Customer Reviews

The Golden Age of the American Racing Car

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Not many Americans are aware that "exotic" racing engine technologies, like dual overhead cams, intercoolers on superchargers, and multiple valves per cylinder -- were first fully developed in Iowa, New Jersey and California -- not in Europe. A few remarkable and mostly German-American engine builders, notably the Duesenberg brothers and Harry Miller (ne Mueller) developed the fastest automobiles in the world in America in the period before the Great Depression. These cars raced on the best tracks in the world, which were hand crafted out of 2 x 4 lumber.

Americans were racing at speeds well over 100 mph on these wooden tracks by 1920 -- well before the nation had adequate roads for motorists. (Borgeson explains that the reason road racing did not catch on in the US was altogether basic: no roads).

This is a very fine book, and it is wonderful to see it back in print. Another good book on this subject is "Gold, Guts and Glory," which is an unfortunate title but a fine collection of essays on the board track era by several different authors. Borgeson's classic is especially strong on Harry Miller. The author himself re-imported and restored one of Miller's famed front drive racers, a car purchased and "emulated" by Ettore Bugatti in the mid-1920s.

At the time of his recent death in France, Grif was just completeing this second edition of this brillient work. It will be published this fall by SAE. Larry Crane, Automobile Magazine's art director say, "he was the purest iconoclast I will ever know." Automobile, Nov. 1997. His work is legendary. His research was paralleled by very few. A must read for the fan of the car enthusiast.

I have enjoyed many histories of auto racing. This book has to be one of my favorites. The layout is unusual as it is not purely chronological. Due to this there is some duplication of information for clarity. There are a lot of photos that I have never seen published before. I realy enjoy the quotes from the wild cast of characters both racing and building in that era. A must read for any serious fan of motor raving history.

The first edition of Borgeson's The Golden Age of the American Racing Car was a best-seller and an award-winner, opening up for the first time the stories and breakthroughs of American racing car design in the first third of the 20th century. This was, of course, a heady time. Borgeson was widely praised for his extensive use of primary source materials and his many interviews with those who participated in racing at the time.

However, the book's triumphs are not merely triumphs in describing the technical, nor merely of historicity -- Borgeson created a book which captured the power of the imagination that fueled the creators of these cars. According to Bill Milliken "at the deepest level, this book is concerned with 'the beauty and passion of the machine' -- the machine as an art form, a lifetime preoccupation" of Borgeson.

The second edition, published in 1997 was the result of about thirty years of additional research and refinement. It features a new color photo section.

Book nitty-gritty: hardback with a sewn binding in dustjacket. 365 pp. Illustrations throughout, mostly b&w. 3.25 pounds. 8 Appendices, Bibliography, Index.

The book is organised into the following sections:

The Passion of the Machine
Masters of the Machine
The Beginnings
Fulfillment: The Roaring Twenties
Pinnacles of the Golden Age
Project Time Machine