Saturday, September 09, 2023

Book review, The Motorcycle, 120 Years of Motorized Masterpieces From the Haas Moto Museum (book will be released on Oct 17th)


the section break pages are quite nice







Terrific design and layout, very nice cover imprint under the dust jacket, be sure to look at that


by the numbers

About 235 pages of photos, and captions. No articles, no reason to dive into the research on every bike and all it's parts. Great photos, great collection, simple eye candy

It took 2 hours to read through, very satisfying


summed up
Better than most coffee table books, as it's the inventory of a museum, and you could go to the museum, and take photos of your favorites, but, would they be this good? Maybe. Would you see everything and get the descriptions too? Probably not. 

So, coffee table books (especially this one) impress me, as they are less expensive (or free in a library), very thorough, and quite informative beyond just being good photography. 

I learned a lot



The 1911 Zenith had a gear shift, with a sliding rear wheel that adjusted the belt length to different settings

Alejandro De Tomaso bought the Benelli company in 1971


1914 Wall Autowheel simply bolted onto a woman's bicycle

and the full page close up photos are real good! 



Crazy, right? Military Harley with a Rotax engine.1999 MT500, 355 were made. The engine is known for dirt bike racing


Alp Sungurtekin set 8 world records, and was the fastest unstreamlined, pushrod racer ever with an engine under 1000 cc. 175 at El Mirage. 
It's asymmetric handlebar design allowed Alp to twist his shoulder and reduce his aerodynamic drag



1970 Jim Gee Truimph twin engine racer, developed over ten years, and the engines rotated in opposite directions


1917 New Imperial, for the Russian market, had " War Product" on the engine. Made for the Russian govt in WW1, but was not delivered after the revolution in Russia led the UK govt to cancel the contract


great idea, the rack over the back tire rotates down and becomes the bike stand! Very cool innovation

The Haas collection seemed to have one of everything but a Böhmerland, they even have a Kimura and a Nimbus!









Wow, a collection of Michael Ulman sculptures! I love his art, I first saw it in 2007 https://justacarguy.blogspot.com/search?q=+Ulman


I only noticed 3 mistakes



If you define something once, you don't repeat it. You are advised not to give a shorter definition the 2nd time



and in the two images above, it's clear they didn't use a proofreader (I am a proofreader, I think, because I notice these things)

2 comments:

  1. I've never heard of Michael Ulman before, but his work is amazing. I can't imagine the time he must have in some of his pieces. I think I'm pretty creative, but his work makes me feel like my mind is in park or nuetral

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    Replies
    1. I hope you looked at a lot of his work, https://justacarguy.blogspot.com/search?q=+Ulman it has been a while since I posted some, but his creations have consistently been terrific and I wish someone would make a coffee table book of those!

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