Published Books

Most automotive authors and journalists tend to focus on the cars, their mechanical specifications, or how they drive. I have long preferred the Big Picture—how the vehicles relate to the world around them, and their place in automotive (and overall) history.

This approach’s rarity became apparent when one of the world’s most renowned Mercedes restorers commissioned me to author and produce a monograph on the 300 SLS (to see all my monographs, click here). After studying that unique vehicle’s history, it was obvious it was the progenitor to every open-air postwar Mercedes sports car, and thus hugely influential on the company’s history.

When I told the restorer this would be the approach for the monograph, he gave me a fabulous compliment when he said, “I have been with the SLS for years, first finding it, then researching and restoring it. Yet, I never saw it in that light. You have a unique ability to distill many disparate things into something simple so everyone else can see them, too.”

Just as fascinating is the cast of characters who have populated the automotive universe. Over the years I’ve been extremely blessed to personally know a number of the visionaries who created true landmark cars, men who were often superb artists, and great risk takers. Many of their machines were so packed full of emotion that they have distinct personalities, traits that are often reflective of their fathers. As Sir William Lyons, the founder of Jaguar Cars observed, “The car is the closest thing we will ever create to something that is alive.”

For decades this made exotic and performance car production the most human of industries, one that creates a product that touches people like nothing else, except perhaps music or art. I try to bring this dynamic to life in everything I write.