I’m often a pretty serious reader, but except for serious tech books have never found anything auto related that I thought was even worth a second glance.
This however, did well to catch my eye, and keep my attention throughout. Written by a self described non-car guy, it did occasionally bore and annoy with attempted technical descriptions, but I was intrigued by and enjoyed the many people described within… so much so that I read the whole book in just three sittings.
“Ingenious” is a non-fiction account of the automotive X-prize: the quest for a real world 100mpg gallon. Of all the X-prizes, the automotive one probably interests me the least… just because in my mind it was poorly executed and designed, and perhaps so attainable that the approaches taken to “achieve” it were anything but ingenious. The book though, does a great job of reviving the topic… and my spirit of automotive discovery.
Strongly recommended.