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BOOK REVIEWS
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Brun Motorsport
Reviews Nathan Chadwick
The man, the machines and the moustache – the rise, fall and rise again of the privateer who beat Porsche
FEW TEAMS CAN CLAIM TO have defeated a Works racing outfit within just a year of setting up shop, but Walter Brun – or Walti as he is better known – did just that. With 964 pages, this expansive, €450, three-volume set chronicles the life and works of Walti between 1966 and 2009 – but it is Brun Motorsport’s rise and fall from 1983 to 1991 that anchors the tale. Yet to focus on this era is to diminish the talents of one of Switzerland’s most driven performers. By the end of the 1960s he’d come to prominence in circuit racing and hillclimbing, winning a European title in the latter in 1971, the same year as his Le Mans class victory in a Porsche 907. After a
decade of privateer racing in BMW Procars, DRM and endurance events, Walti moved into team management, and having bought the assets of the GS-Sport team, he purchased a Porsche 956. This brought Walti’s first Interserie win, and much more competitive showings in sportscar events. The second volume runs from 1984-87, and covers a tumultuous period. Successes soon followed, with Brun’s first World Sportscar Championship victories and a DRM title for Stefan Bellof, but it would be marked by tragedy. Bellof’s death at Spa in 1985 in a Brun car is still a great source of pain for Walti, as revealed in his foreword. However, it spurred the
team on to greater success in 1986. Brun won the WSC, beating the Works Porsche team, Jaguar and Mercedes-Benz, and would be highly competitive around the globe. That would be the high point, however – from 1988, there was a disastrous foray into Formula 1 (as EuroBrun), and a brave but doomed attempt to build the team’s own endurance racer. By the end of 1991, it was all over. As covered in volume three, Walti stepped away from the limelight, taking the rest of the 1990s to pay off his debts. But the passion never went away, and in 2000 he returned to the track for sporadic GT racing efforts up to 2009. This is all captured in sumptuous
archive photography, printed on quality paper. It’s a shame there isn’t space for Thomas Nehlert, Eckhard Schimpf and Peter Wyss to relay more tales of Walti’s unconventional antics. You do get fleeting hints of this character, with rare images of Brun gatecrashing Fiorano with a Porsche 959 for a magazine twin test with Gerhard Berger in a Ferrari F40 – the two swapping places mid-track, much to the chagrin of the Ferrari PR team. This is only a minor gripe, as this lovingly produced book, instigated by Brun’s son Sascha, is a delight for avowed Group C fans. Just 350 copies are being printed, and it comes highly recommended. www.sportfahrer-zentrale.com
CLASSIC CAR AUCTION YEARBOOK 2021-2022
DRIVEN TO CRIME: TRUE STORIES OF WRONGDOING IN MOTOR RACING
MOTOR SHOW CONCEPTS & RARITIES
BMW M: 50 YEARS OF THE ULTIMATE DRIVING MACHINES
Now in full colour throughout, Adolfo Orsi’s annual guide to global market moves also covers the emerging world of online-only auctions, too. There is plenty of granular detail on overall trends, plus comments and results on 8431 cars. This includes pre-sale estimates, which are easy to contrast with the actual results – often omitted come result time. There’s also some amusing oddities – particularly in how the Uhlenhaut Coupé sale skewed the usual market make-up. This €90, 416-page book is an essential reference for buyers and sellers. www.hortonsbooks.co.uk
With true-crime TV documentaries becoming irrepressibly popular, Crispian Besley’s 480-page, £40 book is a timely read. However, while many docs can seem exploitative and some crime tomes glamorise criminality, it’s not the case here. The tales are gripping and exciting, but in the most part it’s clear the wrongdoers end up with a bitter pill after the sweetness of hollow successes – although some could easily translate to TV or film. While the seriousness of the crimes and the effects on the victims aren’t flinched from, it’s still a page-turner. www.evropublishing.com
Lewis Mitchell’s book might not carry the weight of a large publisher behind it, but what it lacks in ultimate polish it makes up for in memory-stimulating photographs of some of the weirdest and most wonderful creations to grace motor shows. Largely drawing on his own archive material, the showgoer’s-eye view of this £17.99, 84-page book is a potent reminder of peering across event stands in a distant, pre-web era. Not one for image-quality nerds, but for summoning forth an ambience, a feeling, it’s oddly very effective. www.motorshowphotos.co.uk
Tony Lewin’s £35, 224-page book is as bold and colourful as the cars it depicts – and there’s no doubting the quality of the printing and imagery. However, although this tome provides a good overview of the BMW M story for someone fairly new to the subject, aficionados will find little they won’t have seen or read elsewhere. While interviews with the likes of Markus Flasch and Marcus Syring give a flavour of M’s present and future, it’s disappointing not to hear more tales from an illustrious past only hinted at in Jochen Neerpasch’s foreword. www.quartoknows.com
Magneto
