James Hetfield, Metallica’s front man, opens up his garage for an exclusive tour of the highlights of his incredible collection of restored and customized classic cars. Millions know James Hetfield as the front man of Metallica, but the acclaimed singer-songwriter has enjoyed another lifelong passion: restoring and customizing classic cars into magnificent pieces of automotive art. From cars such as the Skyscraper to the Aquarius and the Black Pearl, James Hetfield’s collection of beautifully reimagined classic automobiles is truly stunning. For the first time, Hetfield is opening up his garage and inviting readers to dive under the hood of some of these internationally lauded classics. Featuring dynamic, specially commissioned photography of the cars and insight from Hetfield into their creation, this book is a unique opportunity to learn about the Metallica front man's passion for creating bespoke classic cars. James Hetfield’s unique cars will be on display at the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles starting from February 2020.

Welcome to Cuba's automotive time capsule, filled with classic cars. The story of how Cuba came to be trapped in automotive time is a fascinating one. For decades, the island country had enjoyed healthy tourism trade and American outpost status, and by the 1950s it had the highest per capita automotive purchasing of any Latin American country - its middle class ensured an interesting variety of vehicles plying the roads. But when Cuba fell to communist rebels in 1959, so ended the inflow of new cars. Since then, trade embargo forced Cuba's car enthusiasts to develop a unique and insular culture, one marked by great creativity, such as: Keeping a car alive with no opportunity to acquire replacement parts; customizing a car with no access to aftermarket parts; drag racing with no drag strip. In many ways, Cuba is an automotive time warp, where the newest car is a 1959 Chevy or perhaps one of the Soviet Ladas. Cuba's Car Culture offers an inside look at a unique car culture, populated with cars that have been cut off from the world so long that they've morphed into something else in the spirit of automotive survival. Authors Tom Cotter and Bill Warner (founder of the Amelia Island Concours) take readers of Cuba's Car Culture on a whirlwind tour of all things automotive, beginning with Cuba's pre-Castro car and racing history and bringing us up to today's lost collector cars, street racing, and the challenges of keeping decades-old cars on the road. The book is illustrated throughout with rare historical photos as well as contemporary photos of Cuba's current car scene. For anyone who enjoys classic cars, from old Chevy Bel-Airs to Studebakers to Ford Fairlanes, a cruise around Cuba will make you feel like a kid in a candy store.

Account of how and why cars kill, and why the automobile manufacturers have failed to make cars safe.

The Negro Motorist Green Book was a groundbreaking guide that provided African American travelers with crucial information on safe places to stay, eat, and visit during the era of segregation in the United States. This essential resource, originally published from 1936 to 1966, offered a lifeline to black motorists navigating a deeply divided nation, helping them avoid the dangers and indignities of racism on the road. More than just a travel guide, The Negro Motorist Green Book stands as a powerful symbol of resilience and resistance in the face of oppression, offering a poignant glimpse into the challenges and triumphs of the African American experience in the 20th century.

The #1 New York Times–bestselling humorist’s tribute to car travel is “a ride worth taking, even for readers who don’t know an oil pan from a frying pan” (The Washington Times). From a veteran of both Car and Driver and National Lampoon magazines, this hilarious book chronicles the golden age of the automobile in America—and takes us on a whirlwind tour of the world’s most scenic and bumpiest roads in trouble-laden cross-country treks, from a 1978 Florida-to-California escapade in a 1956 special four-door Buick sedan, to a thousand-mile effort across Mexico in the Baja 1000 in 1983, to a journey through Kyrgyzstan in 2006 on the back of a Soviet army surplus six-wheel-drive truck. For longtime fans of the celebrated humorist, the collection features a host of O’Rourke’s classic pieces on driving, including “How to Drive Fast on Drugs While Getting Your Wing-Wang Squeezed and Not Spill Your Drink,” about the potential misdeeds one might perform in the front (and back) seat of an automobile; “The Rolling Organ Donors Motorcycle Club,” which chronicles a seven-hundred-mile weekend trip through Michigan and Indiana that O’Rourke took on a Harley-Davidson; his brilliant and funny piece from Rolling Stone on NASCAR and its peculiar culture recorded during an alcohol-fueled weekend in Charlotte, North Carolina, in 1977; and an hilarious account of a ride from Islamabad to Calcutta in Land Rover’s new Discovery Trek. “Never in neutral, O’Rourke offers laughter on wheels.” —Publishers Weekly “An insightful look not just at the American love affair with cars, but also at one man’s changing outlook on life, all of it fast-paced and over the top . . . Even readers who know nothing about cars and motorcycles will appreciate the joy and hilarity of this book.” —Booklist

Now revised and updated, this book tells the story of how the automobile transformed American life and how automotive design and technology have changed over time. It details cars' inception as a mechanical curiosity and later a plaything for the wealthy; racing and the promotion of the industry; Henry Ford and the advent of mass production; market competition during the 1920s; the development of roads and accompanying highway culture; the effects of the Great Depression and World War II; the automotive Golden Age of the 1950s; oil crises and the turbulent 1970s; the decline and then resurgence of the Big Three; and how American car culture has been represented in film, music and literature. Updated notes and a select bibliography serve as valuable resources to those interested in automotive history.