WHAT this book achieves that others of its ilk do not is to make the reader feel like they are actually behind the wheel of the cars in question.

If read in conjunction with the audio CD of engine sounds – a word that does not do justice to the aural delight they engender – the reader needs only close his eyes after reading a few paragraphs to imagine himself in the driver’s seat.

Revised, updated and compiled by Pink Floyd drummer and car nut Nick Mason and test driver Mark Hales, it features some of the most iconic creations ever to grace a racetrack.

Mason and Hales’s passion for their subject comes through in the language used and, allied to clever use of pictures and props, makes for an interesting and absorbing book.