A-Z of Grand Prix Cars

Rating:
Summary: Nice addition to the F1 collection
Review: David Hodges is a noted Motorsport journalist and this is his own pet project, which sadly he was unable to see to fruition as he passed away shortly before completion. Fortunately, Mr Hodges efforts were not left unpublished, with Graham Robson and Charles Herridge seeing this book through to completion.

A-Z of Grand Prix Cars is a complete rendition of all the marques to ever race in Grand Prix, from the very first French GP in 1906 through to the Japanese GP of 2000. Not only are all participating teams included, there are also notable marques that attempted to put together an F1 effort but for wahtever reason did not race in anger, for example DAMS, and Alpine. The latter was a total suprise for me as I had never known that Alpine had put together two different F1 cars.

For each marque, there are brief individual entries for each unique design. There are numerous black & white photographs for most of the marques, but space prohibits the publication of photos for each of the individual designs. Still, there is plenty to peruse. Irritatingly, given the price of the book, there are a few typo and factual errors. For example, Mario Tolentino, designer for both Dallara and EuroBrun, is referred to as Marco Tolentino in the entry for the Dallara BMS 189. The Arrows A19 did'nt score 3 points in the 1998 season as the book claims, they scored 6. Another annoying thing about this book is that although organized alphabetically, major marques such as Ferrari, BRM etc.. have whole pages set aside for them which tends to disrupt the flow of the book. But this is relative nitpicking, as given the extensive nature of the book there is plenty of material to be covered.

One of the strengths of this book is that is covers both pre-war and post-war GP cars, which I think is relatively unusual for a single volume, and this is a worthy addition to the motorsport collection for this reason. There are superior books out there for either pre or post war F1 cars, most notably Doug Nye's History of the Grand Prix Car, but it is hard and expensive to get a hold of so A-Z of Grand Prix Cars is much more accessible for those wanting a brief overview of F1 teams and their cars.