100 years of Grand Prix

Trevor Legate. ISBN 0-9551020-1-4. Published by Touchstone Books. £30.00

Unless you’ve just returned from a 10-year mission to seek out new galaxies, you’ll probably be aware that the centenary of the first grand prix, held in 1906, is being celebrated this summer. Here, then, is one of the new books marking that anniversary.

It uses the increasingly popular format of large pictures accompanied by extended caption text. The author is better known for writing about 1960s sportscar icons, but this is a perfectly acceptable effort and some of the photography is superb – I loved the start shot from the 1933 Grand Prix de Nice, and I always chuckle at the 1923 Bugatti Type 32 ‘Tank’, which to me looks like the template for the early-90s 750 Formula Marrow. In other places, though, the images are fairly uninspiring. One other reservation: the book is fairly pricey for its small format, especially as there is plenty of competition in the market this year for GP centenary compendia. MS