This is a story of excitement, laughs, astonishment and anger - a story of the determination of a man with a dream and a passion for motor racing in the big leagues. It is the first time that the history of the always under-financed Gordini racing team has been documented in English, and the first complete story of Gordini himself in any language.
This volume will appeal to new enthusiasts and old hands of Formula 1 and sports prototype racing, especially those who have owned a Gordini-badged high-performance Renault road car. It charts Gordini's early life and beginnings in motorsport, up to 1969 when Renault took over the Gordini company, keeping his name on all the racing engines until 1986, before finally resurrecting it for a performance version of the Renault Twingo and Clio in 2009.
The book is packed with evocative period images from important collections, supplementary transcripts in English from many contemporary interviews, plus recollections from former employees remembering their time working with Gordini, and an exhaustive set of statistics. All the way it's a roller coaster of joy, despair, humour, and stunning images. The racing legend of 'Le Sorcier' lives on.

Autorentext

Roy Smith is a retired company director, now an award winning writer. His lifetime passion for motor sport began in the 1960s with articles for club magazines, mainly interviews with notables of the time. A 40-year business career in sales and marketing developed an attention to detail that is crucial to writing a work such as "Amedee Gordini" and his previous works about the development of the first turbo Formula 1 car, and two books covering the complete history of the Alpine Renault sports prototypes, for which he won the Guild of Motoring Writers Mercedes Benz Prize and the Montagu of Beaulieu Trophy in 2010. His aim is always to record a little known part of motoring history for future generations before it is forgotten. Once again Roy has written a "first in English" story with the same desire to provide a good read to newcomers and hardened enthusiasts alike. He has written many specialist articles for magazines in France and internationally as a UK historic correspondent. He is already planning his next work, which will again be published by Veloce in 2013: this too will be a "first in English", entitled Alpine Renault - The Fabulous Berlinettes.