A Chat With Garth About the Magic of Old Cars

Garth was interviewed at the LeMay Automotive Museum by Naveed Jamali of Jalopnik. Here’s an excerpt:

The author of The Art of Racing in the Rain didn’t show up to our meeting in a boring car. He couldn’t. After Garth Stein arrived, we shook hands and he motioned to the beautiful coupe behind him poking its nose out into the morning Washington sun. “It’s a 1974 Alfa Romeo GTV 2000, finished in Faggio,” he said. Not bad.

I first met the New York Times bestselling author (more than 156 weeks on the list!) at a book festival in North Carolina in 2015, and once I moved to his hometown of Seattle we struck up a friendship. I sat down with Garth at the Le May Automotive Museum recently to discuss his love of cars and all things automotive. His answers have been edited for brevity.

Naveed Jamali: In The Art of Racing in the Rain, the backdrop is racing—is the sport and hobby something you were always into?

Garth Stein: When I was a kid some of my earliest memories are of watching racing on Sunday morning with my dad and our dog. I was very much into the Formula One and Indianapolis 500 scene. Since I was 5 or 6 it made an impression.

The reason I was fascinated by open wheel racing is a practical one: because I grew up in rainy Seattle, we didn’t have NASCAR!

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