and some are truly corkers--they're also full of tantalizing hints and suggestions for readers setting off on their own adventures in automotive archaeology. 

Chapter 1: Exotic Destinations
Chapter 2: The Find Next Door
Chapter 3: Rare Finds
Chapter 4: Stranger Than Fiction
Chapter 5: The Luck of the Car Hunters
Chapter 6: Family Jewels
Chapter 7: Playboys, Princesses, and Spies
Appendix: Top 20 Barn-Finding Tips

Ride with author John Hall into the turbulent world of 1960s bike club culture, from the time he joined an upstart motorcycle club from Dixie, and rose to become Long Island chapter president of the Pagans, a club that the FBI called "the most violent criminal organization in America." Follow him into the Pagan heartland of Pennsylvania where he fell in love, got in a roadhouse brawl over a honky-tonk angel, and eventually went to jail for "takin' care a club business." Now after a career as a journalist and college professor, he returns to the violent days of his youth and smashes up stereotypes like he once smashed up bars, resurrecting long-dead brothers, in a style reminiscent of Jack Kerouac and Mark Twain.  Hall presents them as they really were: hard living, hard loving, hard drinking, hard fighting rebels, but also hardworking, patriotic, loyal, and lovable characters, and a band of brothers whose outlandish behavior forged an all-American outlaw legend in the tradition of Jesse James, Doc Holliday, John Dillinger, and Pretty Boy Floyd.  Outlaws yes, but outlaws as American as apple pie.

Chevrolet's Corvette is the most iconic, and some would say only, sports car built in America. This lavishly illustrated work conducts readers through the Corvette’s fifty-plus years of continuous production, a rich and varied history unmatched in the automotive world.

 

An exhaustive review of six generations of American high performance, from the first 6-cylinder ’Vette of 1953 through today's fire-breathing, world-beating C6, The Complete Book of Corvette offers an in-depth look at the prototypes and experimental models, the anniversary and pace cars, and the specialty packages for street and competition driving that have made the Corvette a living automotive legend for more than half a century. With extensive details, specs, and photographic coverage, this book is the ultimate resource on America’s sports car. Officially licensed with Chevrolet and including many never-before-published photographs from the car maker's archives.