Peter Vincent is the world's most respected hot rod photographer, with articles appearing regularly in Rodder's Journal, American Rodder, Hop Up, Street Journal, Rod and Custom. He has written Hot Rod: An American Original, and Hot Rod: The Photography of Peter Vincent, both published by MBI.
Bangshift.com, Review May 4, 2009 "Some books you buy for the words
and some you buy for the pictures. Hot Rod "Garages" by Peter
Vincent has words, but the incredible photography tells the stories
that the book is trying to tell. This is an awesome look into the
workshops of some of the most talented car builders, fabricators,
and hot rod shops in the country.There is an honestly and feel to
the photography in this book that is unique, in my experience, to
the genre. Normally the photos are just too posed, too unnatural,
and give the vibe that the guy shooting them was totally
interrupting the work of the guys in the shop. This book s pictures
have a comfortable fly on the wall appeal that gives the reader the
impression that they are an old friend, or at minimum a welcome
guest.There are big name builders, like Roy Brizio, and Pete
Eastwood, as well as guys like the late Pat Foster (who did amazing
work restoring or recreating old drag cars) shown along with
several builders whose names rang a bell, but aren t household
names like the other guys.Each chapter has an introduction about
the person about to be featured. By the final chapter we found it
more fun to use the photography as an initial guide, form an
opinion on who we thought the builder was through there work, and
then read the intro back to see how our perception met up. These
guys all build world class cars. This is the ream team of car
building, especially for high end type hot rods. If you love great
photography and learning about the guys behind the cars you see
winning all the major shows, you need this book as it provides a
rare personal glance into the places that these fellows are most
comfortable, their shops. The shops are a great testament to the
balance between raw skill and machinery. These are not bling filled
caverns. Instead they are to these guys what a nice little studio
is to an artist, a place to make their magic and see their vision
come to fruition.""
Jalopnik.com, Review April 26, 2009"For those of you who like to
get your 90-weight-coated paws on some car-themed reading material,
we're continuing with this book-review thing. Today we're checking
out a weighty slab of a coffee-table book. Hot Rod Garages poses
something of a dilemma for the intended audience, because it really
ought to live in the garage, where you can thumb through it while
digging deep for motivation to work on that rusty '61 DKW Munga
Hell Project but you'd feel a twinge of guilt the first time you
dropped a torque converter on its snazzy three-dimensional cover
(the windows in the cover's garage illustration are actual holes
cut through the cover, an effect that doesn't show up so well in
photographs but is pretty cool in person). The concept behind the
book is quite simple: Vincent visited the garages and workshops of
18 builders of vehicles that fall within the hot rod and/or custom
tradition and documented what he found. Some are big names and some
aren't; all create some pretty serious machinery, and their shops
range from primitive to palatial. I cracked open this book hoping
to see hundreds of obsessive closeups of battered tools and weird
engine parts on scarred workbenches, which wasn't what I found;
most of the photographs show entire cars, many of which aren't
parked in the garages in which they were created. That's not really
a problem, however, because plenty of the non-garage photos were
shot on the Bonneville salt flats and just about all the cars are
serious gearhead pr0n.You get a generous helping of text for a
coffee-table book, including interviews of car builders and the
author's reminisces of his experiences with them. Best of all is
the fascinating history of the Moal family's operations in East
Oakland, written by Michael Dobrin, and the extensively documented
buildup- practically a how-to guide- of the Rolling Bones' George
Poteet '34 coupe.The verdict: a Three Rod Jalopnik book rating. An
enjoyable book for the average car geek, a big improvement over the
tedious stuff that sits on most coffee tables and pure
un-stepped-on crack for those hooked on the traditional hot rod
aesthetic. Murilee says check it out!""
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