March - The Rise and Fall of a Motor Racing Legend

By: Mike Lawrence . 2001 Reprint of 1987 Classic Original "Four Guys and A Telephone"

This is an expanded edition of one of the classics of motor racing literature, a book which commanded the widespread acclaim of reviewers when it first appeared under the title The Story of March: Four Guys and a Telephone. But the story it told was still ongoing when Mike Lawrence's original edition was published, and as this expanded work reveals, the final years of March were as dramatic as the twenty which had preceded it.

The crucial ingredient which has enabled this book to stand apart from so many others is the willingness of the key players in the drama to reveal all to the author in a remarkable expression of openness and honesty, for the story behind this most prolific manufacturer of racing cars really is a 'warts and all' tale. These candid interviews, plus access to private correspondence, contracts and proposals for future projects, have been combined with Lawrence's vast knowledge of the sport and his superb, lively prose style to produce a manuscript which will grip even those with only a superficial interest in motor racing.

By concentrating on the people involved he gets under the skin of his subject, exposing the collective thinking of a group of optimistic enthusiasts who began with a bright idea, became the most successful production racing car manufacturers the sport had ever known, only ultimately for their enterprise to miss a gear, become over-revved and slide off the track and he posted as a retirement. Along the way the author records the humour, the scams, the brushes with bankruptcy, the successes and the failures, and he reveals the truth behind many incidents which have puzzled people for years.

Those who want technical descriptions and chassis numbers of the cars and their key race results will find them all at the back of the book in extensive chronological appendices. The result is a unique book of motor racing, one which tells a remarkable story at the same time as being an invaluable work of reference.

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