With the exception of some timeless traditional looks, paint styles change quickly. If it's time to replace your pastel rainbow heartbeat graphics with something a little fresher, then your next purchase should be Pat Ganahl's up-to-date paint guide-and a sander. In this photo-packed book, Ganahl walks you through all of the looks that have become popular since your last paintjob, and shows you how to apply those looks to your ride. The first chapter highlights the straightforward paintjob. The rest of the book covers practical tricks and techniques for shooting pearls, candies, metalflakes, stripes, scallops, and flames, in addition to some of the more sophisticated styles like cobwebs, lace, marbling, fades, and blends. There's even a chapter on the topic of suede paint, which has come into its own (finally) as a respected finish.
Custom Painting
By Pat Ganahl
Paperback - 144 pages - $24.95
www.cartechbooks.com
Automobiles were luxury items for rich people before the Model T came along. The availability of cheap cars triggered America's almost instant switch into an automotive culture. A generation later, a multiplying number of discarded Ts helped trigger hot rodding by providing a mountain of raw material.
Squeezing a century of importance into one book isn't easy, but this book manages to describe and explain all the high points, using hundreds of photos from The Henry Ford Museum and The Benson Ford Archive. It covers the Model T's effect on culture, industry, transportation, leisure time, and commerce. It's not specifically about hot rods, but the longest (by far) of the seven chapters is "Racing and Rodding the T." Among the featured rods are such famous roadsters as Bob Cressey's car from the 1930s, Ed Iskenderian's '24, Willie Borsch's Winged Express Altered, and Ed Roth's Tweedy Pie custom T.
Ford Model T: The Car That Put the World on Wheels
By Lindsay Brooke
Hardcover * 208 pages * $40
www.motorbooks.com
There is no form of motorsports more enjoyable than drag racing, no era in drag racing more exciting than the mid-1960s to mid-1970s, no class of cars from that era more entertaining than Fuel Altereds, and no photographer better at shooting the action than Steve Reyes. The author of Slingshot Spectacular, Funny Car Fever, and Quarter Mile Chaos has just produced another great compilation of his photos of the sport's wildest class. Part of the excitement of Fuel Altereds is the fact that they were as much contraption as car, with crazy engineering and some serious nerve on the part of the guys who raced them. They were tough to drive but fun to watch. The fans loved them, and Reyes is obviously a fan. He is also a part of that history, and his personal stories about the cars and racers are a great accompaniment to his photos.
Fuel Altereds Forever
By Steve Reyes
Softcover * 192 pages * $24.95
www.cartechbooks.com
When John Knight and Guy Barnard teamed up to produce Hot Rod Showcase, they envisioned it as a magazine; however, it evolved into an artistically created book full of outstanding photography of equally outstanding rods. The images are accompanied by text, some of it written by Knight, the rest supplied by a variety of contributing authors and photographers (including Kev Elliott, back before he was the tech editor for this mag). Only a limited edition of 3,000 books was produced, so don't wait too long to order yours, especially since we've been told that plans have changed again and future editions of Hot Rod Showcase will be published in a no-advertising magazine format. We have a feeling this book-bound, premier issue could be a collector's item someday. Even if it isn't, it's a beautiful book.
Hot Rod Showcase
Edited by John Knight
Softcover * 96 pages * $24.95 or 10.95
www.hotrodshowcase.co.uk
During the 1950s, R&C was loaded with photos of customs built by brothers George and Sam Barris at the Barris Kustom Shop. Many of those photos were provided by George himself, who photographed the cars they built and wrote how-to stories on the fabrications that went into them. Forty years later, many of Barris' photos were compiled into a four-book series, called Barris Kustom Techniques of the 50's. The series eventually went out of print, but guess what?-it's back. The first two editions, Flames, Scallops, Paneling and Striping, and Grilles, Scoops, Fins & Frenching, are available now. The other two will be published later this year. In addition to providing an amazing history of the Barris brothers, their shop, and the customs they built there, these books are valuable tech guides to the custom work they were developing way back then.
Barris Kustom
Techniques of the 50's:
Flames, Scallops,
Paneling and Striping
Barris Kustom
Techniques of the 50's:
Grilles, Scoops,
Fins & Frenching
By George Barris
Softcover * 128 pages * $24.95
www.wolfpub.com