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These are the car books you’ll want for Christmas this year

Pour yourself a generous glass of whiskey, stick on your favourite Ornette Coleman record, sink into an armchair and prepare to immerse yourselves in the most fascinating and beautiful car books of the moment…

276.864 kilometres

With their unconventional WAFT books and magazines, Bart Lennaert and Lies de Mol have enriched the automotive world for the past ten years. To celebrate the occasion, they have now published an impressive anniversary special that compiles some of their best shots, allows some unique views behind the scenes, and is limited to just 250 copies.

Porsche 911 Design Book

Coinciding with the launch of the new Porsche 911, Ramp publisher Michael Köckritz teamed up with Porsche’s design master Michael Mauer to create a book that traces the creative process of rethinking the world’s most iconic sports car for the eighth time. 

Enzo Ferrari: Power, Politics, and the Making of an Automotive Empire

Luca Dal Monte’s definitive work on Il Commendatore Enzo Ferrari garnered critical acclaim when it was released in Italy in 2016. And now, the author has finally translated the 1,000-page scholarly tome into English. Published by David Bull Publishing, Enzo Ferrari: Power, Politics and the Making of an Automotive Empire is the definitive biography on this complex and fiery man who, ultimately, created one of the world’s most powerful brands.  

Ford GT40 Mark II – the remarkable history of 1016

Exceptional cars deserve exceptional recognition, a fact recognised by the British publishing house Porter Press, which dedicates entire books to individual machines whose significance can’t be underestimated. Its latest tells the remarkable story of the Ford GT40 MKII chassis 1016, the ex-Holman & Moody machine that most famously came third in Ford legendary one-two-three sweep of Le Mans in 1966. It’s also incidentally the car RM Sotheby’s sold in Monterey earlier this year for a stunning 9.8m US dollars. 

Grossglockner 

At 3,789 metres, the Grossglockner is Austria’s highest mountain. If you’d rather appreciate its staggering beauty from the comfortable confines of your sports car’s leather interior than by climbing to the summit on foot, the Alpine roads that form the Grossglockner Pass are as challenging as they are picturesque. With imagery by Stefan Bogner and accompanying words by our very own Jan Baedeker, this book will provide you with all you need to plan a drive that will stay in your memory forever. 

The Key

Want to know who the most important car collectors in the world are and, more importantly, which cars they’ve got tucked away? The Key, published by the Classic Car Trust, provides insight into the top-end of ‘our’ multi-billion-dollar market, analysing data from more than 200 collectors who, collectively, own thousands of the most important classic cars in existence. “With its blend of passion and commerce, the world of collecting cars is not unlike the world of professional sports,” suggests the book’s description. 

Alfa Romeo Tipo 33 / 1967

If you’ve never been seduced by the sultry curves or rapturous bark of a 1967 Alfa Romeo Tipo 33 in the metal, this new volume on the seminal sports-racing car might just be the next best thing. The 312-page tome chronicles the car’s development and its competition record during the 1967 season. There’s also an interesting section dedicated to the Tipo 33 Stradale, perhaps the sexiest car ever built. 

Classic Car Auction Yearbook 2017 / 2018

Anyone who closely monitors the collector car market simply must have a copy of Adolfo Orsi and Raffaele Gazzi’s latest Classic Car Auction Yearbook on the shelf. This year’s edition features insightful and unbiased analysis of 5,628 major international auction results from 1 September 2017 until 31 August 2018. “The results show that provenance, together with history, the reputation of the restoration shop, and authoritativeness of the research, are acquiring much more significant weight than in the past,” comments Orsi. “This signal, together with more attention to the quality and condition of the car, is to be interpreted as a positive sign in the cultural growth of our sector.” 

Abarth: Racing Car

Featuring sensational imagery from Stefan Bogner, Rémi Dargegen, and a raft of other fantastic photographers, Abarth: Racing Cars is a must for anyone looking to understand the nuanced history of the ingenious Carlo Abarth’s ‘small but wicked’ cars. Here’s an introduction to 10 of them, just for starters… 

Gulf 917

The powder blue and orange Gulf-sponsored Porsche 917s campaigned by John Wyer in the early 1970s are among the most evocative and successful racing cars ever built, thanks in part to Steve McQueen who immortalised them in his cult film Le Mans. Gulf 917 comprises the chassis numbers and race results of each of the Wyer Porsche 917s and features many rarely seen photographs.