AAR's cars, which were designated 'Eagles', never achieved their aim of taking on Formula One's best on equal terms – their debut at Belgium in 1966 marked the first of what would be 25 Grand Prix starts, a run that came to a sad end when the lone Eagle of Al Pease was black-flagged out of the 1969 Canadian GP while running last.

But the company made its presence felt in other ways, and marked one of the high points of the 'golden era' of American involvement in F1 that started with Phil Hill, was carried on by AAR co-founder Dan Gurney, and continued into the 1980s with Mario Andretti. Besides which, it was no easier back then for a fledgling team to score points in just its second outing (as Gurney did with a fifth place at the 1966 French GP) than it is today.

This book was originally published back in 1976, back when the Eagles were still kicking (sorry, flapping) and Gurney was still trying to find a way to make the Grand Prix program work. A quarter of a century later, it is this contemporary feel that gives the book that extra little sense of urgency.

It's a bit like watching a movie that you've seen before – deep down you know what's going to happen, but you're still hoping that the guy on the screen doesn't walk into the room where the alien thing is. (Or if you have a sadistic streak, then you're sitting on the edge of your seat hoping that he does go in there and get minced.)

That the book is written in the present tense, with the narrator just as optimistic about the team's future as Gurney, also lends the impression that you are not reading a history, but instead opening a time capsule.

Despite both he and Gurney acknowledging the latter's ambivalence to the press, Ludvigsen was granted ample access to most of the various players who were involved in making AAR happen, and even where he has quoted from other sources such as magazines, time has rendered the originals sufficiently obscure for the material to still have value.

As is the case with a lot of these books, the main subject provides a window through which you can see something of the history of the sport itself. In this case, it really stands out throughout the various experiments that the team made with aerodynamics.

The use of wings and other aero aids was still very much a black art in the late 1960s, and this book offers the reader a good glimpse of Formula One's first awkward steps as a category dependent upon aerodynamics rather than mechanical grip. This is no more evident than in some of the close-up photos that seem to suggest that if a wing wasn't working, then the solution was to find space to whack another half-dozen smaller wings around it.

The book focuses on all of AAR's racing activities, which intensified in the US while being scaled back in Europe, and eventually saw the marque make a considerable name for itself at Indy as well as in Can-Am, F5000 and the USAC series.

"We're the only outfit that has been actively competing in Indianapolis, Can-Am and Grand Prix racing. It is very apparent that we are just spread too thin," Gurney was quoted as saying on the eve of the team's withdrawal from F1. For the purposes of perspective, it would be interesting to compare the staff numbers required by AAR to cover their various racing interests with that of a medium-sized GP team today...

The main thrust of the book seems to be that while the late 1960s was a boon for independent teams, thanks to the easy availability of customer engines and gearboxes that could be married to an in-house chassis (that was usually copies from a something like a Lotus anyway), there were still myriad hurdles that stood between ambition and success. And this is a reasonably intimate account of one team's efforts to make something happen.

Original copies of 'Gurney's Eagles' still turn up in the hands of specialist booksellers, but this updated version is probably a better bet for anyone other than the collectors who insist upon owning original editions of everything. The RRP of US$27.95 seems a little steep, but it should be relatively easy to unearth a copy being sold at a discount.