new book on the Carrera Panamericana road race

There's more to Mexico than beach resorts and feuding drug cartels.  The Carrera Panamericana is an annual 2,000 mile (3,200 km) road rally/race from Tuxfla Gutierrez in the south of the country to Nuevo Laredo on the Texas border, in one part making a detour to take in Aguascalientaes and Zacatecas.

Manufacturers like Alfa Romeo, Mercedes Benz, Volkswagen and Porsche took advantage of it in the 1950s to demonstrate their vehicles' performances and class winner Porsche used the race for the name of its Carrera (a bit of trivia for you). The race began in 1950 and lasted only until 1954 before it was banned.  But in 1987 it was begun again.

This is a well illustrated and nicely designed pictorial history of the race from both the original 1950s and the modern era, showing the vehicles, several of them modified classic cars, the drivers, the nature of the course, the things that can happen, how they are dealt with and the general nature of the event that is an opportunity for fiesta instead of mourning for the daily drug dealing deaths.

The book has 350 photos, most of them colour action shots, and maps of both the original and current routes, 274 pages in 260 mm square format, hard cover with jacket.