Porsche Racing History
Publishes late 2023
As I wrapped up my European research and interviews for Porsche 60 Years back in 2007, Porsche Archiv’s Jens Torner and Dieter Landenberger told me they had a book idea for me and wanted me to tackle Porsche’s Racing History. I had commitments for other projects and finally got started in early 2011. I took time to review the nearly 100 interviews I had done with Porsche individuals since 1990 when I started Porsche Legends. I reread my books, again looking for the holes, the “I forgots…”, and the unanswered questions.
Dieter reminded me of the scope of this project when he pointed out that between 1949 and 2008, Porsche had achieved more than 28,000 racing victories. I mused that starting right after World War II would be a fascinating tale to tell but since it had been related so often….
“No, no, Randy! Ferdinand Porsche raced the first car he built, the Lohner in 1899. That’s when Porsche Racing History begins.” And that’s when I start as well.
Please see the section of this site on the Porsche Racing History books.
Books listed by publishing date, with the earliest at top.
American Muscle
Published September 1990
This was my first book, commissioned from Motorbooks International with car collector Otis Chandler and his premier selection of American muscle cars.
To order a copy, click here.
American Farm Tractor
Published September 1991
My second book traced the history some 300 farm tractor manufacturers at the turn of the 20th Century as they merged, failed, or grew into the half-dozen survivors 90 years later.
Porsche Legends
Published April 1993
My first examination of Porsche studied 34 of their significant, specific – and in some cases unique – vehicles. Engineers, designers, racers, and managers told their own stories about each of these cars.
John Deere Farm Tractors
Published August 1993
With this book I followed a similar model to Porsche Legends, interviewing Deere’s engineers, designers, managers, and equipment users to relate the history of decades of machinery.
Classic Farm Tractors
Published September 1993
This volume filled in some blanks left from American Farm Tractor in that I worked with some of the same collectors and some new to me, and they and I worked to find models with interesting engineering or farming histories.
Classic John Deere Tractors
Published April 1994
In a sense, this was “John Deere Farm Tractors Lite,” a soft-cover 96-page book with few of the machines and stories featured in the other book and with plenty of differences.
Caterpillar Farm Crawlers and Bulldozers
Published September 1994
This text followed the model of Porsche Legends and John Deere Farm Tractors with interviews of engineers, designers, bosses, workers, and users. The Caterpillar construction story is told well in others books, so, with help and direction from Caterpillar historian Lorry Dunning, I concentrated on the as-yet examined history of their machinery in agriculture.
Porsche
Published April 1995
This was “Porsche Legends Lite,” with different photos and text from the earlier hardcover book. I was able to use some of the best “outtake” photos and stories from Legends in this 96-page soft-cover companion book.
Farm Tractors – A Living History
Published August 1995
How technological advances from horse- and ox-drawn farming through steam, kerosene, gasoline, and diesel, from hard steel wheels to inflatable rubber to tracks, from small one-plow rated tractors to those capable of pulling 16 or more, are all subjects of this more engineering-based history of the farm tractor.
Harley-Davidson: Myth and Mystique (hard cover) and
Harley-Davidson: History and Mystique (soft cover)
Published September 1995
Car collector Otis Chandler’s first vehicle was a 1947 Harley and he never lost the love for the Milwaukee motorcycles. This book features motorcycles from his collection photographed in locations that aided in telling their stories.
Ford Mustang: The Original Muscle Car
Published October 1995
My working technique had become a habit. With this book I spent nearly two months in Dearborn interviewing designers, engineers, department heads, racers, assembly-line mechanics, and others for the background on America’s Pony Car. I travelled across the U.S. seeking excellent (and sometimes uncommon) models to illustrate the story.
Ferrari Buyer’s Guide
Published January 1996 (with Dean Batchelor)
Back before Ferraris (and other exotica) graduated into values designated in two-comma territory, some Ferraris actually were daily drivers. Author / journalist Dean Batchelor was one such owner and Motorbooks asked him to take a look at the whole Ferrari output. He did, ranking them for ease and convenience of service, reliability, and other considerations that now seem nearly irrelevant. When Dean died in 1994, Motorbooks asked me to carry on. I was a fish-out-of-water but I found and relied on great advisers.
The American Barn
Published April 1997
This project examined how the barn, a basic agricultural structure, evolved as it traveled from its birthplaces in Europe and the UK to the US, and spread and changed as it moved West in the minds of the farmers who needed it. I traveled more than 50,000 miles in three years, scouting, photographing, measuring, and drawing hundreds of barns for this history.
Porsche Illustrated Buyer’s Guide Fourth Edition
Published May 1997
As happened with Motorbooks’ Ferrari buyer’s guide, so they did with their Porsche guide. I felt ore comfortable about this but still went after the best advisers, experts, and experienced owners and racers I could find. Unfortunately both of these books published into the beginning of the collector car boom and one of the ratings I had to produce was collectability. With the process of researching, writing and printing a book taking nearly a year, my information was out-of-date before the book hit stores. With the growth of the Internet, books like these no longer were necessary.
Corvette America’s Sports Car
Published May 1997
As with Porsche, John Deere, Caterpillar, and Mustang, now with Corvette, with weeks in Detroit and across the U.S. interviewing Chevrolet personnel, and Corvette racers and owners, recording the history and the images of the cars they had worked on or owned.
Ford Farm Tractors
Published April 1998
This represented another long visit to Dearborn, Michigan’s Henry Ford Museum and archives, first for historian / researcher Lorry Dunning, and then me, as well as cross country travel seeking interesting and unusual Ford tractors in appropriate locations.
America’s Classic Farm Tractors
Published April 1999
International Harvester Tractors
Published August 1999
My research and travel technique continued here, with International Harvester historian Guy Fay. Fay unearthed thousands of documents from the Wisconsin State Historical Society to tell a story no one yet knew. Then we set out to find tractors to illustrate this fascinating story.
Lighthouses of the Pacific Coast – Your Guide to the Lighthouses of California, Oregon, and Washington
Published September 2000 (with Pamela Welty)
The effect of technology on those who use it was a theme of this book as it had been for American Barn and many of the farm tractor histories. The United States Coast Guard offered tremendous encouragement, opening doors to lighthouses otherwise not visible to mere enthusiasts.
Farm Tractor Milestones
Published September 2000
Reissued soft cover as Tractor Icons April 2003
This book charted the evolution of the farm tractor from steam to diesel-powered machines on rubber tracks. Each tractor included in this book advanced the technology of its period and led directly to the next innovation. As with all my tractor histories, cross-country travel brought me to important stories, well-preserved or –restored tractors, and beautiful farming locations for photos.
Ford Tractors of the 1950s
Published April 2001
This compact 96-page book addressed a large and very-well populated niche in Ford tractor collecting. Having already done a broad-scope history of Ford’s agricultural tractors, I knew whom to call upon and, fortunately, they opened their doors and their archives for me to shoot their machinery and learn from their research. This book also necessitated another trip to the Henry Ford Museum Archive, one of the most fascinating places on earth.
Tractor and Crawler Value Guide
Published June 2001 (images only)
Barn
Published September 2001 (With Darwin Holmstrom)
This was another compact 96-page history and, rather like the similar book I did on Porsche, this one allowed me to use images from the long road trip that produced my bigger book The American Barn. My editor Darwin Holmstrom offered to write it because he was interested in the subject.
911 Porsche Color Buyer’s Guide
Published April 2002
This was Motorbooks’ reaction to the slide in sales of the full Porsche-line illustrated buyer’s guide above. In this book, a great group of extremely experienced and knowledgeable restorers, mechanics, and owners led me through countless details year by year. We even bravely offered a “collectability” prediction, erring on the side of caution compared to the boom that hit before the Recession.
California Wine Country: The Most Beautiful Wineries, Vineyards, and Destinations
Published September 2002 (With Forward by Francis Ford Coppola, owner of Rubicon Estate, Niebaum-Coppola ® Estate Winery.)
Winemaking is one part art, one part science, and one part magic. California’s climate and soil conditions have made it the U.S. home for its largest wine industry and given artists, scientists and downright magicians vineyards, wineries, and tasting rooms to entice enthusiasts. While Napa and Sonoma are best known, the book examines locations and wines from all over the state.
Corvette 50 Years
Published September 2002
This was my second in-depth look at the Corvette and its history. As an officially-licensed project, I had access to information and people I had not found before. Long cross-country travels brought me to collectors and enthusiasts with significant cars to photograph. (With additional photography from David Newhardt).
Hotwheels ® 35 Years of Speed, Power, Performance, and Attitude
Published September 2003
Here was an opportunity to tell a car-makers’ story that contained more myth and mystery than all the other companies combined. With extraordinary help from Hotwheels ® chief designer Larry Wood, and equally important assistance from the brand’s unofficial historian Bruce Pascal on the East Coast, this book told the stories of the birth of these little cars and their growth into the world’s largest manufacturer of automobiles, albeit those you can carry in your pocket!)
Mustang 40 Years
Published September 2003 (with David Newhardt images)
My second deep-dive into Ford’s Mustang brought even more history and inside information, accompanied by David Newhardt’s exciting photography.
John Deere – A History of the Tractor
Published August 2004
With help from Caterpillar historian Lorry Dunning and International historian Guy Fay, these two dug extremely deeply into Deere & Co. history, learning of an engineer who kept a daily diary that documented not only his inventions and interactions with farmers and board members, but the daily events of his times.
Corvette – Five Decades of Sports Car Speed
Published September 2003 (with Tom Benford text)
Farmall – Eight Generations of Innovation
Published August 2005
IH historian Guy Fay went all out on this project for me, again providing me with thousands of pages of documents ranging from minutes of the board of directors discussing the need for a new tractor to sketches for them. This resulted in another long zig-zag cross-country photo tour.
Porsche 911 – Perfection by Design
Published September 2005
Motorbooks publisher Tim Parker commented once that “Many companies use Porsche’s 911 as their target.” Then he asked the question that launched this book: ”Who does Porsche target?” This initiated dozens of interviews and yielded a few names but countless ideas that helped me determine how the 911 became what it is. Dozens of collectors in Europe and the U.S. let me photograph their cars as well.
California Missions & Presidios
Published September 2005 (with Alex Worden images)
Calfornia’s first settlers, centuries before statehood, were Native Americans. The state’s opportunities – space, gold, agreeable climate – drew its first permanent settlers, Spanish and Mexican soldiers and priests, and their religion. This inspired construction of mission churches and presidio fortresses, designed by itinerant priests or far-off architects but constructed by local natives.
Shelby Mustangs: Racer for the Street
Published October 2005 (with David Newhardt images)
Carroll Shelby didn’t invent the Mustang, and Mustang certainly did not invent Carroll. However the two names are forever intertwined and the story of how it happened is nothing if not fascinating and at times, and in Carroll’s inimitable way, funny as hell!
Muscle!
Published April 2006 (with David Newhardt images)
Ultimate Horse Barns
Published September 2006
Where agricultural barns were “designed” mostly by need and by region, structures to house horses had special needs. This book examined structures from southern California to northeast Canada, from recent construction to those more than a century old, and, with interviews with a dozen architects, explains what horses need and how humans can help.
The Harley-Davidson Motor Co., Archiv Collection
Published August 2008 (with Forwardd by Bill Davidson; Darwin Holmstrom text)
Harley-Davidson’s “Heritage” collection was one of motorcycling’s greatest mysteries until the Motor Company settled on plans to construct and open its own museum in hometown Milwaukee. This book serves as a catalog of sorts for that museum, featuring 228 motorcycles shot in one of Harley’s historic buildings over a three month period.
Porsche 60 Years
Published September 2008
(reissued September 2010 as Porsche: A History of Excellence
With each investigation into a familiar subject, I challenge myself to find the people and stories and vehicles I missed on the previous attempt or through all of them. This was no different, however, for the first time I worked for nearly all the European interviews with Porsche’s newly named Archiv manager, Dieter Landenberger. He began every interview by telling the subject that he or she could answer any question fully, that this project was completely authorized. Then the stories began to flow. For images I shot many in Europe and the U.S. and also relied on Porsche’s vast photo Archiv and his manager Jens Torner’s near photographic memory to find the picture I needed.
911 Porsche Color Buyer’s Guide 2nd Edition
Published April 2009
Taking what we learned in producing the first Porsche 911 Color guide, we corrected and / or modified and certainly updated the text to reflect much better information and understanding. Our most interesting feedback from the first edition was that vehicle problems could be regional – based on climate, state use of salt for snow melting, condition of roadway surfaces. These smaller details we accounted for in this second edition that appeared, sadly, on the eve of the Recession.
Legendary Corvettes
Published September 2010 (with David Wendt images)
I have approached several of my book in this manner, carefully curating an assortment of vehicles that exemplify the company’s history and tell its story in exciting ways. A friend, Dave Wendt, had perfected a light-painting technique that seemed to bath the sensuous forms of the Corvettes in softly clinging light. While I did my part, unearthing new information for each example, it was and is the images that make this book gorgeous.
Complete Book of Porsche 911
Published September 2011
When my publisher Zack Miller asked me “How many 911 models have there been since 1964,” I began a list and came up with 432, and Miller then challenged me to get them all in a single volume. I got close, but I’m sure I missed one or two. I shot 104 cars as illustration, and relied on Porsche Archiv for many others.
Corvette 60 Years
Published March 2012
At my publisher’s suggestion, I took a different story direction with this book, relating the history of the Corvette in culture. One benefit of officially licensing the book with GM and Corvette was the gift of access to GM’s full Corvette photo library – some 30,000 images. I sat glued and enthralled in front of a computer for nearly two weeks in downtown Detroit to find images that put this sports car in the context of its time. It was completely fascinating.
All-American Muscle Cars
Published February 2013 (with a variety of collaborators)
Porsche 911: 50 Years
Published October 2013
As I’ve mentioned elsewhere here, when I get another offer to examine a familiar subject, I read all my own books again, looking for the holes or the failures or the “oops, I forgot,” or The Great Unanswered Questions. With extraordinary cooperation from Porsche Presse and Porsche Archiv is succeeded in plugging holes, rewriting and explaining failures and “forgots,” and getting to those answers. A European historian / book seller pointed out a year or two before this when looking at my Complete Book of Porsche 911 that for many of his customers, the cars I found in North America were unfamiliar and confusing. I vowed then and there to rely on Porsche Presse and Archiv images in any historical context, and this book is nearly exclusively historic photos.
Top Muscle
Published April 2014 (with Darwin Holmstrom text)
American muscle cars continue to attract interest that sometimes is out of proportion to their significance. But when you can find the rarest of the uncommon, the one-of-three, or one of two, or, the only one that ever was, there is reason to examine how mss-production-oriented Detroit automakers could have assembled some of the rarest automobiles on earth! That they also had more than 400 horsepower helped a lot!
Porsche Unexpected
Published August 2014 (with Michael Furman images)
While photographing their cars for one of my books, Robert and Jeanie Ingram asked me to consider doing a book on their collection with the theme of “how to collect,” and using their vehicles as illustration for the lessons they had learned and points they wished to make. As is my technique, I dove into this project and not only intensely interviewed them and their family members but also another two dozen important collectors in the U.S. and Europe for their take on the “How to” question. Anyone who collects at the level that the Ingrams and these other individuals has given not only their collection but the act and philosophy of collecting deep thought. This book ended up as two volumes in one cover; the first have is how to collect, and the second half is the Ingram’s dream collection of road-legal limited production Porsches. Michael Furman’s stunning photography will draw you in and quicken your pulse.
Art of the Corvette
Published December 2014
This was my own attempt at light-painting Corvettes. Dave Wendt had graciously taught me his technique. However Dave was and remains the master and I was but a struggling student. The selection of cars followed my usual theme – building a kind of fantasy collection that demonstrated the art, the elegant forms, and the sensuous shapes of the Corvette.
Corvette Seven Generations
Published January 2015
This is an update of Corvette 60 Years.
At the request of Chevrolet Division of General Motors, we went back into my book Corvette Sixty Years and added a chapter at the end describing and illustrating the new seventh generation Corvette. In the process, we updated and made some text corrections in the existing material. In the early months of 2020, we have done this process once again in preparing another update, Corvette Eight Generations, which will be released in late 2020 and will appear on this website at that time.
Complete Book of Porsche 911 2nd Edition
Published April 2015
This is an update of the Complete Book first edition.
This book followed the pattern of Corvette Seven Generations, with sections added at the end of the book to introduce the Typ 911 and to complete the story of the existing Typ 997. In addition, we changed some photos and revised, updated, and corrected text.
Porsche Turbo
Published September 2016
Here was another Porsche story aching to be told and so another opportunity to meet dedicated engineers, ambitious racers, and talented designers and stylists came into being. Porsche introduced the Turbo in 1974 as a performance enhancement and continues it through today as a shrewd engineering approach to engine “downsizing” without any compromise to performance. Factory photos from Porsche Archiv and Porsche Presse illustrated the history.
Wide-Open Muscle
Published March 2016 (with Tom Loeser images)
Porsche 70 Years
Published September 2017 (with Michael Furman images)
This was my opportunity to relate Porsche’s history through Germany’s – and Europe’s – culture. The car is a unique product of Ferdinand Porsche’s engineering diligence, Ferry Porsche’s imagination, Swabian economics, and legendary German efficiency in concept, design, and execution. Most of the images come from Porsche Archiv, many not seen before; Michael Furman’s studio lighting and his sharp eyes show us highly significant special examples.
John Deere Century
Published September 2017
This was a chance that Motorbooks offered me to journey down memory lane. In the early years of my career – evident by the book titles above – I spent a lot of time with some really wonderful individuals who were collecting the machinery with which they grew up and worked. Each of the manufacturers had a fascinating story on their way to success (or, well, otherwise) but none of the agricultural machine makers has survived and thrived the way Deere & Company has done. This book is new text based on the histories I have done before in addition to several fresh interviews. What’s more, we include not only tractors familiar to U.S. farmers but also slip in a few fascinating machines from Deere’s other markets throughout the world.
Complete Book of Porsche 911 3rd Edition
Published April 2019
This is an updated reprint of the earlier edition.
This book updated and revised the second edition, above. We brought the text up through the completion of the Typ 911 first and second-generation models, and introduced the new Typ 922. Once again, we changed some photos, and revised, updated, and corrected existing text.
