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Rating: 
Summary: A book tainted with racists comments and research errors
Review: His historical research is pretty poor when in the page 92 he wrote: "In 1967, President Salinas of Mexico had asked Volskwagenwerk to build the Mexican peoples' car".In 1967, the mexican president was DÃaz Ordaz, and Salinas took office until 1988. And in the same page too, when talking about that the Volskwagen succeeded as a masses car in Africa and Latin-America he writes : "...the Beetle had become the vehicle of freedom and mobility for races whom Hitler and Speer would have damned as Untermenschen (subhuman) and consigned to Nacht und Nebel (night and fog = gas chamber)" What's the point of this comment Mr Mantle? Through all the book the author seems to be interested in remarking the Nazi background of Henry Ford, the Ford Co. and GM as a way of celebrating them, it seems.
Rating:
Summary: Pretty poor stuff
Review: His historical research is pretty poor when in the page 92 he wrote: "In 1967, President Salinas of Mexico had asked Volskwagenwerk to build the Mexican peoples' car". In 1967, the mexican president was Díaz Ordaz, and Salinas took office until 1988. And in the same page too, when talking about that the Volskwagen succeeded as a masses car in Africa and Latin-America he writes : "...the Beetle had become the vehicle of freedom and mobility for races whom Hitler and Speer would have damned as Untermenschen (subhuman) and consigned to Nacht und Nebel (night and fog = gas chamber)" What's the point of this comment Mr Mantle? Through all the book the author seems to be interested in remarking the Nazi background of Henry Ford, the Ford Co. and GM as a way of celebrating them, it seems.
Rating:
Summary: Great potential, but poor follow through
Review: I heard the author, Jonathon Mantle on a radio show and became quite excited by the prospect of reading his book. It seemed like an accessible yet critical analysis of the car industry from a decidely non-"Car and Driver" enthusiasts point of view. Unfortunately, it turns out the entire book is just a gloss, very short chapters that are almost contentless. I felt cheated. Important subjects are mentioned and then left, some longer chapters are on mundane issues such as industrial sabotage while really important issues such as the collusion of car and chemical industries to destroy public transportation are only briefly noted. The saving grace was a very good apendix and bibliography that should have been used more in the body of the book. I thought the whole thing a very weak effort. If I could I would return the book to Amazon for a refund.
Rating: 
Summary: A Great Potential, Nevertheless a Great Fall
Review: I liked the book - a lot. But there were too mant questions left unaswered. Frankly, if Mr.Mantle published all the materials as a different book that he would have collected for writing this, that may answer a lot. In short, he cut too much out of a great length of fascinating and valuable information. Please, do write it again, or revise this book fully. I will buy that. For the time being, this book is just a reference of chaos. And a damn good one.
Rating: 
Summary: A must-read look behind the scenes for the car enthusiast.
Review: On 1997-08-12, this book came in, I had dinner and when I put out the light it was beyond 1 a.m. Hadn't done that in a while - finished it all. "I didn't know that!" kept me reading.
Amazing under-cover stories complete with references. Another piece in the puzzle why we still pollute the planet with our chemical engines. Read this again every 5 years (I hope it will be updated).
Rating:
Summary: Pretty poor stuff
Review: Poor research, poor writing, poorly organised
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