BOYS OF ANY age are bound to have a petrol-powered obsession tucked away in their heads. They’ve probably told you about it a thousand times, but if you weren’t listening, here’s a pretty sure rule of thumb: male motor fans are usually into the hot machines and heroes of their youth. It’s a chap thing.

Regardless of age, though, there’s one book guaranteed to get any Formula One fan shouting incoherently. It’s Murray Walker, the Very Last Word (Haynes, £6.99; offer, £5.94), the life story of the man who brought the world such priceless pearls as “With the race half-gone there is still half the race to go”, and “There’s nothing wrong with the car, except it’s on fire.” Marvellous stuff.

One to get Murray himself misty-eyed is Tony Gardiner’s Motor Racing at Goodwood in the Sixties (Veloce, £9.99; offer, £8.49). That was the classic decade of racing at the famous West Sussex track run by the eccentric aristo Lord March. Top-flight competition ceased at the circuit at the end of the Sixties when the cars became too powerful for its tight corners. One notable victim was Stirling Moss, whose horrific crash ended his career.

This modestly-priced book is a photographic nostalgia-fest of the days when drivers were daring, dashing (if often tragically short-lived) gladiators, rather than today’s charisma-free steering robots.

Spin back a decade, and this year’s must for any fiftysomething petrolhead is Chris Nixon’s Sportscar Heaven (Transport Bookman, £49.99; offer, £39.99) — the story of the 1957-59 world championships, which pitted the glamorous Aston Martins against the equally gorgeous Ferraris.

It’s hard to believe that people used to fling these astonishing pieces of sculpture about with reckless abandon. Adopt a similarly cavalier attitude when shelling out the asking price.

On to two wheels, and race fans are going wild over a young, cheeky, Italian who has adopted Britain as his home and can make motorbikes do improbable things. In Valentino Rossi, MotoGenius (Haynes, £14.99, offer, £11.99) Mat Oxley tells of the man who, at the age of 23, has won four world championships and been hailed as one of the greatest riders ever.

Anyone with points on their licence will find a kindred spirit in Donald Campbell, the British blur who in 1964 became the fastest man on both water and land. He lost his life crashing on Coniston Water three years later. Leap Into Legend: Donald Campbell and the Complete Story of the World Speed Records (Sigma Press, £17.95; offer, £14.36), chronicles the successes and failures of many other attempts on land, water and even in space. Author Steve Holter provides plenty of detail on the many Bluebird cars, boats and planes raced during the 20th century.

Lastly, if you can put up with endless renditions of “You’re only supposed to blow the bloody doors off”, Cars in Films (Haynes, £19.99; offer, £15.99) is Santa’s treat for motor-mad cineastes.

Martin Buckley and Andrew Roberts have produced a genre-by-genre lowdown on the cars that are the stars, in everything from Genevieve to Die Another Day. Prepare for a seasonal snowstorm of “Not a lot of people know that” facts.

• BEST BUY
  Nixon’s Sportscar Heaven

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