With Flying Colours - The Pirelli Album of Motor Sport

Welcome to With Flying Colours: The Pirelli Album of Motor Sport (1987) by L. J. K. Setright, Derek Forsyth, and Robert Newman ? a book that sounds like a polite scrapbook and then immediately reveals itself as a full-throttle celebration of speed, glamour, danger, and the single greatest truth in motorsport: if you can?t win, at least look magnificent while trying. Because this is the Pirelli Album , and that means two things. First: it?s drenched in the era?s visual drama ? big colour photography, bold design, and that late-80s confidence that everything important should be shiny, loud, and heroically framed. Second: it?s a love letter to the wider world of racing, not just lap charts and statistics, but the whole rolling theatre: machines, personalities, circuits, crowds, and the quietly terrifying reality that motorsport is a sport where your hobbies can catch fire. Setright brings the brainy, beautifully opinionated voice ? the kind that can make tyres sound philosophical and aerodynamics feel like fate. The photography and presentation do the rest: you?ll get the sense of the paddock as a travelling circus of competence, ego, and obsessive detail. It?s not merely ?cars going round.? It?s engineering as performance art, and performance art as a reason to invent new forms of engineering. Expect a broad sweep of motor sport: different disciplines, different machines, different kinds of madness. The book is likely to bounce between the grand and the gritty ? glamorous world-class events on one page, then something slightly rougher and more heroic on the next. The ?album? format gives it that delicious browseability: open anywhere, get hit with a scene, a moment, a colour-soaked memory of an era when sponsorship logos were basically part of the car?s personality. And yes, there?s something wonderfully ironic about a Pirelli-branded book celebrating motorsport ?with flying colours? ? because tyres are the quiet, black, unglamorous heroes that make the whole show possible, while everyone else gets the champagne. This book is the tyre company saying, very calmly: You?re welcome. Also, look at these photos. Condition: Good , meaning it?s been enjoyed ? handled, looked through, possibly used as a coffee-table magnet for anyone who can?t resist a great racing shot. It may show a bit of honest wear, but it?s still doing what it was made to do: deliver gorgeous, high-energy motor sport nostalgia with enough text to make you feel informed while you?re admiring the visuals. Perfect for: motorsport fans who like their history in colour , collectors of glossy racing books and sponsor-era aesthetics, anyone who enjoys Setright?s particular blend of insight and attitude, and readers who believe that a racing car should be both fast and photogenic. Sold by Crappy Old Books , naturally ? because where else would a big, colourful 1987 motorsport album end up, if not waiting for the next person to flip it open ?just for a look? and immediately fall into a happy spiral of tyres, triumphs, and beautifully framed risk.…