I'm pretty sure there are threads with similar topics, but a quick search today didn't turn them up.

Here's something I IM'd a fellow member today, and I thought I should save it here, and provide (another?) place for this kind of thing to accumulate.

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In the order I'd read them, first time thru, approximately:

Fred Puhn - How to make your car handle.

Paul Van Valkenburg - Race Car Engineering and Mechanics.

Mark Donohue - The Unfair Advantage

Carroll Smith - Prepare to Win, Tune to Win, Engineer to Win, and Drive to Win.

Milliken & Milliken - Race Car Vehicle Dynamics

The rest of these add varying amounts of perspective:

Colin Campbell - The Sports Car, Design of Racing Sports Cars, and New Directions in Suspension Design.

Len Terry & Alan Baker - Racing Car Design & Development

Allan Staniforth - Competition Car Suspension

Steve Smith - Advanced Race Car Suspension Development

Paul Haney & Jeff Braun - Inside Racing Technology.

There are more books by Forbes Aird, Herb Adams, and recently Bob Bolles - but I count them among the less useful.
I rate Carroll Smiths books as essential. And Mark Donohue's, while it isn't a technical book, is likewise essential, not to mention enjoyable.

If you like reading technical car books you really need to find a copy of Costin & Phipp's "Racing & Sports Car Chassis Design" - it's a great old book.

There are even more, some of which I've had, and some I haven't. Automotive oriented mechanical engineering students frequently mention Gillespie (?), and there's also an old highly numeric book by Donald Bastow.

******

Scott, who used to have many of these books and more, sold them all while I was in school and thinking I wouldn't need them anymore, and then bought most of them again when I found out I was wrong...DOH$$$$

 

very good post. i remember seeing some of these titles listed in the rr/autox forum but not such a comprehensive list

 

hmm, i'll have to read some of these