Owner's signature. Moderate browning and spotting to pag edges. Moderate rubbing to edges of boards. Some masking tape repairs to verso of dust wrapper. Adhesive tape stains at margins of dust wrapper. 1" chip at head of dust wrapper spine. Creasing and rubbing to dust wrapper. Dust wrapper protected in archival mylar cover. ; 239, [1] pages + frontis + 32 illustrations. Blue cloth covers with gilt titles on spine. "After his father's Bluebird was wrecked, when it hit a submerged log at 170 m.p.h., and John Cobb had been killed on Loch Ness, he spent every penny he owned - even mortaging his house - to build a turbo-het hydroplane. // [...] a new world record of 202.32 m.p.h. was established on 23rd July. // Donald thus became the first man to travel at this speed and live to tell the story." - from dust wrapper blurb. ; 8vo