A lot of things have contributed to this work, the following are just some of the more major ones:

Fiction:

Car Wars: Obviously, I need give no reasons here, other than it's great, and a game I have enjoyed since the day I got my hands on the pocket book edition of 1983 (I think, I have the 3rd Edition). And yes, I've been playing it locally for that amount of time too. I would love to say that I have nearly everything for it, but the ADQ's were not easy to get hold off initially, so I don't. Supplements yes though. Brilliant stuff.

Flesh: I think the cartoon that spurred my imagination from the word go. Flesh Book I was set in the Cretaceous period, and was covered in the comic 2000AD, progs 1-19. Flesh Book II was the sequel set in the Triassic seas, and covered in progs 86-99. I used to have the originals, but we had to move, and Guinea pigs and mothers finished that (hell, I wasn't that old then, so I didn't know it would be a collectors thing then, but I'm gutted now, because Flesh was my favourite strip). Readers of the early Flesh strips may recognise bits and pieces, although it is all done from memory.
They did a Flesh Book III - the legend of Shamara (?), which I read, and thought was complete crap, but it introduced another time travelling company which I decided to use as opponents.

Cadillacs and Dinosaurs, The Xenozoic Era: After Flesh, this is my next greatest imagination stirrer. A brilliant cartoon by Mark Schultz, set in the future after major earth shattering events, where humans and dinosaurs now roam. The only comic that I buy, and yes, I still do have them, and I have everyone, including all the reprints into Cadillac's and Dinosaurs, and even the role-playing game by GDW (alas no more). Not the greatest system in the world, but hey, I buy these things for the background!
Dinotopia, World Beneath:, by James Gurney. Mainly children's books about a lost world inhabited by humans and sentient dinosaurs. However the artwork is excellent, and the author does know his stuff.
Jurrasic Park, The Lost World: Not the greatest of films (especially The Lost World), but visually lovely. And awe inspiring in places. Shame that they didn't have a few dinos going down in a hail of gunfire, but still, you can't have everything!

Referance

GURPS: Dinosaurs: by Stephen Dedman. A very valuable guide, and is a book that contains nearly everything I ever wanted from a dinosaur book. This was the reference guide for most of the dinosaurs. I don't play GURPS myself (although I own it , I don't think I've actually read it properly, just skimmed it), so my stats aren't literal translations, although they might be close.

On the Trail of the Dinosaurs, The Reign of the Reptiles:, by Dr Michael J. Benton. I used these to back up the information found in GURPS Dinosaurs, yes you did hear that right. Somehow I'm not sure if that's supposed to be right or not, but it does show what a good job the author of GURPS Dinosaurs did.

DeepFlight.com: This is my major source for the submarines, and all interested parties should look this way for their models. They are actually a godsend, as I was wondering how to do the subs, and all the data I was getting was showing the basic undersea sub (we've all seen them, right?), and they aren't very quick, manoeuvrable and weigh several tons, which I didn't think fitted in with the Car Wars Universe - for military and research use, maybe, but for aquaduellists? Nope. And then I stumbled upon this site, and instantly thought yes! So everything is based on these guys, and I think it works better for it too.

GURPS: Vehicles: by David Pulver. Initially I didn't want to delve too deeply into this as I wanted this to be a Car Wars thing, not a GURPS thing, but then I ran into a few problems about how to do things (such as the Sub Crash Table, Currents and depths), so it turned out to be quite useful after all..!

Orcatron was used for details about undersea communications, as they seem to know what they're talking about.