We are delighted to announce a major work by motoring history enthusiast Stephen Moore. As you can see, it is not printed but is a PDF on a USB stick. More of that later.
Stephen is a chartered mechanical engineer working in New Zealand, in love with cars from a very young age. He took five years to research and write this work, and some statistics give an idea of the scope of the book:
- 846 pages
- 300,000 words
- Just under 300 makers covered and 434 reference works listed in the bibliography
- 329 images
- 45 charts, graphs and tables, 43 of which are original
- 567 engine specification tables, plus specifications for all Continental, Lycoming, Gordini
and S.C.A.P straight-eight engines.
Here is the opening page of the PDF:
We have now received a copy from Stephen, and a full review is in our Book Review section on the left of the Home page.
There has been much talk of the lack of interest of the younger generation in motoring history. In our experience, this is not true – they are just as fascinated as those of us who have desire and the wherewithal to buy beautifully-produced printed tomes. But the young face a major problem: the cost of those printed books. We are beginning to see some publishing in both formats – printed and e-book – but printing an opus of this kind would represent far too great a financial risk. We therefore commend Stephen for his approach.
Stephen has given us his own reasoning for this decision to publish this way:
“Its landscape format was chosen to facilitate reading on a desktop or laptop screen. It may be visible on a Tablet screen but definitely not on a cellphone screen. Reading the PDF using Adobe Reader has several advantages, including:
- It is far cheaper than a printed book of the same page count,
- The latest version of Adobe Reader software is downloadable from the Web for free,
- I am advised that PDFs are readable on both PCs and Macs,
- Adobe Reader allows users to magnify pages to suit their eyesight,
- Adobe Reader includes a ‘Find’ function, which eliminates the need for an Index, and
- Clicking on Adobe Reader’s bookmark feature in its left margin shows the full Chapter and heading structure, which is clickable and makes the document easy to navigate.”
And here is the table of contents:
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Contents
Chapter 1: About this Book
Chapter 2: Historical Overview
Chapter 3: History by Country
Chapter 4: Competition Success
Chapter 5: Technical Development of the Straight-Eight Engine
Chapter 6: Makes and Models
Chapter 7: Not Straight-Eights
Chapter 8: Straight-Eight Firsts
Chapter 9: Glossary and Definitions
References
About the Author
And finally, the cost and how to obtain the book:
Price: The price of the USB stick is NZ$ 65.00 (around GBP 34.00 or USD 47.00 at current rates) plus postage & packaging. If you wish to buy the book, please go to https://www.straight-eight-engines.com and click on the Shop tab for further details. If you proceed with the purchase process, you will be taken to PayPal to make payment using your own currency. Postage varies according to destination and this is also accounted for during the purchase process. Finally, copyright will be defended and copies of the PDF must not be made for onward transfer or sale.
ISBN: 978-0-473-54810-0
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