Shmee150 is the YouTube channel of Tim Burton, who has amassed over 700,000 subscribers by documenting his supercar spotting trips and automotive adventures.
‘Living the Supercar Dream’ puts Burton’s supercar passion into book form, sharing his favourite pieces of automotive machinery on a road trip across the globe.
The book mixes stunning supercar photography with summaries of each car, as well as explanations of why each one is best suited to the specified road trip. There are 14 sections in total and 77 cars are profiled in total.
I enjoyed the book, to begin with. And don’t get me wrong, it is an interesting read, learning about a whole range of different high-performance cars, some of which I had never actually heard of.
It feels like it is aimed at a more casual automotive enthusiast, rather than the die-hard supercar fans who want to know the smallest details, niggles and stats. There are some spectacular picks, including the McLaren P1 GTR, Ferrari 250 GT0 and Pagani Huayra (a personal favourite of mine).
I particularly liked when Burton would go into greater detail about the design of the cars, the aerodynamics, the hand-crafted interiors and the brutally powerful engines. It was nice to see him looking at why the cars are so unique and what makes them stand out, as well as why he chose to buy a few of the cars mentioned himself.
One of the biggest strengths of the book is that it utilises modern technology to add a new dimension. Downloading a dedicated (and free) app opens up several extra video features and content.
The app is a little slow to run but the extra content is mostly enjoyable.
A few of the clips are a little basic, give us some commentary while walking around the cars. A couple are also placed in the wrong location, focusing on cars that are a quick flick further back or a few pages ahead. But it largely works well. It would have been nice to see this utilised more and for the content to be a bit more in-depth, but nevertheless I wasn’t expecting this additional app content, so it was a nice surprise and is incorporated nicely.
There are a lot of cars to go through and while that is an exciting prospect, it also reveals another flaw of the book – repetition. The profiles are too similar to one another. A few are different, going through a track day or experience, but most basically say how nice the car looks, performance stats and why it fits into the road trip category it has been placed in.
I would have loved to hear some of the annoying niggles, annoyances, more about the car feel while being driven and what it is truly like to drive for long stints. Sharing some more experiences, maybe putting the off roaders through their paces or seeing what some of the supercars are like around the city, would have been interesting too.
It all seems too positive, too fluffy and not gritty enough for a supercar fan like myself. It is great to read at first, but the constant praise and positivity gets a little frustrating. I get that the book is detailing the best high-performance cars to take on road trips but surely there are some negatives and some surprises? Can he really love the looks of every single car mentioned? There are certainly ones I am not a fan of. But then again, that’s just me.
Because of these points, the book falls a bit flat. I started focusing more on the stunning photographs of the cars, rather than the actual content. I also spotted the rather amusing repetitive error “secondsond”. But overall, it is very well written and put together. There’s no denying that, it’s a beautiful book.
I personally think cutting down the number of road trips, being more selective with the car choices and then spending more time justifying them and going through the experiences he has had with them would have been more exciting to read.
The book has some really interesting sections, is a good basic guide to the world of supercars and I enjoyed a lot of the profiles, as well as the photos and extra app content. It just felt a bit too light, fluffy and repetitive for me.
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| © Shmee150 |
The book mixes stunning supercar photography with summaries of each car, as well as explanations of why each one is best suited to the specified road trip. There are 14 sections in total and 77 cars are profiled in total.
I enjoyed the book, to begin with. And don’t get me wrong, it is an interesting read, learning about a whole range of different high-performance cars, some of which I had never actually heard of.
It feels like it is aimed at a more casual automotive enthusiast, rather than the die-hard supercar fans who want to know the smallest details, niggles and stats. There are some spectacular picks, including the McLaren P1 GTR, Ferrari 250 GT0 and Pagani Huayra (a personal favourite of mine).
I particularly liked when Burton would go into greater detail about the design of the cars, the aerodynamics, the hand-crafted interiors and the brutally powerful engines. It was nice to see him looking at why the cars are so unique and what makes them stand out, as well as why he chose to buy a few of the cars mentioned himself.
 |
| © Shmee150 |
A few of the clips are a little basic, give us some commentary while walking around the cars. A couple are also placed in the wrong location, focusing on cars that are a quick flick further back or a few pages ahead. But it largely works well. It would have been nice to see this utilised more and for the content to be a bit more in-depth, but nevertheless I wasn’t expecting this additional app content, so it was a nice surprise and is incorporated nicely.
There are a lot of cars to go through and while that is an exciting prospect, it also reveals another flaw of the book – repetition. The profiles are too similar to one another. A few are different, going through a track day or experience, but most basically say how nice the car looks, performance stats and why it fits into the road trip category it has been placed in.
I would have loved to hear some of the annoying niggles, annoyances, more about the car feel while being driven and what it is truly like to drive for long stints. Sharing some more experiences, maybe putting the off roaders through their paces or seeing what some of the supercars are like around the city, would have been interesting too.
It all seems too positive, too fluffy and not gritty enough for a supercar fan like myself. It is great to read at first, but the constant praise and positivity gets a little frustrating. I get that the book is detailing the best high-performance cars to take on road trips but surely there are some negatives and some surprises? Can he really love the looks of every single car mentioned? There are certainly ones I am not a fan of. But then again, that’s just me.
Because of these points, the book falls a bit flat. I started focusing more on the stunning photographs of the cars, rather than the actual content. I also spotted the rather amusing repetitive error “secondsond”. But overall, it is very well written and put together. There’s no denying that, it’s a beautiful book.
I personally think cutting down the number of road trips, being more selective with the car choices and then spending more time justifying them and going through the experiences he has had with them would have been more exciting to read.
The book has some really interesting sections, is a good basic guide to the world of supercars and I enjoyed a lot of the profiles, as well as the photos and extra app content. It just felt a bit too light, fluffy and repetitive for me.
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