Car books make great Christmas gifts

In case your Christmas budget won’t permit the purchase of an actual collector car for the family gearhead, here’s a couple of more modest suggestions.

With real, live winter weather to contend with, how about giving something that doesn’t involve spending nights in a chilly shop, busting knuckles? Instead, why not something that can be enjoyed indoors, with a cup of coffee, with a ballgame on in the background?

We’re talking car books, and here are a couple of good ones that have come across my desk this year.

The first is “Preston Tucker and His Battle to Build the Car of Tomorrow,” by Steve Lehto (Chicago Review Press). We’ve all heard the stories about the Tucker automobile and the man behind it, but if you want well-written, documented facts on the subject, this is the book for you.

You’ll learn about Tucker’s over-the-top confidence in building a brand new kind of car, instead of a rehash of the pre-war models that most manufacturers produced after WWII. Things like a 500 cubic-inch-plus engine and hydrostatic 4-wheel transmissions, which never got off the ground. And his struggles with the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Big Three automakers.

It’s compelling stuff.

If something a little lighter — and warmer — is wanted, try “Cuba’s Car Culture: Celebrating the Island’s Automotive Love Affair,” by Tom Cotter and Bill Warner (Motorbooks).

With the warming of U.S. relations with Cuba, the timing is perfect to scan through page-after-page of gorgeous photos of American cars that have been preserved through more than a half-century’s boycott of Castro’s island nation. You’ll see everything from a stunning white-over-black ’58 Olds 4-door hardtop in showroom condition to the heartbreaking photos of Ernest Heminway’s Hemi-powered mid-’50s Chrysler convertible up on blocks (now in the process of being restored).

There’s plenty of history to be found in the book, as well as fascinating stories about the people who saved these cars and kept them running while the outside world looked away.

Check out your local booksellers for these and other automotive books this Christmas season. Someone in your family will be glad you did.

This story was originally published December 14, 2016 at 3:20 PM with the headline "Car books make great Christmas gifts."