New Book Review: Brabham – The Untold Story of Formula One by Tony Davis and Akos Armont
I generally consider a great example of one of the better driver books ever published was the Brabham autobiography with Doug Nye’s help “The Jack Brabham Story”. So what could a new 2019 hardcover biography on Sir Jack Brabham offer? On the back of the 2019 documentary film “Brabham”, Tony Davis and Akos Armont (the film’s director & producer) have released a new biography on the “Untold Story of Jack Brabham”.
The style of this book is in mini-chapters of 1-2 pages, each chapter tracing a key events from Jack’s early days (1948) to his passing in 2014. The chapters do jump around a bit but the bulk of the book focuses from 1955 to 1969.
Aside from the film interview content with Ron Tauranac, sons Geoff and David – the authors have relied a lot on past Brabham books and other publications to re-tell Jack’s on track races.
The “Untold” part of the biography are obviously the off-track insights by son David into his family life and how his mother and brothers played second fiddle and how Brabham almost lived a double life.
There is a collection of photos from personal collections across 8 pages in the mid-section of the book.
If you’ve not read, “The Jack Brabham Story” or “When the Flag Drops“, this book is probably a neat compilation and story-telling of Sir Jack’s achievements as a 3 times champion driver and engineer.
Wow factor/money shot: Photos from the Brabham family collection
Suitable for: 60s F1 fans
