Customer Reviews

The Art and Colour of General Motors

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Turn the pages of this beautiful book and see over forty GM cars photographed by Michael Furman and perhaps the only word to describe them is: luscious. He must surely be the greatest car photographer anywhere and if you've never seen his work before you're in for a treat.

As the book covers the history of GM's Art and Colour Division (I wonder if the English spelling of Color was to suggest a bit of snobbery ) the photos start with a 1903 Cadillac Model A and end with a 2009 Chevrolet Camero. This particular GM division was the bright idea, in 1927, of company president Alfred Sloan and with thirty-three year-old Harley Earl in charge of styling a successful future for the division was assured.

The pages explore styling at GM with essays from ten contributors. Nothing particularly new here as you'll see from the back of the book bibliography, though the two I found interesting were Michael Lamm on the Motoramas and Tracy Powell on the rise (and fall) of the tailfin. The essays are illustrated with the usual stock historic black and whites but fortunately are they on self-contained pages between the Furman's portfolio pages. Strangely there is no index.

For me this is Furman's book and thankfully the publishers have taken the trouble to do it properly with a 300 lpi screen printing on first class paper. I don't think you'll see better photos of a 1940 LaSalle; 1951 LeSabre; 1958 Chevrolet Bel Air; 2000 Cadillac Imaj Concept or the amazing jet fighter on wheels: the 1958 Firebird.

These stunning photos and other GM cars lift the book way above the usual pictorial titles from other transport publishers.

***SEE SOME INSIDE PAGES by clicking 'customer images' under the cover.

It's hard to imagine how quickly time has flown by since the first Cadillac of 1906 thru the cars of 2009.

Jonathan Stein has done a masterful job merging the writings of a number of today's automotive writers with Michael Furman's automotive photography create a detailed history of GM's art and color section creations over the past 80 years

This is a must book that should be in the collection of automotive literature collectors.

This is a wonderful tribute to the superb designs enjoyed by GM during the rein of Harley Earl and Bill Mitchell. The photographs by Michael Furman are as good as it gets, and the historic photos are also excellent and informative. The essays, by different authors, go into the designs of each era, from the early cars to the Art Deco era to the period of GM dominance in the 1950s through 1970s. There is even good material on what went wrong, and what is going right with the latest GM designs.

The book appeals on a number of levels - fine photography, wonderful design, and well written automotive history. I have greatly enjoyed it, and I'm a Chrysler guy!

I got a good deal on this book on ebay for $20 plus s/h. Brand new sealed.
Its a beautiful book, Great layout, Photography is pretty cool. I would say if you really liked GM'S Motorama (2006,Mbi) then this book is for you. and if your a GM buff like me then by all means I highly recommend this book to your collection.