Wyss, Legate, Friedman, Mills.. Where's the 427 book???

[Mark IV]

[quote=Historybuff;853530]
Brock Yates is a very lively writer who would be fun to read but who knows exactly what kind of book should be written? Where is the market? It all depends on how detailed a book you want. If all you want is race victories listed and serial numbers, that's not a Yates style book--that is more of a Ronnie Spain type thing, a one car per page ararnged by serial number thing. /QUOTE]

I know Yates (in fact, I am in Sunday Driver, I was an Agor Racing "gofer") and he can't write it as he cannot figure out how to use "Shibboleth", "Usurp" and "Yeasty stream of consciousness" in the text regarding the 427!

He is "persona non grata" in Italy for suggesting the Laura Ferrari (Enzo's wife, not one of his mistrisses) was a common prostitute prior to marrying Enzo.

[saltytri]

[quote=Mark IV;853623]

Originally Posted by Historybuff

He is "persona non grata" in Italy for suggesting the Laura Ferrari (Enzo's wife, not one of his mistrisses) was a common prostitute prior to marrying Enzo.

So, the Italian Ferrari fans prefer that she be thought of as an exceptional prostitute?

[Mark IV]

[quote=saltytri;853658]

Originally Posted by Mark IV

So, the Italian Ferrari fans prefer that she be thought of as an exceptional prostitute?

If you are going to do something, do it well!

[saltytri]

My thought exactly. Mediocrity is so boring. Especially where Italian prostitutes are concerned.

[Historybuff]

As long as we are talking about Yates, I enjoyed his book Of Death and Time, mostly about Indy racing in '55 (with a little bit of James Dean's death thrown in,)
until at the end of the book I realized that he had said at the outset that a fictional reporter was going to be employed throughout. So that meant that every quote in the book from race drivers and such didn't happen because if the reporter didn't exist there was no witness to what each person quoted said. I used a few paragraphs done in a similar fly-on-the-wall style to set the opening scene in my book but the chapters that follow employ real quotes wherever possible. So while a Yates on Shelby book would be fun to read and very flamboyant , I don't want to read it if that damn fictional reporter comes back.

(And what section of the library does the librarian put such a book, in fiction or non-fiction?)
As to why he found it necessary to use a fictional reporter, I suspect that since the year 1955 was over 50 years ago, maybe his journalistic career wasn't yet developed enough at that point for him to go and interview the big time Indy racers that the book is about, though I think Yates was publishing books while he was still in his 20s.

[mrmustang]

Originally Posted by Historybuff

As long as we are talking about Yates, I enjoyed his book Of Death and Time, mostly about Indy racing in '55 (with a little bit of James Dean's death thrown in,)
until at the end of the book I realized that he had said at the outset that a fictional reporter was going to be employed throughout. So that meant that every quote in the book from race drivers and such didn't happen because if the reporter didn't exist there was no witness to what each person quoted said. I used a few paragraphs done in a similar fly-on-the-wall style to set the opening scene in my book but the chapters that follow employ real quotes wherever possible. So while a Yates on Shelby book would be fun to read and very flamboyant , I don't want to read it if that damn fictional reporter comes back.

(And what section of the library does the librarian put such a book, in fiction or non-fiction?)
As to why he found it necessary to use a fictional reporter, I suspect that since the year 1955 was over 50 years ago, maybe his journalistic career wasn't yet developed enough at that point for him to go and interview the big time Indy racers that the book is about, though I think Yates was publishing books while he was still in his 20s.

Wally,

A lot of similar things could be said about your writings, born on the back of others and jumbled together by your own mind to be published as your own. It's a sad, sad day when you have to put down others works to make yourself or your own works feel more "self important" than the others. Once again, as with your past, you show your true colors.


Bill S.

[A-Snake]

Originally Posted by Historybuff

I used a few paragraphs done in a similar fly-on-the-wall style to set the opening scene in my book but the chapters that follow employ real quotes wherever possible.

But do they employ real facts?

[Mark IV]

Originally Posted by Historybuff

As long as we are talking about Yates, I enjoyed his book Of Death and Time, mostly about Indy racing in '55 (with a little bit of James Dean's death thrown in,)
until at the end of the book I realized that he had said at the outset that a fictional reporter was going to be employed throughout. So that meant that every quote in the book from race drivers and such didn't happen because if the reporter didn't exist there was no witness to what each person quoted said. I used a few paragraphs done in a similar fly-on-the-wall style to set the opening scene in my book but the chapters that follow employ real quotes wherever possible. So while a Yates on Shelby book would be fun to read and very flamboyant , I don't want to read it if that damn fictional reporter comes back.

(And what section of the library does the librarian put such a book, in fiction or non-fiction?)

Actually, in our local library (which happens to be in Lockport, NY....Yate's home town) they have it in the "Local Authors" section (along with Joyce Carol Oates and Bevla Lockwood) AND in the "sports" section. I read it and enjoyed it but took it with a grain of salt as it is a "docudrama" and not a straight historical tome.

[Historybuff]

Tevor Legate is right--doing a proper book with all the right pictures and interviews is too expensive to do the way books are done nowadays. The publishers won't advance the monies needed to do the spade work.

The ideal example of a Cobra book presently on the market is Michael Schoen's Cobra-Ferrari wars. That book probably took over a year to do.Schoen is a lawyer and no doubt that profession taught him how to interview people. Plus he's an ultra enthusiast who has owned a Daytona coupe and many other Cobras.

He interviewed at least 50 people in doing the book. Travel costs today have doubled so
unless you have a lot of free airline miles it would cost several thousand to find all the people who can tell the tale.

Not only that, like writing about WWII,due to the passage of over 40 years, the original participants are fading fast. It's hard to believe our heroes like Bondurant are now over 70! I wager that half the people Schoen interviewed have died by now.

Publishers only come up with miniscule advances, $1000 or $2000, it's going to cost me that just to go to Monterey, and I live in Calif.! Nobody could set out to write a 427 Cobra book with less than about $10,000 expense money.

So it's going to take a writer that's independently wealthy, with knowledge of Sixties racing, who can devote the year or so of time

One example of a non publisher doing a bang-up job was George Stauffers book on the Cobra Daytona coupe. It cost $100 when the book was first published and is now about $750 used. (Clue: You can order it from the library that has it through your own library through a plan where you can order books from any library for $2) But George is a car dealer in (real) Cobras and GT40s and thus could write off the whole venture as promotion. He enlisted Brock, Friedman and one other ex-Shelby employee to produce it.

Another alternative is to have a club produce it but now that the SAAC club is at odds with Shelby
I can't see that happening --as some Shelby employees would probably refuse to "cross the pioket line" as it were and at any rate they would have to get the Registry out first to have any credibility before they could take orders on a new book that doesn't exist yet.I am not sure how long a time lapse you can have before ordering a book and getting it before some law is broken.

By the way, talking about Yates' book Of Time and Death where a fictional reporter tells the story one of the best selling books out now is called
Racing in the Rain which is
told from the viewpoint of a dog!

Pretty funny book, actually

I don't remember if it tells what kind of dog but I'd believe anything a Labrador Retriever tells me...

[DTurnbull]

I exchanged a few emails with Dave Friedman a while back. He said he actually had quite a few 427 pictues, but had no interest at all in doing a book. Sad, really.

With, what?, 40,000+/- 427 replicas running around, one might think there IS a market.