Book Review: Mario Andretti Photo Album by Peter Nygaard
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No surprise that recent media interviews leading up to the US Grand Prix are reaching for former world champions with US ties like Jacques Villeneuve and of course the legendary Mario Andretti. Over the years, I have collected a few books on both drivers. One Andretti book is Peter Nygaard’s 1999 photo book ‘Mario Andretti – Photo Album’ which was part of a world champions series book run by Iconographix.
The book has a simple 1 page summary of his career (if that’s possible) and 2 sections – photos of his F1 career and photos of his career outside F1 (sportscars, indycar/champcar and Le Mans). One difficulty about writing any book on Mario Andretti is that his career has spanned so many categories.
Ok, lets get the obvious criticisms out of the way – the color photo of the JPS Lotus 79 gracing the cover may be a little misleading, since the rest of the photo book is entirely full of black & white shots and the page paper quality maybe isn’t the greatest – but, on the flip side, there are also some rare photos too – Mario in the widenose 312B2 (the only other photos of this version I have seen is color shots of Regazzoni’s car in Schlegelmilch’s F1errari and Ferrari Formula 1) and the 1975 Parnelli Jones VPJ4-Ford. Throw in some photos of the Lotus 63 and race photos from the back part of Mario’s F1 career in Essex Lotus 81, Alfa Romeo 179, Williams FW07C and the Ferrari 126CK2.
This is a simple book and while there have been better Andretti books published, they no doubt cost a lot more…
Wow Factor or the Money Shot: Mario driving the hammerhead front wing version Ferrari 312B2 at Kyalami in 1972 (even if its black & white).
Suitable for: Mario fans, of course
Lotus 79 dream team…
Stand-in drives for Williams and Ferrari
Highly successful Indycar career
