Book Review: Apollo GT, The American Ferrari

Title: Apollo GT, The American Ferrari
Author: Robb Northrop
Price: $99.95 (includes shipping in the USA and $139.95 includes international shipping) – order at this link
Length: 138 pages
Binding: hardbound
Publisher: AutoCopy Publishing
ISBN: 978-1-930182-99-8

Review by Mike Gulett –

I believe this is the only book on the subject of the Apollo GT and that will make it a rare addition to any car book collection.

The history is fascinating and has been recorded here with great attention to detail. The table of contents below shows the scope taken on by the author.

Table of Contents

Prologue – The miracle on ingenuity
Chapter One – The sports car market circa 1960 is the seed for the Apollo
Chapter Two – Defining the Apollo
Chapter Three – Frank Reisner, coachbuilder
Chapter Four – Designing – and building – the chassis
Chapter Five – The Buick Fireball aluminum V8
Chapter Six – Styling the Apollo, building the prototype
Chapter Seven – The organization of International Motor Cars
Chapter Eight – From prototype to production
Chapter Nine – The 6,000-mile production line
Chapter Ten – Marketing and selling Apollos
Chapter Eleven – A convertible, a 2+2, and future concepts
Chapter Twelve – In search of investors
Chapter Thirteen – IMC suspends production
Chapter Fourteen – Finding Apollo’s financial savior
Chapter Fifteen – Apollo flies again, then crashes
Epilogue – Life goes on
Appendices – Specifications, Bibliography
About The Author

This is a beautiful book that is presented very well. I do wish it had more photos of Apollo cars but there are many images not seen before by most people. The author conducted interviews with all, or most, of the key people involved in the Apollo GT including the three founders: Milt Brown, Ron Plescia and Ned Davis.

There is a chapter on the history of sports cars in the 1950s and 1960s that led to the development of the Apollo. This includes market research done before the Apollo was designed and built and the history of Intermeccanica (the Apollo coachbuilder) is covered as well.

On marketing the Apollo GT Milt Brown said,

From a marketing standpoint what was innovative is that we figured we could make it just selling in California. That’s where the market was.

In Los Angeles, people would go crazy over the car. We appealed to a lot of doctors and professional people. Almost every buyer that we know of used it as a daily driver.

The Appendices provides the technical specifications and the number of cars made by body type and manufacturer (International Motor Cars, Vanguard Motors and Apollo International).

The price of this book is not cheap but does include shipping and takes into account that this is a low volume book making it rare like the Apollo GT itself.

I recommend this book for anyone interested in the subject of the Apollo GT.

Let us know what you think in the Comments.

Summary

Article Name

Book Review: Apollo GT, The American Ferrari

Description

This is a beautiful book that is presented very well and tells a fascinating story. The author conducted many interviews with all, or most, of the key people involved in the Apollo GT.

Author

Mike Gulett