A rollicking ride through the early days of Australian Motorsport set in 1900-1918 in Perth, Melbourne, Brisbane and the Gold Coast, the true story of bitter rivalry between two Brisbane car importers/dealers: E.G.Eager Son and Canada Cycle and Motor (CCM). There are four main characters: Fred Z. Eager, Alec Fraser Jewell, E.G.Eager and CCM managing director A.V.Dodwell. The paths of speedsters Fred Eager and Alec Jewell collide on Christmas Day, 1916, on Southport Beach at the first attempt to set an Australian land speed record. Whitey in the premier motorsport event of hill climbs so they decided to stage an event of their own, bespoke for Studebaker. This race would nullify Fred Eagers driving skills and suit the big-engined Studey: A straight line speed contest against the clock on the firm low-tide sand of Southport (Surfers Paradise) beach. Only one of them could win ... Or could they?

The world of Champ Car auto racing was changing in the 1970s. As cars became more sophisticated, the cost of supporting a team had skyrocketed, making things difficult for team owners. In an effort to increase purses paid by racing promoters and win lucrative television contracts, a group of owners formed Championship Auto Racing Teams (CART) in 1978. Soon after, CART split from its sanctioning body, the United States Auto Club (USAC). Though Champ Cars ran on numerous tracks, the Indianapolis 500 was the payday that supported most teams through the season. From the beginning, CART had most of the successful teams and popular drivers, and they focused on driving a wedge between the track owners and the USAC. Over the next 30 years, the tension between CART and USAC ebbed and flowed until all parties realized that reunification was needed for the sake of the sport. This book details the fight over control of Champ Car racing before reunification in 2008.

Dinner at Australia Square’s revolving Summit Restaurant, sipping cocktails at the Chevron in Potts Point, hanging out at a Skyline drive-in … Mid-twentieth-century Sydneysiders embraced leisure like never before. Leisure Space details the architecture and design that transformed their city – through its new hotels, motels, restaurants, bars, clubs, shopping centres, drive-ins and golf courses, including landmark buildings such as the Gazebo and the Wentworth Hotel. With stunning images from Max Dupain, Mark Strizic and other outstanding Australian photographers, Leisure Space explores a dynamic period in Sydney’s history and the dramatic impact of modernism on the city’s built environment.

Drawing from the last decade of his 26-year career at the Wall Street Journal, where he covered energy and environmental matters, ClimateWire founder and industry insider John Fialka brings to life this thrilling and important story about American's rejection and second obsession with the electric car. The resurgence of the electric car in modern life is a tale of adventurers, men and women who bucked the complete dominance of the fossil fueled car to seek something cleaner, simpler and cheaper. Award-winning former Wall Street Journal reporter John Fialka documents the early days of the electric car, from the M.I.T./Caltech race between prototypes in the summer of 1968 to the 1987 victory of the Sunraycer in the world's first race featuring solar powered cars. Thirty years later, the electric has captured the imagination and pocketbooks of American consumers. Organizations like the U.S. Department of Energy and the state of California, along with companies from the old-guard of General Motors and Toyota as well as upstart young players like Tesla Motors and Elon Musk have embraced the once-extinct technology. The electric car has steadily gained traction in the U.S. and around the world. We are watching the start of a trillion dollar, worldwide race to see who will dominate one of the biggest commercial upheavals of the 21st century.

Ferdinand Porsche, widely revered as the inventor of the VW Beetle, stole the plans for the "people's car" from a Czech designer with Hitler's help. General Motors manufactured jet engines for Hitler's army, then got $33 million in tax exemptions from the U.S. government for damages sustained by Allied bombing of its German factories. Packed with these and other tales of greed and treachery, Car Wars is a must-read lesson in industrial strategy and a fascinating, behind-the-scenes history of the world's best-known automobiles.

"The Muscle Car Wars": tells the story of young man who suffers a traumatic head injury and while recuperating becomes involved in rebuilding and racing the powerful muscle cars of the 1960’s and 70’s. The book chronicles the major historical and cultural events of that era, including the Vietnam War, while weaving a tale of teen romance, amid tumultuous student protests and dangerous street races. Writing from experience, the author captures the essence of the time, putting the reader in the driver’s seat of the greatest street machines ever produced, while retelling classic gear head tales, and providing a running commentary on every subject from religion, politics, drug use, the sexual revolution and romantic love.

An "astonishing...eye-opening chronicle" (Publisher's Weekly) of backstabbing, infighting, and industrial theft and espionage in the world's biggest business. It makes empires; it destroys economies; it shapes history. Welcome to the world's biggest business--the automobile industry. A hundred years ago there were six highly experimental cars. Today there are close to 400 million cars on the planet: set bumper to bumper on a six-lane highway, they would stretch well over 200,000 miles, more than eight times around the earth. With hundreds of billions of dollars at stake, is it any wonder that the major car companies wage a relentless war against one another, where (almost) anything goes? Here is the story of all the schemes and deceits, treacheries and shady deals in the battle for the world's car markets since the dawn of the global economy fifty years ago. The first true biography of the automobile, Car Wars gives us the automotive history as seen through the windshield of the car--with stories so spectacular they are often hard to believe. From Gianni Agnelli's deal to make Fiats in the USSR at the height of the cold war and Jose Ignacio Lopez's defection from GM to VW, through Pehr Gyllenhammar's foiled attempt to merge Volvo and Renault, and on to Nicolas Hayek's deal with Mercedes-Benz to build the Swatchcar in 1997, Car Wars is a roller coaster ride down the freeways and the back roads of the world's premier business, and an eye-opening history of the world's best-known and most-loved cars.

For fifty years, Britain made the best toy cars in the world, expertly shrinking every kind of reallife vehicle and producing them in their countless, die-cast millions. Dinky Toys were the 1930s pioneers, then in the 1950s came the pocket-money Matchbox series, followed by Corgi Toys bristling with ingenious features and movie stardust. But who were the driving forces behind this phenomenon? And how did they keep putting the latest, most exciting cars into the palm of your hand year after year? In this illustrated and expanded edition of Britain's Toy Car Wars, Giles Chapman reveals the extraordinary battle to dominate Britain's toy car industry, and the dramas and disasters that finally saw the tiny wheels come off ...

As the American Big Two, GM & Ford, continue to lose market share in the world, Japan's leading auto-makers--Toyota and Honda--are expanding their global share and increasing their profits by presenting high-quality, credible and highly efficient automobiles. The recent oil price hike is sure to accelerate the trend towards clean car technology, which will be a key to survival in the global automobile industry. Toyota recently became the world's number one automobile company and looks set to further extend its lead. Consumers have shown tremendous interest in Japanese cars, especially for their clean and efficient technology. This book offers insights into the Japanese car industry and its future direction.--From publisher description.