Librarian"s Perspective / Gottfried Hogh

Lesson 5: It"s in the books . . .

This is not a book review of Karl Ludvigsen"s new book, this is a short account of how a book found its way into my library.

For an initial evaluation of "Porsche, Excellence Was Expected" I"ll refer you to Bill Block"s review in the recent issue of "356 Registry magazine", vol. 27, no. 3, September/October 2003. I can"t compete here nor am I interested in duplicating Bill"s effort on ten days access to the second edition of this contribution to Porsche literature and on my quite short time of 356 experience compared to that of "Doc Block".

Some years ago, as I looked over the automobile magazines at the Ann Arbor Borders bookstore my eyes chanced on an unusual title: "Excellence." The cover illustration identified the journal as one in which I was definitely interested. After all I was looking for any information on past and present Porsche sports cars. Books and magazines were my starting point. This happened some years before I joined the Gruppe or the 356 Registry, some time before I had friends and acquaintances who had intimate knowledge on the subject of Porsche automobiles.

The title: "Excellence" was somewhat unexpected, since I"d been used to the standard American automobile magazine fare (C&D, R&T, etc.) and other such European publications as "Autocar" and "Auto, Motor und Sport." While leafing through the glossy magazine gave me an overview of its editorial direction, that offered no clue as to the origin or reason for the title. In my ignorance I attributed it to possible hype from the magazine publisher; I still had a lot to learn.

There were as yet few books on automobiles in my collection, and of those only two or three on the subject of Porsches. At that point I had not yet seen a single issue of the "Three Five Six Forum" nor of "Auspuff Roar." Well, as I intimated in an article of the previous issue (v12.4) of Auspuff Roar, things rapidly changed for me about six years ago, as I contemplated acquiring a "TYP 356". My Porsche book collection rapidly grew to about 16 volumes, still modest by any aficionado"s standards, but sufficient for me to detect one common thread running through the often poor to neglected citation and reference section of these "popular" Porsche books. In many of the better sources I began to note references to Karl Ludvigsen"s 1977 edition on Porsche development and history. At the same time, the quandary on the origins of the Excellence magazine title resolved itself. However, search as I may, access to a copy of the much referenced book remained elusive until I found a copy on Sebastian"s shelf of automobile books. For a long time I just referred to it for answers to particular question which came up as we prepared images and stories for out Gruppe newsletter. Finally, about a year ago I asked to borrow that first edition for some weeks. After reading it from cover to cover and learning that a second edition was in the offing, I knew that edition two of Karl Ludvigsen"s book was a must-have addition to my library. The question is, do you need them?

Let me briefly describe this set of three volumes nominally covering the 1900 - 2003 period. From the outside in, there is a gray slipcover measuring 5.375 x 10.125 x 11.5 inches, containing three maroon clothbound codices totaling 1531 pages, that measure 9.375 x 10.5 inches. As you can observe in the central illustration below, the entire book weighs about 18.5 lbs. The text is arranged in two unjustified columns and regularly interspersed with black and white illustrations. Near the center of each volume there is bound a fascicle of color illustrations in a "Porsche Portfolio". Each volume carries a complete table of contents and index. There are a total of 61 chapters, a couple of prefaces (vol. 1) and appendices (vol. 3), and the expected acknowledgment and bibliography to complete the work. There were fewer than ten days between my acquiring the volumes and the requirement to put some comment on the content into this issue of our newsletter. The big question was, where to start reading.

A brief and superficial comparison of the early pages in both editions showed me that the text and illustrations had changed in only small increments. The main elements are small footnotes added to explain some of the text and changes in the illustrations enabled by the larger page size. Some of the first edition illustrations which were spread across two facing pages are now contained on a single page in edition 2. There are some minor image "scale changes" but the graphic quality of these is otherwise unaltered. Of course, the better quality of illustrations in the last volume reflects the technical improvements in photography over the past half century and the self conscious maintenance of graphic records of an increasingly important automotive concern.

A major question in my mind was how Karl Ludvigsen would treat the events since the first edition was sent to the printers. Expectations were that his participation in the automotive industry of the period would give him even greater insights into the personalities and the model and business cycles at Porsche during the last quarter century or so. A very cursory examination of his account on development of the Boxster leads me to think that I"ll get a better understanding from his couple of chapters on this topic, than from the "Boxster books" and articles I"ve collected so far.

Why did I buy this book? How did I buy it? The answer to the first question is that it is great to have an excellent and unified account of the history of Porsche, even if this is spread across three volumes and these give the superficial appearance of a "coffee table book". This is no "coffee table book" but is a great asset to any automobile aficionado"s library. I may go as far as to say that it ought to be present on most of our Gruppe member"s bookshelves. I have no financial interest here, only an interest in spreading the Porsche gospel. Karl Ludvigsen"s new book is the definitive testament.

Finally, a few words on how this edition found its way in my library. I had placed my "pre-order" with "Bentley Publishers" on 31 March and by 2 April my VISA account had been debited, for an early September product delivery. Only after realizing that the goods would not arrive in time for a book signing session scheduled at Stoddard Imported Cars, Willoughby, OH and after some good advice from Chuck Stoddard himself, did I cancel the "pre-order" and place the order with Stoddard Imported Cars. That arrangement allowed me to make a quick trip with Sebastian and obtain my and Heath Hurlbert"s copies in time to have them autographed by the author. Even better than Karl"s signature on the title page was the opportunity mediated by Chuck and Cynthia, to spend some very pleasant and informative hours with the author and his gracious wife, Annette.

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