Chaparral: Can Am Racing Cars from Texas Edited and forward by Karl Ludvigen Ludvigsen Library Series Icongraphix Hudson, WI 2002 $24.95 Chuck Herrmann

The innovative Chaparral racing cars designed and raced by Jim Hall are one of the most legendary of all American motorsports icons. There have been several books previously published covering this subject - now in 2002 comes this new entry, edited by noted racing journalist Karl Ludvigsen.

This 128-page book features 120 black and white photographs, most taken by Ludvigsen. It covers the years 1961 to 1980. Similar in format to Dave Friedman's Chaparral: Can Am and Prototype Race Cars, which I use as my primary Chaparral reference, this book begins with a brief text forward. This summarizes the history and highlights of Jim's Hall's Chaparral team. Then the rest of the book is photos and captions of many of the significant versions of the Chaparrals, in chronological order. Since it is a thinner volume, there are not as many photos of each car. And despite the title, this book covers not only the Can-Am cars but also the pre-Can Am USRRC and Nassau Cup cars, also a few photos of the closed 2D and 2F coupes that raced in international sports car events, Jim Hall's 1970 Trans Am factory Camaro team and also the 2K Indy racers that won the 500 in 1980.

While not as comprehensive as other books on the topic, it does contain unique images of the Chaparrals. There are several pictures of the Chaparral 2 from 1964 with different exhaust set up than I had seen previously, as well as technical drawing of the controversial 2J "sucker" car. There are a lot of detail photos of the cigar shaped 2H. And the Trans-Am and Indy photos are a nice addition, with nice interior detail shots of the Camaro. The captions also offer some insights. We learn that the 2K Indy car was the only Chaparral that was not white: since Pennzoil was the major paying sponsor it was yellow.

For modelers building a Chaparral replica this can serve as a valuable reference if your subject is included. For motor racing fans this makes a nice companion to other books on Jim Hall's famous creations, filling in a few additional images. I can recommend it to both groups of readers.