Rare F1 Books

Rare out of print F1 Books

This is a list of rare or hard to find Grand Prix and Formula 1 books that are generally considered to be collector’s items.  Most have expensive price tags starting from US$100/€80 and some are much higher. I’ve added a general price range guide which will give some indication of its rarity.

Note: This is not a complete list but I will update it from time to time as I regularly update my own more detailed lists, so come back to the site again and check. I’ve added price ranges based on a sample history of past and current sale prices on various online sites – so if you are trying to work out a valuation, please do your own research – prices depend a lot on book condition, geographic location to other buyer/collectors and timing. As I post up reviews of some of these books that I have in my own collection, I will add review links inside the table.

As you can see, there is a common pattern to most  of these rare grand prix books – the content usually involves the pre-war era of the dominant Auto Union or Silver Arrows cars, Ayrton Senna or Ferrari…

[Last updated: September 2020]

Luxury F1 Books

Some books aren’t old and rare, they are just new and expensive with limited print runs! I call these “luxury F1 books” and they are targeted to the die-hard collector and/or super-rich.

I’ve tried to compile a list (see below), again not a complete list but I will slowly update it. Being limited runs, most of these books have higher end production quality with slip cases and corresponding price tags.

The Opus books are easily the most expensive: Formula 1 Opus starting at a measly £3,000 for the Classic Edition and £20,000 for the signed Champions Edition!

Ferrari Opus is definitely the most expensive read of all – it comes in 4 versions: Classic Edition for $3,520 (with 4100 copy print run), the Cavallino Rampante Edition $6,545 for (500 print run), the Enzo edition for $34,925 (400 print run) and the diamond encrusted cover Enzo Diamante edition for $275,000 (20 copies only, maximum of one per country).