It's easy to fill your bookshelves with a heap of automotive tomes - everything from specialist books on Ferraris to racing histories to tech books to automotive dictionaries. But what's hard is to find a single book that covers most interesting cars that have ever been produced. You know, the sort of book you can turn to when you want a potted history of the Mazda Cosmo, or the Lancia Straos, or the Porsche 356, or even the Toyota 2000GT.
And, while the Encyclopedia of Classic Cars doesn't cover every great car ever made, it makes a very good fist of discussing many of them.
Published in 1999, the book is based on material previously published as The Encyclopedia of Supercars, but it has been expanded and updated. Comprising 640 pages and being the same height but a little wider than A4, it's a hefty publication. After a very brief introduction, the first of many marques - AC Cars Ltd - and the first of more than 600 cars - the AC Ace - is covered. Each car has at least a single photo (often there are more), a short history and some specifications - engine, chassis, brakes, body and top speed.
The coverage is extensive - and it starts from the earliest cars. However, even for those with absolutely no interest in pre-World War II cars, there is a huge amount of material that will still be relevant. In fact, arguably, even if you care nothing about cars produced before 1970, the book is still worth buying. And, unlike many books of this type, there is at least an effort at covering cars produced in areas distant from the country of publication. So, while the encyclopaedia is obviously British in content bias, there are still plenty of American cars - and even some Australian ones as well!
And name an exciting car of world significance produced in the last one hundred years, and it's very likely to be here. The AC Cobra - that genteel British sports car that metamorphosed into an Americanised, brutally powerful road burner - is covered over a few pages; the late 1930's Alfa Romeo 8C 2900 with its inline 8-cylinder featuring two superchargers and 180hp (the bonnet longer than the cabin!); the Audi Quattro - the first turbo four wheel drive high performance car; and the Austin Healey bug-eyed Sprite, looking so much like a happy frog. Along with a host of other cars, that's just the serving under the letter 'A'!
Due to its encyclopaedic configuration, the book is ideal for dipping in and out of - there's no need to start at the first page and follow through. So, taking a quick look amongst its pages we can find a variety of interesting cars.
The Oldsmobile Toronado is one. Produced by the GM division better known as being the third string brand under Cadillac and Buick, Oldsmobile pulled one out of the hat with the mid-1960s Toronado. The large coupe boasted a 7-litre V8 - not unusual for US cars of the time - but what certainly was different was the fact that the car was front-wheel drive! It wasn't as if the technology was used to promote space efficiency - the Toronado was nearly 5.1 metres long. The high compression V8 was mounted longitudinally, with the Hydramatic auto placed alongside and below the engine. The torque converter - mounted on the back end of the engine - drove the trans through a 50mm wide chain. Power? Oh try a claimed 385hp for the first ones, rising - with an increase in engine size to 7.4 litres - to 400hp by 1968...
Across the other side of the world, around the same time that the mammoth front-wheel drive Olds was being produced, a much smaller, more nimble car was also being released. The first European turbo production car, the BMW 2002 Turbo used a single KKK turbo blowing into the 2-litre SOHC four cylinder. Peak output was 170hp, and powered thus the compact car could be hurled down the road at speeds of up to 209 km/h. Funnily enough, about the same top speed as the Toronado! (Which would you rather be in?) Despite acceleration which included a 0-97 km/h (0-60 mph) time of 6.6 seconds, revised suspension, uprated brakes and a host of 'turbo' stickers, the car wasn't all that successful.
A car of completely different significance - but again produced at around the same time - was the Mazda 110S Cosmo. Looking - depending on how you want to see it - as either a terrible example of the lack of Japanese styling ability, or extremely advanced in its looks, the Cosmo's claim to fame was its engine. The first Mazda Wankel engine (better known now as just the rotary), it shot to prominence the Mazda brand when it was little known outside of Japan. Maximum power of 100hp was achieved at 7000 rpm, although the engine could be revved to 8000 if required. Curiously, Mazda fitted the Cosmo with advanced De Dion rear suspension and coil springs - something the maker never retuned to for later rotaries. Performance for the day was very good - the standing quarter mile in 17.5 seconds and a top speed of 185 km/h - but fuel consumption was high.
However, my favourite early rotary car comes from the company that did all of the first Wankel development work - NSU. The European firm produced the first rotary-engined car - the Spider - and then went on to be extraordinarily daring with the release of the four door Ro80.
Too daring in fact - it sent the company broke.
For not only did the car have a twin-rotor engine developing 115hp, it also had front wheel drive, a semi-automatic transmission, four wheel disc brakes (the fronts were in-board) and a stunningly aerodynamic body. In fact, while Citroen had been launching very odd-shaped but slippery cars for years, it was the Ro80 that first showed the shape that would come to dominate sedan aerodynamics - a high bootlid, boat-tailing at the rear, and very shallow angle front and rear glass. But that was in the future styling of cars - in the late-Sixties, the Ro80 was far better known for the fragility of its engine, which wore out rotor tip seals at an astonishing rate. NSU replaced many engines (in fact perhaps all of them) and this costly exercise helped contribute to the financial collapse of the company. It was bought by VW, with many of its engineers having a hand in later Audi models. They took their aero experience with them, but their rotary design skills languished...
I was going to write about some of the other fascinating cars covered in the book - like the Toyota 2000GT, the car that would have put Japanese sportscars on the world stage in the way that the Datsun 240Z later did. But with a DOHC 2-litre six-cylinder engine developing 150hp, a Lotus-inspired backbone chassis, top speed of 206 km/h and four-wheel discs, the car was much more advanced than the Zed. However, only 337 cars were sold.
Or what about the 230 km/h Lancia Stratos, the mid-engined rally car that somehow got sold for road use?
Anyway, they're all in here with just enough detail and pics to whet your appetite sufficiently that you want to immediately buy other books devoted to the history of the individual cars... At AUS$55, the Encyclopedia of Classic Cars (ISBN 1-85605-509-4) is less than 10 cents a car - it's available from good bookshops.
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