The success story of the Porsche firm is entwined with the life's work of Ferry Porsche. Under his leadership, the construction office founded by his father Ferdinand in 1931 became an independent automobile manufacturer that built the first sports cars bearing the Porsche name back in 1948. With the Porsche 356, and later the Porsche 911, Ferry Porsche realized his dream of "driving in its most beautiful form." As a visionary and entrepreneurial personality, he developed Porsche into an internationally admired sports-car producer. This richly illustrated and elaborately designed biography, produced by the Porsche Museum on the occasion of its subject's 100th birthday, documents the life of one of the world's most important automotive pioneers, an individual whose ideas made industrial, design and business history. Part of a collectible series, it includes many unpublished images and documents from the company's historical archives.

An exclusive look at one of the world's most successful and controversial companies, and the mysterious family behind it.

BMW is arguably the most admired carmaker in the world. It's financial performance is the envy of its competitors, and BMW products inspire near-fanatical loyalty. While many carmakers struggle with falling sales, profits and market share, demand for BMWs continues to grow, frequently outpacing production. Now, David Kiley-Detroit Bureau Chief at USA Today and author of Getting the Bugs Out, which covered Volkswagen's demise and rebirth, goes inside the fabled German automaker to see how it does what it does so well. With unprecedented access to BMW executives, Kiley goes behind the walls of BMW's famed "Four Cylinders" headquarters in Munich at a time when the company is in its most aggressive, and some say riskiest, expansion in its history and when some of the company's new products, like the 7 Series sedan and Z4 roadster, are for the first time drawing as many barbs from critics as bouquets. Kiley covers intimate details of the boardroom drama surrounding the company's nearly disastrous acquisition and subsequent sale of the British Rover Group and its expansion into selling MINI and Rolls Royce cars. Besides being a world-class carmaker, BMW is also considered one of the smartest consumer marketing companies and Kiley explores the extraordinary value and management of the BMW brand mystique. He also takes a revealing look at the mysterious and ultra-private Quandt family of Bad Homburg Germany, which owns a controlling stake in BMW: Johanna and Susanne Quandt, two of the wealthiest women in Europe and Stefan Quandt, one of the wealthiest bachelors on the continent.

David Kiley (Ann Arbor, MI) is the Detroit Bureau Chief at USA Today who has covered the auto industry for 17 years. He has been featured on Nightline, CNBC, CNN, MSNBC, NPR and the Today show. He is also the author of Getting the Bugs Out: The Rise, Fall, and Comeback of Volkswagen in America (0-471-26304-4), also available from Wiley.

A complete technical, model-by-model, history of BMW's most popular motorcycle: the machine that invented the modern adventure touring activity.

The mention of BMW brings to mind legendary cars like pre-war 328, the 507, "Baroque Angel", Isetta, 02 or M1, 3 or 7 series. From the Dixi to the 1 series: this book tells the legendary history of the Bavarian automobile firm.

In 1945, Enzo Ferrari, the onetime director of Scuderia Ferrari, Alfa Romeo’s fabled racing program, emerged from Alfa’s shadow to create his own legend. Out of the rubble of World War II, Ferrari established an auto works whose products would surpass anything before seen. Demand for handcrafted racing cars in postwar Italy, however, was slight. At the urging of a former colleague, Ferrari found a profitable niche for his creations in America–which still remains Ferrari’s biggest market.

Now esteemed automotive journalist, historian, and photographer Dennis Adler presents Ferrari: The Road from Maranello–the stunningly illustrated story of one of the most coveted and recognized automobile lines in the world. Written with the full cooperation of the Ferrari works, this sumptuous book is illuminated throughout with more than 200 color and one hundred fifty archival black-and-white photos, some of which have never before been published. Featured are many legendary Ferraris from road and track: the Tipo 125, Ferrari’s debut production racer; the Farina Cabriolet, the first Ferrari for consumers; the 212 coupe (the Inter); the 365 GTB/4 Daytona; the 312 series cars that dominated world endurance racing in the early 1970s; the incomparable Testa Rossa and Berlinetta Boxer series; the brutally powerful F50, “the fastest road car ever”; and Ferrari’s Grand Prix and Formula One cars, driven by champions from Alberto Ascari to Niki Lauda to Michael Schumacher.

Chronicled in interviews with racing legends including Dan Gurney, Carroll Shelby, and Phil Hill, as well as renowned Ferrari designers Sergio Pininfarina, Sergio Scaglietti, and many others is the fascinating history of Ferrari through its successes and failures, setbacks and triumphs. Here are first-person stories of legendary battles pitting Ferrari against Ford, Porsche, and other marques on race circuits from Monaco and Monza to Daytona and Le Mans.

Stylishly written and highlighted by magnificent photography, Ferrari is a fitting tribute to the ultimate expressions of automotive excellence.

Since 1977 Karl Ludvigsen's Porsche: Excellence Was Expected has been regarded as the definitive work on Porsche history. In this masterwork Ludvigsen presents the inner workings, masterpieces and failures of an independent automaker that has exerted a disproportionately powerful influence on the automotive industry. Remarkable both for its breadth of coverage and its technical depth, Excellence Was Expected covers every Porsche road and racing car from the company's beginnings through the development of the 2009 Panamera.

In this first revision since 2003, Ludvigsen has updated the three-volume set through 2008, including five augmented chapters, five completely new chapters, and 230 new images. The five new chapters feature full-color artwork throughout and cover the RS Spyder, the Cayman, the Type 997, the 997-based GT racers and the Panamera. He also looks closely at Wendelin Wiedeking's financially savvy stewardship of the Porsche company through the first decade of the twenty-first century.

With this new edition, Excellence Was Expected remains "the definitive archetypal marque history" (Autocar) that it was in its first edition. And Karl Ludvigsen continues to set the bar high for automotive historians, just as the company he chronicles continues to shape our very definition of the term "sports car."

New for the 2008 edition

* 257 new or revised pages and 230 new photos

* Five new full color chapters covering the RS Spyder, the Cayman, the Type 997 production and GT cars, and the Panamera

* Updated coverage of the Boxster, the Type 996, the Cayenne and the Carrera GT

* Updated Competition Victories appendix