City of Speed: Los Angeles and the Rise of American Racing - Hardcover

Scalzo, Joe

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0760327203 ISBN 13: 9780760327203

Publisher: Motorbooks Intl, 2007

Synopsis

No American city opened its arms and embraced the automobile like Los Angeles. But for L.A., the car was always more than just a mode of transportation. From the days of Ford's Model T right through today, Los Angeles and Southern California have been all about speed, racing, and building performance in a thousand ways that no one else could have ever imagined.

When L.A.'s racers and car builders decided to storm Indianapolis and its seminal 500 in the frantic 1920s and 1930s, their super-advanced race cars and cocky drivers blew off everything in their path. The disgruntled competition cursed the whole L.A. race colony as "those damn cowboys out of California."

Little did they know that still more speed-obsessed cowboys were queuing up hundreds deep in the City of Speed. Seemingly unfettered by conventional notions about what a car should be or do, L.A.'s speed freaks were busily introducing hot rodding, land speed racing, the performance industry, drag strips, and countless other gearhead enterprises.

Los Angeles would assert itself as America's absolute mecca of speed. Joe Scalzo's work is the first to explore the huge influence of L.A.'s racing culture and its personalities on all of motorsports. Its fantastic tale is illustrated with historic photography, much of its previously, much of it unpublished.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

Los Angeles is the City of Speed. For decades, stretching back to the early 1920s, L.A. and Southern California have offered up the fastest, bravest, craziest race drivers; ingenious, madman car builders; and ego-inflated promoters all setting the pace for American racing. Regardless the venue—drag strip, Bonneville, road race course, Indianapolis, Supercross arena, dirt track, NASCAR oval—L.A. always had the hot driver, the demon tweak, or the unanticipated angle to leave the competition gasping to keep up.

About the Author:

Joe Scalzo authors books about fast race cars, fast flat-track and Grand Prix motorcycles, and fast and crazy folk. Born in Los Angeles, he is a forever resident of tiny Sierra Madre, California, where for many years he carried the American flag in the Fourth of July parade and was a daytime and nighttime smoke-eater and emergency medical technician in the Sierra Madre Volunteer Fire Department. His previous Motorbooks title was Grand National.

About this edition

• Publisher: Motorbooks Intl
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0760327203
• ISBN 13: 9780760327203
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 192