These 10 best car books for anyone who loves cars include primers describing the most important car parts and how they work, automobile history, car-themed fiction, memoirs by car lovers and race car drivers, speed secrets, and coffee table books featuring the 100 greatest cars. Auto enthusiasts and everyday drivers will want to fill up their tanks these 10 best car books for anyone who loves cars.

1. How Cars Work by Tom Newton

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“How Cars Work is a completely illustrated primer describing the 250 most important car parts and how they work. This mini test book includes wonderfully simple line drawings and clear language to describe all the automotive systems as well as a glossary, index, and a test after each chapter. How Cars Work provides the basic vocabulary and mechanical knowledge to help a reader talk intelligently with mechanics understand shop manuals, and diagnosis car problems.”

2. Go Like Hell: Ford, Ferrari, and Their Battle for Speed and Glory at Le Mans by A J Baime

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“In the 1960s Enzo Ferrari emerged as the dominant force in sports cars in the world, creating speed machines that were unbeatable on the race track. In America, the Ford Motor Company was quickly losing ground as the pre-eminent brand. Henry Ford II saw a solution. He decided to declare war on Ferrari, to build a faster car than anything Ferrari had brought to the track, and to beat him at the world’s biggest race, Le Mans. Ferrari was just as determined to see off this challenge from across the Atlantic.

“With practically no safety regulations in place in the European Grand Prix races, horrific accidents were routine, with both drivers and spectators killed in many races. The stakes were incredibly high, money and men were thrown at the competition, neither Ford or Ferrari would accept anything but victory. The battle to become the fastest in the world truly became a race to the death.”

3. Christine by Stephen King

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“Evil is alive in Libertyville. It inhabits a custom-painted red and white 1958 Plymouth Fury named Christine and young Arnold Cunningham, who buys it. Along with Arnold’s girlfriend, Leigh Cabot, Dennis Guilder attempts to find out the real truth behind Christine and finds more than he bargained for: from murder to suicide, there’s a peculiar feeling that surrounds Christine—she gets revenge on anyone standing in her path. Can Dennis save Arnold from the wrath of Christine?”

4. The Driver: My Dangerous Pursuit of Speed and Truth in the Outlaw Racing World by Alexander Roy

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“Alex Roy’s father, while on his deathbed, hints about the notorious, utterly illegal cross-country drive from Los Angeles to New York of the 1970s, which then inspired his young son to enter the mysterious world of underground road rallies. Tantalized by the legend of the Driver—the anonymous, possibly nonexistent organizer of the world’s ultimate secret race—Roy set out to become a force to be reckoned with. At speeds approaching 200 mph, he sped from London to Morocco, from Budapest to Rome, from San Francisco to Miami, in his highly modified BMW M5, culminating in a new record for the infamous Los Angeles to New York run: 32:07.”

5. For the Record by Ed Bolian

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“Speed, supercars, horsepower, anti-police countermeasures, and an epic pursuit of a childhood dream collide on a literal and figurative drive that leads a man to spend every available dollar chasing a record. Ed Bolian’s memoir recounts his path from a conversation in high school with Cannonball Run founder, Brock Yates, to setting the fastest time ever for driving from New York to Los Angeles. The journey explores goal setting, criminal psychology, and spirituality. Join Ed in the pursuit of finding your true purpose and using what makes you unique to achieve something extraordinary.”

6. Driving Like Crazy by P. J. O’Rourke

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“Driving Like Crazy celebrates cars and author P. J. O’Rourke’s love for them, while chronicling the golden age of the automobile in America. O’Rourke 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 1983 thousand-mile effort across Mexico in the Baja 1000 to a trek 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 alongside Car & Driver publisher David E. Davis, Jr.; 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 trek from Islamabad to Calcutta in Land Rover’s new Discovery Trek.”

7. How to Build a Car by Adrian Newey

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“The world’s foremost designer in Formula One, Adrian Newey OBE is arguably one of Britain’s greatest engineers and this is his fascinating, powerful memoir.”

8. Faster: How a Jewish Driver, an American Heiress, and a Legendary Car Beat Hitler’s Best by Neal Bascomb

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“As Nazi Germany launched its campaign of racial terror and pushed the world toward war, three unlikely heroes—a driver banned from the best European teams because of his Jewish heritage, the owner of a faltering automaker company, and the adventurous daughter of an American multimillionaire—banded together to challenge Hitler’s dominance at the Grand Prix, the apex of motorsport. Bringing to life this glamorous era and the sport that defined it, Faster chronicles one of the most inspiring, death-defying upsets of all time: a symbolic blow against the Nazis during history’s darkest hour.”

9. Speed Secrets: Professional Race Driving Techniques by Ross Bentley

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“Shave lap times or find a faster line through your favorite set of S-curves with professional race driver Ross Bentley as he shows you the quickest line from apex to apex! With tips and commentary from current race drivers, Bentley covers the vital techniques of speed, from visualizing lines to interpreting tire temps to put you in front of the pack. Includes discussion of practice techniques, chassis set-up, and working with your pit chief.”

10. The Art of the Automobile: The 100 Greatest Cars by Dennis Adler

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“Award-winning automotive historian, author, and photographer Dennis Adler takes you on a whirlwind tour through more than a century of automotive history, from the first production motorcar, the 1886 Benz Patent Motorwage, to fabled makes including Hispano-Suiza, Duesenberg, packard, and Hudson.

“More than 200 stunning color photographs define and detail the remarkable styling and revolutionary mechanical engineering for 100 greatest cars ever built. Adler, in accordance with the world’s leading automotive dseigners, collectors, and authorities, picks the top ten cars of all time–breathtaking cars that have become the motoring icons of the twentieth century.”

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