Road Hogs
Detroit's Big, Beautiful Luxury Performance Cars of the 1960s and 1970s
Published on 21. June 2011
Book
Hardback
160 pages
978-0-7603-3764-6 (ISBN)
Description
Climb into one of America's classic luxury cars from the 1960s and 1970s, swaddle yourself in yards and yards of fine Corinthian leather, scan the gigantic dashboard filled with esoteric dials and gauges that you can never hope to understand, twist the oversized ignition key, and listen to those coffee-can-sized pistons crank over in that enormous V-8 lurking under that vast expanse of hood. Feel that throbbing power burbling beneath an accelerator pedal the size of a Japanese hotel room, and you'll know what once made the American auto industry great. Road Hogs celebrates this greatness, as expressed through the magnificent performance luxury cars that rolled out of Detroit during the classic era, like the Cadillac Eldorado, Chrysler 300, Buick Electra, Chevy Monte Carlo, Buick Riviera, and many more.
Reviews / Votes
"A guaranteed conversation starter among baby boomers, especiallythose who learned how to parallel park in one of these mile-long
cruisers." - Library Journal Library Journal November 15, 2011
This tribute to the wretched automotive excesses of the 1960s and 1970s takes an affectionate look at the land yachts and whale-sized station wagons then produced by Detroit automakers. Every page contains full-color photos-many from ads and sales brochures-showing Cadillacs, Oldsmobiles, and Lincolns of the era. Automotive journalist Peters (Automotive Atrocities) delivers an amusing and somewhat snarky narrative, pausing to snicker over the behemoths of the highways while sharing stories with readers. With fins galore and enough chrome to blind oncoming drivers, these massive luxury cruisers featured sumptuous interiors with Tiffany clocks and fine Corinthian leather. With gas under a dollar a gallon and no worries about global warming, who cared whether the miles-per-gallon hovered around ten? These were the vehicles of Elvis and Frank Sinatra, a dream for the average worker bee. VERDICT A must-have for fans of big Detroit iron, and a fun choice to bring to family gatherings-"Didn't grandpa have one of those?" A guaranteed conversation starter among baby boomers, especially those who learned how to parallel park in one of these mile-long cruisers.-Susan Belsky, Oshkosh P.L., WI This tribute to the wretched automotive excesses of the 1960s and 1970s takes an affectionate look at the land yachts and whale-sized station wagons then produced by Detroit automakers. Every page contains full-color photos-many from ads and sales brochures-showing Cadillacs, Oldsmobiles, and Lincolns of the era. Automotive journalist Peters (Automotive Atrocities) delivers an amusing and somewhat snarky narrative, pausing to snicker over the behemoths of the highways while sharing stories with readers. With fins galore and enough chrome to blind oncoming drivers, these massive luxury cruisers featured sumptuous interiors with Tiffany clocks and fine Corinthian leather. With gas under a dollar a gallon and no worries about global warming, who cared whether the miles-per-gallon hovered around ten? These were the vehicles of Elvis and Frank Sinatra, a dream for the average worker bee. VERDICT A must-have for fans of big Detroit iron, and a fun choice to bring to family gatherings-"Didn't grandpa have one of those?" A guaranteed conversation starter among baby boomers, especially those who learned how to parallel park in one of these mile-long cruisers. - Library Journal Xpress
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
United States
Publishing group
Quarto Publishing Group USA Inc
Illustrations
165 color and 2 b-w photos
Dimensions
Height: 283 mm
Width: 241 mm
Thickness: 19 mm
Weight
1039 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-7603-3764-6 (9780760337646)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Eric Petershas been writing about new and vintage cars and trucks-and things automotive in general-since 1993. He is an automotive columnist for America Online, Netscape, and Compuserve. He lives in the Washington, D.C., area.