Cars: Freedom, Style, Sex, Power, Motion, Colour, Everything

by Stephen Bayley

Sources are eclectic, results mixed, but one thing is car design is being forced up an ever-tightening spiral of creativity. These machines are memorials of our tastes, yearnings and capabilities. They have layers of meaning and can, as Henry Ford knew, be read like a book... if only you know how. The story of the car is the story of how the objects of industry became a medium of artistic expression.

Genres: Nonfiction

384 pages, Hardcover

First published October 6, 2008

Reviews

[Anthony Aspiridis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Delightful read. Concise overviews make it ideal bedtime reading. Photography a highlight.

[Ian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Loved the intro. The rest of it is a CarPorn coffee table book

[Daniel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not bad, but needs more detail. The selection of cars the author looks at is interesting, and while I would have made a few different choices, that is just a matter of taste. But in my opinion, each car is looked at too briefly. For each car there is a paragraph explaining why that particular model was important for the history of car design and a few pictures. Too few to actually get an idea of what the car looks like if you don't know it beforehand. And it's especially infuriating as there are quite a few instances where the author talks about a particular design feature that was important on the car, and then it isn't shown anywhere. You basically need to have Google image search available to fully enjoy this book.

[Mike Boldt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fantastic. I picked up the book for reference work. The design of some of those old cars is inspiring. The short info and background on each vehicle is quite interesting and I'm not a major car enthusiast.

The only con is that most of the cars lose a lot in the gutter because the book is so thick.

I'd recommend it to almost anyone.

[Spencer · Rating 4 out of 5]

"this is not a book about cars"
"this is a book about cars as purely magical objects"

well, i already believed it, but the porche 356 is one of the most beautiful things on the planet

(title comes from tom wolfes kandy-kolored tangarine-flake streamline baby)

[Jim · Rating 2 out of 5]

this is a nice, v. overpriced book in a slipcase. the photos are great b&w but bleed in and out of the spine. such a waste