I thought I might share a few thoughts on the new Vif Argent - Le Mans Racing, Encyclopedia of the 24 Hours by Christian Moity, Jean-Marc Teissedre and Alain Bienvenu.
It's big. Very big. In fact it weighs in at a whopping 11kg! First impressions are of extremely high quality production standards, with satin paper stock that has allowed very fine, detailed photo reproduction. The pages are all stitched into a cloth spine allowing the pages to be opened up almost flat.
Each year has a dedicated chapter with at least one small (10x5) photo of every car entered, along with a brief note for some of the more interesting cars and a listing of the entry and drivers.
I've only had the chance to flick through its 1500 pages but, so far I have to say I'm actually a little underwhelmed. As a complete reference source for basic information and singular photos for identifying cars it is unsurpassed. However, if you are looking for even a cursory précis of what happened each year then you're out of luck. There is very little written text and what little is present is very superficial. Even the statistics are limited to a results listing. As stunning as it looks, for an encyclopedia I was expecting far more information than just a picture book with captions.
If you can afford it, it is a beautiful accompanying reference to the ACO yearbooks (especially if you don't have any of the pre-1970's volumes) but, if the Haynes Official History of Le Mans series continues with the same quality as the first volume then I would have to recommend them instead. They have more history and background (all be it brief) with a better selection of statistics and more artistic and less clinical selection of photos.
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23 Dec 2010, 09:15 (Ref:2807653)
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