This wonderful book delivers exactly what the title states, a list, in chronological order of 500 of the coolest cars ever made. Of course the book is filled with the supercars that make fanatics drool like the Ferrari Enzo, Lamborghini Countach, and the Aston Martin DB5. It isn't all 6 and 7 figure supercars though, there are quite a few more practical and eclectic cars thrown into the mix. Things like the 1965 Ford Transit Van and the 1962 Peel P50.
Every entry is accompanied by a photo of the car and short entry giving some information or thoughts on the vehicle.
Being a BBC book the whole thing has a bit of eurocentric feel as may be expected. Of he 500 cars featured it seems that about 90% of them are European. The few American cars included feel like they were included only grudgingly and usually have some backhanded compliments or snide remarks in the entry. A few examples:
From the 1953 Chevrolet Corvette, "It ought to be stressed, however, that while there has never been a truly bad 911 (speaking of the Porsche), there has seldom been a Corvette that qualified as even half-way good."
From the 2000 Saleen S7, "Although Americans are widely, and quite rightly, ridiculed for most of the detritus they manufacture in the name of motoring, there are some monumental exceptions."
From the 2004 Cadillac CTS-V, "Cadillac has never made much of an impression on the UK, perhaps because we didn't want overpriced, dynamically redundant saloons with slushy auto boxes and all the class of a pimp's thong."
While it wasn't much of a problem for me, if your love is for American cars then you should look elsewhere. I personally enjoyed seeing lots of the lesser well known European cars I'd never been exposed to before.
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