Certain Sound: Thirty Years of Motor Racing (John Wyer/GT40/Porsche 917)

This is a second-hand copy of Certain Sound: Thirty Years of Motor Racing by John Wyer.

Description: It is a hardcover and 255 pages. Published 1981. Comes with a dust jacket. Dust jacket is covered in a non-adhesive PVC cover to keep it safe. This can easily be removed.

ISBN: 2-88001-111-6

Condition: used (fine). Small tear to back of dust jacket (top middle) visible in product image. Possible UV damage but hard to tell if part of design.

From the blurb:

John Wyer's motor-racing autobiography plunges the reader headlong into the anxieties, triumphs, glories and tragedies of the sportscar racing world. A motorsport enthusiast from his childhood, John Wyer, probably the greatest racing team manager that Britain has produced, is uniquely qualified to describe the planning, tactics and organisation that brought victory to Aston Martin, Ford and Porsche under his management.

But more than this, The Certain Sound is a well-written, clearly set out argument for individuality, and for the influence that one man and his decisions can have even on the mightiest corporation. Mr Wyer's professional racing career started with Aston Martin, and in that highly individual company, in which he reported directly to David Brown, the author gradually made his influence and his ideas about the way to go motor racing felt. These were the years of the British triumphs at Le Mans and elsewhere, when Aston Martin, Jaguar and Ferrari were the cars to beat. When Aston Martin withdrew from motor racing, John Wyer was approached by Ford to help them develop a racing programme, with victory at Le Mans and a new image as their ultimate aim. The author's account of his plunge into corporate life, and his efforts to make the voice of commonsense and sanity heard in the corridors of power in Detroit, while at the same time working on and managing the car which was to become the all-conquering Ford GT40, makes one of the most interesting, if frustrating, parts of his life. After Ford came John Wyer's years of glory, when, sponsored by Gulf Oil, the Ford- Mirage GT40 and later the Gulf-Porsche 917 dominated the sportscar racing scene until the author's retirement in 1971.