Customer Reviews

Race and Rally Car Sourcebook: The Guide to Building and Modifying a Competition Car

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

In my quest for knowledge relevant to designing, building and driving a light-weight, high-performance sportscar, I have bought and borrowed numerous books, magazines, plans and workshop-manuals.
This book has been one of the best of my many purchases.
My one regret is that I didn't have this book much earlier; I very nearly did, but when I began my project, "Race and Rally Car" looked wrong to my novices' eyes. I hadn't realised then that my planned sportscars were so closely related to Formula racecars in all their systems and dynamics.
Now, with the benefit of my researching/learning experience, I am able to appreciate just how valuable a source Mr Staniforths' book is!
This is a truly great picture/storybook for us petrol-heads, a practical guide, and a comprehensive reference, all based on the authors' own extensive experience as a race-car designer, builder, and driver.
Those years of hard-won experience left an empathetic awareness of the broad-ranging requirements of a novice. He has created this book with just the right mix of wit and serious technical detail to inspire and encourage the reader with doubts about their own ability to "give it a go".
It encompasses all that is important in building a fast sports or racecar, thoroughly covering topics like planning, design, building techniques, technology, testing and development. It features excellent illustrations, really inspiring photographs, and includes historical and anecdotal material of considerable value to any aspiring Murrays, Tauranacs or Schumakers among us. There is also a detailed source-index to other authoritative sources for more complete descriptions of processes that have been, of necessity, only lightly dealt with here.
Overall, it's an enjoyable read and a sound investment. I suspect that the more sophisticated features of my ultimate design will owe more to this than any other single book.
It deserves a place in your library.

This was the first book I bought related to race and sports car design. It is very well written, and Staniforth's writing style is very entertaining as well as being informative.

The book covers all aspects related to building and modifying a sports car and does so in reasonable depth. I did find that I will need other references where I want detailed information about a specific topic. For example, the sections on suspension are clear and offer good information and are sufficient to get you started with whatever project you have in mind. However, if one really wants to get down into the gritty mathematical details of designing suspension then a second reference specifically on that topic would be needed.

As a book to highlight all that is important in building a fast sports or race car, I recommend the book whole heartedly.

This is a great book for anyone wishing to enter the fields of competition car building, and car setup.

However, the material seems rather aged, and there are some mixup of facts in section about the Peugeot 205 at least.
The tyre data also seems to be out of date.

Good information. Need to be familiar with subject to understand and get the most from the book.

I have all of Alan's books and I recommend this one the most. It is an excellent all around guide that includes much of the information found in his other books. Enjoyable to read with his sense of humor and very informative. I believe I could have designed my current car build using only this book even though I have more than a dozen other technical books on chassis design, suspension design, and other aspects of car building, modifying, and tuning. Highly recommended.

This book creates the sensation that you have sat down at a British pub and your new mate started this whole business of "rally car racing" and he's retired so he wants to tell you his whole story now that he's got a firm grip on your ear. It certainly is folksy, charming and wordy, but if you don't mind reading endless, sort of amusing, anecdotes, letting you in on the real inside dope of who invented (and crashed) what, you may eventually get to something about building or modifying a car.

good book with alot of information. good if you are looking into racing or just have an interest in the sport

This is a spectacular story book, manual, tech book, HEY its all here and its all good. This book rocks. I have many books on this subject and I have carrol smiths books but this is the best book on the subject. I have made and prepped a lot of cars and I have a lot of books with the pretty pictures etc etc but somehow this is the one I end up reading at the end of the day. At crunch time the vital bit of info you need is probably in this book. If the name of the game is PRACTICAL and what you can really do and not what would be theoretically best but not possible then this book is it.