Stuart Codling

Lamborghini 60 Years by Stuart Codling is another coffee table book from Motorbooks that suits my tastes almost perfectly: wonderful photography and well-written informative text.

Admittedly, in a large format book, I am more interested in the images than the text. Not that I don't care, but if I am getting a bigger book I want to take advantage of the larger page size to have great photographs. This book delivers on that very well. I could, and did, skim the book before reading just to look at all the pictures. Funny how, for someone who remembers firsthand the cars from the early 60s to now, some styles that seemed so great then are almost painful to look at now. For a company like Lamborghini that has always pushed the envelope, this is even more pronounced. That said, thinking about what was the "norm" at the time, these vehicles are amazing.

The text, especially the insight into the people and the developmental phases, makes this an exceptional book. What makes designers consider an idea, what other models they are responding to, these things are very interesting and are presented here in nice detail. To use an example from music, it is like learning how The Beach Boys, The Beatles, and The Rolling Stones were each, for a given time, responding to what the others were doing.

While this is definitely a must have for Lamborghini lovers, any motor enthusiast will enjoy both the photographs and the automotive history included here.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.… (altro)

Ferrari Formula 1 Car by Car by Stuart Codling is a fascinating look back at the history and technology of both Ferrari and Formula 1 itself.

I have never been a big racing fan though I've always leaned toward F1 and Grand Prix rather than the old stock car racing that became NASCAR. In the process of progressing from model to model in Ferrari's history this volume also touched on all of the key advances across the sport since changes were always to either catch up or get ahead of the curve.

While I imagine someone with more technical knowledge than I have would get even more out of the book, I have just enough understanding to appreciate what the engineering and design changes meant. For those with little to no technical knowledge I think Codling did a wonderful job of explaining why some changes were either essential or poorly considered in a manner that got the concepts across without the need for the reader to have a great deal of background.

As one would expect, the pictures are excellent. A very nice mix of stills, advertisements/posters, and racing shots. It is always fun to see certain images, everybody will have their favorites. I liked one image in particular where the shot was taken just when all four tires were off the ground.

I would definitely recommend to both Ferrari and F1 fans, though I think even most casual car lovers will enjoy and appreciate the evolution of the vehicles and of the sport.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.… (altro)

A very disappointing book that is both frustratingly vague and badly designed. In trying to intertwine the histories of Monaco the place and its titular Motor sports event, Codling manages to not really deliver on either count. While there are some interesting snippets of information the real stories are only hinted at. As a well known F1 journalist Codling is not suited to the historical travelogue approach. Unfortunately his familiarity with the F1 side of the story means that part of the story makes too many assumptions for the casual reader and doesn’t present anything new for the established fan. At first glance the book looks to be a nicely produced coffee table style offering, but bad formatting leads to words colliding into each other on occasion, while the most egregious sin is an illustrated book with over 100 photos and not a single caption. I presume you were meant to infer the subjects from the surrounding text, but in several instances there is a clear mismatch between the image and text which throws ever other one into doubt. There were times I had to put this book down and walk away from it as I got so annoyed with it as a reading experience.… (altro)