How To Draw Cars: 11 Books That Will Speed Up Your Progress

We see cars so often on a daily basis that they almost become unnoticeable, like background noise. We have an idea of what a car looks like, but when it comes to drawing – using a symbolic car is sometimes the best we can manage (or is it just me?).

So what does one do when you need to draw a realistic car for a city landscape, concept art, worldbuilding, or simply in illustrations where cars are one of the main objects?

You learn from those who already know how to do it flawlessly, of course!

Your age, preferences and experience level don’t really matter here, everyone can learn how to draw realistic or cartoonish vehicles with a little help.

It’s important to understand that a car is not just a random shape on four wheels, but is designed with a purpose. So it’s good to have a basic idea of what major components make up a car and maybe even what they are for – so that with time you can learn to draw these vehicles from imagination.

We offer you a list of 11 books that will teach you how to draw cars. The list contains books from very basic to advanced, and you’ll be able to find the perfect one suitable just for you.

The green light is on, so let’s go!

11 Books On How To Draw Cars

Warning: These books will help improve your car drawings so fast, you might get a ticket for speeding!

1. Draw 50 Cars, Trucks, and Motorcycles by Lee J. Ames

This book is based on easy step-by-step tutorials that explain the basic shapes and the important parts of various vehicles from racing cars to trucks. The technique taught is proven to be very effective for both children and grownups. You’ll learn how to shape those vehicles and what details to add to turn them into functional cars.

The instructions in this book will guide you from a rough sketch consisting of a few lines to detailed drawings of cars. It would work well for beginner artists, both kids and adults to learn more about what drawing a car is and for practice.

There are mostly retro cars presented in this book, so it will have bonus points from you if you enjoy retro cars and want to specifically concentrate on them. It has 64 pages of drawn instructions and some text from the author.

2. How to Draw Cars Like a Pro by Thom Taylor

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This is the first edition of a well-known book by the author who works in the industry. It’s a great drawing instruction meant for both beginners and more advanced artists who never drew cars before (or drew very little of them and want to do it better). It’s suitable for teenagers and adults, providing drawing instructions that are easy to understand and follow.

The book doesn’t only show you the steps to drawing various car models from sketch to finishing touches. It also contains basic drawing information: using the color on your drawings, perspective, shading, reflection, design, and styling. Every instruction is followed up by text descriptions so that you would know what you’re doing and why.

If you’re a more advanced artist, this book can also be useful as reference material due to the variety of car designs offered in it. So even though you might already know all of the given information, it’s still a gem!

3. How to Draw Cars Like a Pro, 2nd Edition by Thom Taylor

This book is the second edition of the previous one, which, respectively, makes it more up-to-date and concentrates on more modern car designs. However, not the contemporary ones anyway, since technologies develop really fast, so keep that in mind if that matters to you. It also contains information about using computers in drawing and design.

You will also find basic lessons on how to color, shade, draw perspective, use various art media, select proper tools; in other words – everything you might need. The 144-page edition will be great for teenage and grownup artists, and while it’s very helpful for beginner artists, it can also be very useful for more experienced ones. It can be good to have a well-written book in your collection to refresh your memory, especially if you plan on drawing cars for a while.

And my favorite part is that this book contains over 200 examples of car drawings from many modern artists in the automotive field.

4. How to Draw Cartoon Cars by George Trosley

This world needs not only realistic style cars, but many stylized ones will be very much appreciated! Illustrator and cartoonist George Trosley wrote this 146-page book, which gives us an inside look at how to create cartoon cars from a true professional.

It contains step-by-step instructions on how to draw your favorite cars, starting from the basics. You’ll also find information on how to give your “characters” attitude, how to portray speed, how to color, etc., as well as how to draw important components of cars. You will also learn about the different car body styles, from race cars to pickup trucks.

This book will be good for teenagers and adults, both for beginner artists and more experienced ones who want to switch to cartoonish style and try it out. It will be a wonderful addition to your art or automotive illustration library!

5. How to Draw Cars the Hot Wheels Way by Scott Robertson

If you’ve been obsessing over Hot Wheels, this book will bring a lot of joy into your life and creative process. It uses original Mattel artwork as examples and inspiration, which also makes it appealing for collectors who aren’t artists, so don’t hesitate to buy it before someone else does!

The 144-page book provides drawing tutorials and will help you design and create your own car designs in the distinctively recognizable style of Hot Wheels. It has detailed drawing techniques with informative captions, which will allow you to learn a lot about drawing techniques, perspective, materials, etc. The illustrations emphasize how to draw hot rod cars, fantasy ones, and how to create custom designs.

The guide will be helpful for Hot Wheels enthusiasts of all ages. As a drawing instruction book, it’s suitable for beginner artists of all ages.

6. How to Design Cars Like a Pro by Tony Lewin

This 208-page book is for learning about car design on an advanced level, and it would be useful for car enthusiasts and aspiring or professional designers. It provides an in-depth look at the automotive design, contains interviews with designers from well-known companies, analyses of car design trends, and other information. It also studies individual concepts and models as examples of automobile design.

The chapters of this book are dedicated to what makes a good design, examples of famous designers, tutorials, the designing process, and many other things. The book contains a lot of photographs, renders, illustrations, sketches, and other artworks, so if you’re really into automotive design, this is true eye candy.

This book shows you everything you need to know about car design and gives you the tools to get inspired and practice yourself.

7. How to Draw: drawing and sketching objects and environments from your imagination by Scott Robertson

This book is a part of the book series meant for artists, architects, and designers. However, it would be equally useful for novice artists, more experienced ones, and professionals, because it’s meant to contain lots of useful information for everyone. It’s not revolving specifically around cars, but drawing cars is a part of the environmental drawing, and the knowledge it gives you is applicable to cars as well.

It actually goes as far as offering video tutorials that can be accessed through scanning certain pages using the special app. 208 pages of this book give all the necessary information, from basic shapes that any object is made of, to drawing complete pictures. An entire chapter is dedicated strictly to drawing cars (wheeled vehicles), from sketch to specific important details of the car.

Don’t be afraid of the complicated information that this book has, it would be really easy to understand because it starts with the basics. All artists will be able to enjoy this wonderful book.

8. Draw Cars by Doug DuBosque

As the title of the book states, pretty simply, this book is here to teach you how to draw cars. It’s helpful, has pretty clear instructions to follow step by step, some useful art tips to remember, and some basic drawing information. It would be great for beginner artists of all ages.

The book concentrates on various car designs, from the fanciest ones to old beaten trucks, and it’s almost like car equality – each one matters and each one can be drawn well. The style in which the book is written has a nice sense of humor, and there’s plenty of illustrations to use as references.

This book is 64 pages long and incorporates the author’s philosophy really well – which is that anyone can draw. No matter what’s your age, no matter if you have tried drawing cars before or not, you are able to succeed if you keep practicing. And it’s important to start with the simplest things.

9. How to Draw Awesome Vehicles by Fiona Gowen

This small 32-page drawing guide will help beginner artists to learn how to draw various vehicles, including wheeled ones. Despite it seeming to be a book for kids, it will be able to assist grownup beginners as well, because every skill needs to be learned from the very basics.

It doesn’t contain too much theoretical information about drawing, just the instructions to follow, and some tips along the way. But since it’s important to practice a lot, you can use this book for practicing purposes and learning to operate your drawing hand on the drawing surface. The book offers exercises with guidance, as well as exercises where you’ll need to create on your own.

So, if you’re looking for something for beginners that would be easy to complete and give you an idea of what drawing cars feels like, this book would be a good choice for you.

10. Draw 50 Vehicles: The Step-by-Step Way to Draw Speedboats, Spaceships, Fire Trucks, and Many More by Lee J. Ames

This book is not concentrated strictly on cars as well, but it can also be important to take a look at other vehicle types and how they look and function. This will be good for understanding the general idea, and this knowledge can later be used in designing and sketching your own ideas.

You can start with whichever illustration you feel like doing and just complete a few easy steps towards a full drawing. You will be adding details to the sketch, learning how important it is to start from the bigger picture, and then go into details.

The book is full of step-by-step illustrations to follow, and it’s very visual in general, containing not too much text. It will be good for practicing and mastering your techniques and styles. It will be great for beginner artists of all ages, as well as for more experienced ones to use as reference material and for practicing purposes.

11. All About Drawing Cool Cars, Fast Planes & Military Machines by Tom LaPadula

Another book about all sorts of vehicles, but this time it concentrates on military machines. If that’s what you’re interested in and what you want to learn to draw (for worldbuilding, or action comics, or out of general love for military tech) – this book has got you covered. It contains 80 pages of drawing exercises and basic information on how to draw, how to use shapes, and what tools you need.

The book will be great for beginner artists – kids or teenagers. It may seem to be too easy for an adult, however, it’s really awesome if that’s your learning style. The instructions are pretty clear and they give a good general understanding that every object consists of basic shapes and can be built using them.

All of the books that we’ve mentioned are very easy to follow, helpful, and you can pick one (or a few) that fit your interests and skill level the most.

If you want to draw cars – you can easily do it, as it goes with drawing any other thing! You just need to have some theoretical knowledge and a lot of practice, which these books are perfectly capable of assisting with.