BRM V16 in camera

By Anthony Pritchard

If success were measured in column inches, BRM’s sophisticated, unreliable, ingenious, overdue flag-waver would be king of the hill instead of the most famous flop in racing.

Pritchard opens naturally with the story of ERA (making the embarrassing point that after the war one ERA could still beat the V16) and giving the context of pre-war racing before showing us the machine in detail, with drawings, photos and sidebars. At this point the book switches to a photo-based format, with large captions taking us from its ignominious debut, through its redundancy to those few flashes of Formule Libre success.

A post-V16 chapter hints at BRM’s future glory, while driver biogs, race records and detailed technical papers complete the package.

With each race separately described, results, and quotes from various V16 drivers, it’s a useful reference. GC

Published by Haynes Publishing ISBN 978 0 85733 235 6, £60