Three cheers for my pal A.J. Baime, whose new book Go Like Hell: Ford, Ferrari, and Their Battle for Speed and Glory at Le Mans is in bookstores now. A.J. does a great job telling the story of the rivalry in the sixties between Ferrari, the dominant racing power, and the upstart Ford Motor Company, who got the brainstorm that success on the high speed track of Le Mans would help sell Mustangs to the Baby Boomers who were coming of age. Like Lauren Hillenbrand’s Seabiscuit, the story has appeal for those who are not racing fans; the book is full of larger-than-life characters and exciting action. In an excellent write-up today in the Times, Chip McGrath says that Go Like Hell “evokes a world that now seems vanished and fantastical.” Way to go, Big City Al!
The book has also received great reviews in the car magazines as well. In the July 09 issue of Motor Trend, Detroit Editor Todd Iassa writes “Playboy Executive Editor A.J. Baime scoured the archives and interviewed virtually everyone possible from the GT40 era…to write a non-fiction page-turner that reads like a suspense novel.” I enjoyed reading the excerpt in the May 09 Playboy so much that I recently ordered a copy of the book (By the way, I did the same thing after reading the excerpt of “The Coup,” which appeared in the July 2007 Playboy–another fun read).