Official book collectors thread

Ferrari 550 Maranello Prodrive - The Last V12 Ferrari to Win at Le Mans


Please inform me as soon as the product is available again.

Since it doesn't say SOLD OUT and with all the delays they have had up till now I'm thinking they may be taking orders in batches to be able to better cope with production and delivery times. Just my thoughts.

 

Never heard of it. But my speculation has been that they will do a cheaper version with a higher print run later on to refinance the tremendously increased effort which went into the book's production. But mind you: That's pure speculation by me.

 

Personally I would welcome that as I am interested in buying the book but not for the current price.

 

Girardo is distributing the book through McKlein/Rallywebshop, and the latter says on its website that the book will be available from 18th August. But you can preorder or register your interest.

At the Girardo website there are two links which lead you to McKlein/Rallywebshop.

 

I haven't heard of many publishers releasing their premium edition before the standard version appears, but anything is possible these days I guess.

 

I made that experience with the Alfa Romeo 12C book and twice with TASCHEN ....

 

Surprisingly, availability of the 550 Prodrive book has been postponed again for one week from tomorrow to August 25th.

 

The words "Tantalean punishment" come to mind. This book always seems within reach........ almost....but not yet.

 

It gets within reach but then I’m repelled by the price.

 

So the latest is they have fast- tracked production to be sent to prospective clients for the 550 Prodrive car being auctioned at the RM Sothebys sale in Monterey this week.

 

Cynical me says, “Anybody surprised?”

 

So they are still looking for customers... funny that with about 8 billions people on earth it's so difficult to find 550 buyers. Maybe a price positioning problem ?

 

The problem rather seems to be communication: I registered four (!) times to get updates about the book and information on buying it, but never received any tiny bit of information.

After a delay, and again a delay, and another delay, and then with this rather boring white slipcase now, I have lost my interest anyway.

 

The white slipcase now makes it look very similar to a copy of the Lamborghini Miura Register

 

I would say rather a price versus value problem.

 

Little joke at Instagram by Girardo for all those who ordered the book ..

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The reason the Prodrive book was hurried through ...

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I can't say I'm that bothered if a book is a few weeks or months late of an arbitrary publication date. It isn't like I have nothing to read in the meantime. But I cannot comprehend businesses that offer the option of signing up for information about their product but you then hear nothing. If they can't be bothered or don't have the competence to respond to something they have instigated then they shouldn't be in the least surprised if they end up with a stack of their product unsold.

 

The 550 Prodrive car wasn't sold yesterday. Let's see whether the book is more successful ...

 

The car apparently did not meet reserve. And for me the book doesn’t either.

 

My problem with book publication is when the date keeps sliding to the right. A one-time delay is okay, but this sliding business is ridiculous. Late last year I ordered a group of aviation books on Amazon that were supposed to be published on February 7. Well, as that date approached it suddenly became March 7. A month later it went to April 7. When this happened a couple of more times I cancelled the order and got the books (at higher cost) from the U.K., where they were already available!

 

I have the impression that Amazon have some sort of algorithm that moves the date on if they haven't received stock. I don't think it is necessarily information from the publisher. As an aside, I had a similar problem with the Ed Niles book that I knew, not least from this thread, was available in the US but kept being delayed here in the UK. Eventually I contacted the publisher and had a very nice reply explaining that it was simply down to realities of the delays of shipping by sea at the time (this was June last year). Anyway, the book did arrive a little later. Probably it was a similar thing with your aviation books. The publishers will ship by sea because it is cheaper, especially for a low volume, niche publication. I suspect that when you re-ordered from the UK, they came by air.

With regards to the 550 Prodrive book, I don't know how many times the availability date has moved because, like Buchpilot above, they don't bother to inform me of anything to do with it although I signed up to be kept updated!

 

Many u.k./Euro-published books I’m interested in appear on amazon u.k. long before Amazon u.s., simply because of shipping considerations. Sometimes I order from Blackwell’s because of that. They ship free to the u.s. whereas amazon u.k. do not.

 

„First we sell the car then we sell the book, no first we sell the book then we sell the car”, when it doesn’t work it doesn’t work...