Auto & Bike Blog: Automoblog Book Garage: 365 Sports Cars You Must Drive

Sunday 6 December 2020

Automoblog Book Garage: 365 Sports Cars You Must Drive

365 Sports Cars You Must Drive provides overviews and fun facts about the greatest, oddest, most beautiful, and most ill-considered sports cars of all time.
Our Book Garage series showcases what every enthusiast should add to their library.

What we have here in 365 Sports Cars You Must Drive by John Lamm is a straightforward list book. Much like the Formula 1 stat books I reviewed a while back, this book is a 320-page list of cool cars. In a way, it’s something all us gearheads can get behind.

My first instinct with 365 Sports Cars You Must Drive was to walk into the local Ferrari dealership and demand they give me the keys to a LaFerrari. Then I had visions of two big guys dragging me out back by the recycled tires and giving me a well-deserved thrashing. So I put that childish idea aside and just treated myself to 365 Sports Cars You Must Drive.

The Best Kind of List

Since the invention of the internet those many eons ago, lists have been an easy, go-to content filler. I have a theory that all of these lists solve nothing and mainly exist to start (or settle) arguments. The 10 best rock guitarists of all time probably never caused anyone to say, “Yup, Angus Young was a better player than Duane Allman.”

This book, thankfully, does not order its list of 365 cars in that way. For one thing, 365 would be a rather ungainly list to order. No, what the authors – the esteemed John Lamm, joined by the also esteemed Larry Edsall and Steve Sutcliffe – have done is group the cars in alphabetical order. So you start with Abarths and Acuras and end with Volvos and Zenvos. Yes, Volvo did make a sports car. Remember the P1800?

Think of 365 Sports Cars You Must Drive as showing you one car for each day of the year.

At any rate, the book is chock full of the required but fetching photos of interesting cars gearheads should drive. Every car gets a nice little blurb about why it’s significant and a nice little stat box with breakout comments and power figures and the like. In this regard, 365 Sports Cars You Must Drive can act as a quick reference book.

365 Sports Cars You Must Drive excerpt. — From *365 Sports Cars You Must Drive* published by Motorbooks.

Good Stocking Stuffer

But really, what we’re dealing with here is a nice present non-gearheads will give their enthusiast friends. After all, most car aficionados would spend the cash on something less entertaining but far more useful, say, “365 Quick Wiring Solutions for Lucas Electrical Systems.”

Tony Borroz has spent his entire life racing antique and sports cars. He is the author of Bricks & Bones: The Endearing Legacy and Nitty-Gritty Phenomenon of The Indy 500, available in paperback or Kindle format. Follow his work on Twitter: @TonyBorroz.