Book Review: Ferrari 312T Owners’ Workshop Manual by Nick Garton
:
Positives
Negatives
Last month I posted a review of MCG’s 1:18 scale iconic Lauda Ferrari 312T2. The 312T series was included in the Haynes’ series of Owners Manuals covering various well known F1 race cars.
Written by Nick Garton, this book adopts the familiar chapter format of the Haynes manuals which cover:
- 1974-1980 seasons covering the 312T, 312T2, 312T3, 312T4 and 312T5.
- anatomy of the 312T: chassis, aero, cockpit, suspension, brakes, tyres, engine and gearbox
- Ferrari 312T drivers – Lauda, Regazonni, Villeneuve, Scheckter
- Ferrari engineers
- 1976 season
- Chassis history
- Private ownership of 312T historic cars
- Racing stats
This book includes the preparation of the Ferrari 312T used for Ron Howard’s Rush movie. It’s a bit ambitious in that it tries to cover the whole evolution of the 312T cars and maybe it might have been better to just focus on dissecting the 312T2.
I feel this book comes up short from the Haynes manuals written by Steve Rendle (McLaren MP4/4, Williams FW14B and Red Bull RB6). The excellent Rendle books have much more in-depth content on the anatomy and technical details of each car which typically runs near 100+ pages. The technical chapter in this 312T book is only 23 pages.
Although not as good as the Steve Rendle car manuals, this book still contains a lot of the history of the 312T and has a awesome collection of colour action photos from many of famous F1 photographers.
Wow Factor/Money shot: Gilles in the 312T3
Suitable for: Tifosi
