Still Life with Cars

<p> Most childhood fascinations are a passing fancy but something about cars tends to capture the imagination forever. Witness the countless backyard weed-wrapped classics rusted just shy of a shadow slated one day for a return to glory; cloudy vacation memories of choking exhaust deafening engines and blinding chrome; countless white-knuckled highway moments as the driver faces backwards to better glimpse some passing oddity spotted four lanes over. Somehow cars have a way of getting into a kid's blood. Any chronic condition requires a lifetime of maintenance. John Lumley caught the fever early--likely from a midnight blue Hudson--and it's been with him ever since.</p><p> This engaging memoir follows a life spent nursing an obsession with cars fitting for a son of Detroit's heyday. With occasional play in the garage of the Ford estate and an excursion to see Buckminster Fuller's three-wheeled Dymaxion among his earliest memories John Lumley's enduring love of cars is no surprise. From those childhood adventures followed a lifetime spent elbow-deep in engines--Nash Hupmobile Mercury Citroen Triumph Volkswagen Lagonda Armstrong-Siddeley Bentley and more many of them pictured. Though his career was devoted to loftier pursuits the grease beneath his nails perhaps best sums up Lumley's lifelong love. Fifty-eight photographs and an index accompany the text.</p>