The Shelby American (Winter 2021)

The SHELBY AMERICAN Winter 2021 17 THE RACERS by Al Satterwhite. 9 1/4˝ x 10 5/8˝ hardcover; 193 pages; 41 color photos, 219 black & white. $71.84. Published by Delius Klasing. Available from Amazon. This book is the definition of a cof- fee table book. You don’t read it through, from cover to cover; you pick it up every now and again and you will find something of interest on almost every page. It‘s lay out resembles a scrapbook assembled by Al Satter- white, a professional photographer. It contains some of his favorite photos along with pit passes, tickets, photog- rapher credentials, parking stickers and other bits of racing trivia arranged as a montage, a few on each page. This personalizes the book and gives you the impression you’re actu- ally thumbing through Satterwhite’s personal scrapbook. As a professional photographer specializing in automobiles, Satter- white lived midway between Daytona and Sebring (about two hours from each). He made it a habit to attend those two races between 1962 and 1973 and the result is this book. Satterwhite was a photographer for Car and Driver in the 1970s and 1980s and his work was used fre- quently. There are photos of some of the cars that were racing during those years but a lot of the pictures are can- did shots of drivers in the pits. They bring the book to life. There are Co- bras in 1964 and 1965 (including a shot of the now-famous Daytona Coupe fire – Satterwhite was about 25 feet away when it happened). He says in the text that he always made it a point to hang around Shelby’s pits when the Cobras were racing because there was always a lot of action there. And Shelby was easy to work with. In 1966 at Daytona and Sebring he cap- tured the Ford GT40 MK IIs. Included in this section is an interview with Bob Bondurant when he was driving a Ferrari 330 P3 for the Ferrari team. At Sebring in 1970 Satterwhite was on assignment for Paris Match maga- zine to cover Steve McQueen, who was driving a Porsche 908 Spyder with Peter Revson. They would eventually finish second O/A. McQueen’s left foot was in a cast due to a motorcycle acci- dent. There are, as you would expect, plenty of photos of McQueen. The book’s quality is excellent, as are the reproductions of all of the pho- tographs. We have to say that we like the feel of this book. It is very much like a scrapbook and it is an enjoyable read. The text is printed in English and German (the book was published in Germany) and while the photo cap- tions are not overly wordy, they do identify who is in each picture. Day- tona and Sebring are the premier en- durance races in this country and Satterwhite does an excellent job of covering both of them. BULLITT - The Cars and People Behind Steve McQueen by Matt Stone. 7 1/2˝ x 10 1/2˝ hardcover; 192 pages; 230 color photos, 89 black & white. $42.95. Published by CarTech www.cartechbooks.com/bullitt. Steve McQueen was cool. In fact, he was the King of Cool. And since his passing in 1980 he has become even cooler. There’s no question that “Bul- litt” is a classic film, for several rea- sons. First and foremost is the almost eleven-minute chase scene that comes an hour and five minutes into the film. McQueen did a lot of the driving and that helped to make the film iconic. This book contains everything about this movie. And we mean every- thing: the actors, the cars and the chase scene route as well as the recent history and sale of the original car and the tribute Bullitt Mustangs made by Ford in 2001 and 2019. We love the movie and there was no one like Mc- Queen. We couldn’t put this book down.