Product description
Large format book about the legendary Italian brand.
Year of release: 2003
Publisher: Slovart
Binding: sewn in hardcover
Format: 270 x 340 mm
Number of pages: 192
Condition: Excellent
1 200,00 CZK
Author: Brian Laban
Only 2 left in stock
Large format book about the legendary Italian brand.
Year of release: 2003
Publisher: Slovart
Binding: sewn in hardcover
Format: 270 x 340 mm
Number of pages: 192
Condition: Excellent
| Weight | 1,953 kg |
|---|

A lifelong passion for motorcycle racing, careful study of archives, collection of memories of eyewitnesses and period photographs, programs of long-forgotten races and newspaper clippings, translated into clearly arranged 270 large-format pages in hardcover. This is what Jan Lahner's magnum opus, Czechoslovak Roads 1945-1955, looks like. Renowned motoring historian Jan Lahner has compiled a unique work documenting motorcycle racing on our roads in the first post-war decade. Each year of this period is dedicated to one chapter, describing in detail individual motorcycle races. Each chapter is supplemented by biographies of the racers who met in those years on road races and formed the top of the time. The lives of racers such as Kostlivec, Bubeníček, Lucák, Dusil, Kněz, Jiří and Jaroslav Simandl, or Jiří Koštíř and many others have not yet been published anywhere. Similarly, many of the more than 600 black and white photographs contained in the book have not yet been known to the public. The last chapters contain technical descriptions of interesting racing motorcycles and a clearly arranged table of all recorded race results.

To give a concise overview of the extensive content, it is possible to write that the representative publication captures the author's dedication to the specific discipline of automobile racing, held with various variations up to the present day. The intention of the first year of the competition, which began to be prepared in the Autoklub na Opletalová in February 1933, was to promote the domestic automobile industry affected by the economic crisis. The description of the three pre-war years takes up two-thirds of the publication's content. Some of the original photographs of the competition cars were stored in the archives of the Technical Museum, photos of the prototypes were discovered quite by chance in an unused archive, another series of photographs were borrowed from family albums of generations that know the direct participants only from preserved oral memories. Details of the individual years are presented by copies of the period press. Several original photographs show factory cars that never participated in any other races or competitions; after the end of the first year of the "miles", they were destroyed by the manufacturer - they did not live up to expectations. The following pages describe the commemorative years starting in 1970, when there were already enough enthusiastic owners of historic vehicles across the country. The last part contains the lists of starters and the results tables of the pre-war years.

author: Antonin Bahenský, Ota Šaffek, Tomáš Hyan

Acceptable distances between populated places, as well as a good road network in Central Bohemia, have made it possible to write an interesting history of racing in this region. Long-distance races, hill races and city circuits began to be held here more than 110 years ago. In many towns, racing had only a fleeting existence and after the first year, no more followed (Kralupy nad Vltavou, Vlašim, Horoměřice, Roztoky u Prahy). However, there were places where racing took place for several decades (Městec Králové – 40 years; Kolín – 16 years; Mělník – 13 years). For each of the thirty-nine places, the authors found the exact race routes, information from the organizing activities and result lists with the names of competitors, both known and unknown, and spiced everything up with interesting facts from the period press. Witnesses will reminisce over the pages, and representatives of the younger generations will wonder where and on what roads the racers fought for supremacy.