Jacky Ickx is one of the true greats of motor racing. In a career spanning nearly 40 years, he was both highly successful and hugely versatile, racing at the highest level in a wide variety of categories - including Formula 1, sports cars, touring cars and rally raids - and winning throughout. Among many accolades, he won the Le Mans 24 Hours an unprecedented six times and twice finished runner-up in the Formula 1 World Championship. This exhaustively researched book has been written with his full co-operation and outlines every one of the 565 races that he contested in cars and on motorcycles, forming a detailed and insightful record of his racing life supported by over 850 photographs, many of which have never been published before. This is a racing driver's biography of exceptional depth that all motorsport enthusiasts will treasure. Key content * Starting in motorcycle trials, Ickx was twice crowned Belgian champion before switching to four wheels; he immediately proved himself a winner in touring cars and single-seaters, becoming European Formula 2 Champion in 1967. * From 1967, he established himself as a star in sports cars, driving blue-and-orange Gulf Mirages and Ford GT40s to numerous successes, culminating in his first Le Mans victory in 1969 with its famously close finish. * Snapped up by Ferrari for 1968, he achieved a heroic first Formula 1 victory in that year's rain-soaked French Grand Prix, confirming his career-long reputation for peerless driving in wet weather. * Other than one season with Brabham, Ickx spent his best Formula 1 years with Ferrari, achieving eight wins in the period 1968-72, and twice finishing second in the World Championship standings, with Brabham (1969) and Ferrari (1970). * Post-Ferrari, his Formula 1 fortunes waned but he thrived in sports cars, claiming three successive Le Mans victories, with Mirage in 1975, then with Porsche. * After his fifth Le Mans win in 1981, the rebirth of sports car racing in the Group C era from 1982 saw Ickx as anchorman in the all-conquering works Porsche team, a four-year period that brought his record sixth Le Mans victory, 12 wins in total, and two World Champion titles. * After retirement from circuit racing, his later career took him into entirely different motorsport adventures in rally raids, where his Paris-Dakar record includes victory in 1983 (driving a Mercedes-Benz) and second places in 1986 (Porsche) and 1989 (Peugeot).

This Limited Edition comes with a unique cover and a pristine slipcase with metallic foil print. The print run is limited to world-wide 1113 copies. At a stunning size of 12" x 14" (30.5cm x 35.5cm), and with full spread images spanning 24" in width, this first book of a new fiction series will open the doors to a parallel history of racing. Daniel Simon designed for Bugatti, Lotus, Formula 1 and penned unforgettable vehicles for Hollywood movies like Tron: Legacy or Oblivion. This is his second book after Cosmic Motors.
Simon will present in this series over the next years fictitious racing machines at impeccable detail up to 50 megapixel, including vehicle specs and maps of the tracks they raced on. All vehicles and characters are explained through the carefully written story of racer Vic Cooper, who time-travels to the past and the future to compete in the most challenging motor races between 1916 and 2615. This is episode 1, the year 2027, written in English, French and German.
Top Gear magazine says on the back cover: ' After Cosmic Motors and his adventures in Hollywood, this is Daniel Simon's next big coup. '
Design fans, car enthusiasts, CG addicts and science-fiction aficionados can enjoy Simon's parallel world through hyper-real renderings, drawings and photography of fictional drivers, managers and beautiful women. This first episode puts three uniquely designed race cars in the spotlight: The 1981 Masucci X-5, the 2027 Masucci X-7 and the 2027 Prideux -Martin MF/27.
The foreword has been written by racing legend Jacky Ickx, who raced in the 1960s, '70s and '80s for many famed teams such as Ferrari, McLaren, Porsche, Brabham or Lotus. He is the only driver to have won in Formula One, Can-Am, Le Mans, and the Paris-Dakar rally.

This sumptuous book, a feast of nostalgia, celebrates the wonderful era of the European Formula 2 Championship, 1967-84, on the 50th anniversary of its beginnings. Formula 2 pitted emerging heroes against the greats of the day and virtually all the top Formula 1 drivers - names like Jackie Stewart, Jack Brabham, Graham Hill, Jochen Rindt and Bruce McLaren in 1967 - battled with young chargers in races that thrilled huge crowds at the best European circuits, from the Nurburgring to Brands Hatch. In bringing the glory days of Formula 2 back to life in this book, passionate author Chris Witty has interviewed many of the surviving protagonists to present a colourful and evocative retrospective, supported by the work of Jutta Fausel, who photographed Formula 2 races throughout this period. Birth of the European Formula 2 Championship in 1967, when Jacky Ickx (the writer of the book's foreword) became the first champion, driving a Tyrrell-entered Matra. French Matra cars propelled the next two champions, Jean-Pierre Beltoise (1968) and Johnny Servoz-Gavin (1969), both Frenchmen. Of all the manufacturers of Formula 2 cars, March achieved the most success, Ronnie Peterson (1971) becoming the first of six champions to win in these British-built cars. A fine all-British year, 1972, saw ex-motorcycle 'great' Mike Hailwood win the championship in a Surtees car. French champions in five consecutive years: Jean-Pierre Jarier (1973), Patrick Depailler (1974), Jacques Laffite (1975), Jean-Pierre Jabouille (1976) and Rene Arnoux (1977) dominated their era and all but Jarier went on to become Grand Prix winners. Toleman and Ralt cars - also made in Britain - emerged in the final years of the championship, which saw three more British champions: Brian Henton (1980), Geoff Lees (1981) and Jonathan Palmer (1983). The other champions were Clay Regazzoni (1970), Bruno Giacomelli (1978), Marc Surer (1979), Corrado Fabi (1980) and Mike Thackwell (1984). "