Paul Kutchinsky's ambition to create the world's largest jeweled egg was driven by a desire to showcase British craftsmanship on a global stage, competing with the legendary Faberge eggs.
We had this storied journey where we had to build the team, in a sense, before we had an entry. This project is so complex, even now, walking through the factory, seeing all the things that had to be built. There are some 43,000 parts you're designing your own chassis. It's a big, big task.
What the bikes lacked in horsepower against the Kawasakis and Ducatis, they more than recovered in stability and handling. On March 6, 1976, Butler & Smith rider Steve McLaughlin crossed the line first in the inaugural AMA Superbike Championship Series race, with teammate Reg Pridmore a photo finish behind him.
The project was originally intended to be much less, simply a garage for the owners' current beloved collection of five Porsches-two convertibles, a coupe, an SUV, and an electric sedan. But as they started talking, says lead architect Carl Baker, the mission crept to include "the ability to indulge all of their hobbies."
We look at the 2030 target as a floor of our ambitions, always acting in the long-term interest of our brand, safeguarding exclusivity above all. That is not how automakers talk. That is how luxury houses talk.
In 1952, the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA) - an American-founded non-profit and the world's largest aviation organization - approached Willy Breitling, scion of his family's eponymous watchmaking brand, to commission a timepiece for its members. Specifically, AOPA needed a chronograph that would allow its user to easily compute important information like speed, distance, fuel consumption and other calculations crucial to flying before the advent of flight computers.
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
Vintage cars, especially pickups and SUVs, are usually made from two parts: a standalone chassis and a body that bolts on top of the chassis. So why not swap the original underpinnings with something more modern, while retaining the classic look of the original bodywork? That's exactly what the United Kingdom's Electric Classic Cars thought of doing, and it might just supercharge the EV conversion world.
The vibration into the chassis is causing a few reliability problems: mirrors falling off, tail lights falling off, all that sort of thing, which we are having to address. Fernando [Alonso] is of the feeling that he can't do more than 25 laps consecutively before he risks permanent nerve damage to his hands.
Cars and watches share a lot in common; the biggest intersection point is, of course, design. Inspired by the automotive brilliance of Zagato, the Chopard Lab One concept watch is a fine example of what I mean. This collaborative watch from Chopard and Zagato is a manifestation of automotive thinking realized in a wrist-sized form factor, highlighting structure, lightness, and engineering - the three main stakes of the Italian coachbuilding brand, founded by Ugo Zagato in 1919.
In the short term, expectations are brutally realistic, but this is still a team intent on making noise from day one. That intent will be made clear when Cadillac unveils the livery of its first F1 car during a Super Bowl commercial Sunday. Such a move is a statement and arrival aimed as much at mainstream America as at a paddock that, for years, questioned whether the brand belonged on the grid at all.
When it comes to your wardrobe, it can be easy to define "bougie" as a piece of clothing that looks or feels expensive - and while the items on this list check those boxes, they're also so clever, you'll wonder how you ever did without them. Scroll on to shop for chic loungewear with extra functional features; trendy and practical fits for both day and night; and accessories that solve all sorts of fashion-related dilemmas.
If you visit the Hermès website in search of a scarf or a handbag, you'll be greeted by a collection of whimsical sea creatures swimming across the screen. To navigate to the watch section, you'll click on an image of a watch flanked by an eel. To locate shoes, you'll click on a loafer with a pelican sitting inside it as if it were riding a boat.
The original 300 SL Uhlenhaut Coupe, the racing variant that never made it to public roads, remains one of the most valuable cars ever auctioned, fetching $143 million at a 2022 Sotheby's sale. So when concept designer Gabriel Naretto decided to name his reimagined Mercedes-AMG shooting brake after the man himself, the pressure to deliver something worthy of that legacy was immense.
Cadillac's response was to design specifically for that liminal space. The testing livery features what they call "the Cadillac precision geometric pattern" in gloss and matte sequences, turning functional camouflage into brand vocabulary. They're using the constraint of secrecy to communicate design philosophy, establishing that their approach blends automotive prototype discipline with motorsport theater. The giant Cadillac crest draped across the engine cover isn't trying to hide anything. It's declaring that the space between stealth and spectacle is itself worth designing for.
Meet Ciulator by Compass Rose, a retro café racer with a front shell that draws design from 1950s British racing motorcycles. Dubbed a flagship motorcycle created for collectors, its design and overall silhouette are grounded in the visual and mechanical language of 1950s British café racers. The body sits low and long, with a horizontal line running from the front fairing through the fuel tank and into the rear cowl. This stretched stance reflects how riders back in the day
Instead, LoveFrom appears to have channeled Ferrari interiors from the 1950s, '60s, and '70s, with a retro simplicity that combines clear round gauges with brushed aluminum. Forget the capacitive panels that so frustrated me in the Ferrari 296 -here, there are physical buttons and rocker switches that seem free of the crash protection surrounds that Mini was forced to use.
This is silly, but a particular lifestyle seemingly comes with it for anyone who drives a Mercedes. You might feel like you are taking on the responsibility of trying to show you are living a "rich" lifestyle, even if that isn't why you bought the car. Ultimately, this kind of pressure isn't for everyone and isn't guaranteed to happen, but many Mercedes owners complain about it after purchase.
Created as part of an ambitious aerodynamic experiment, the 1954 Alfa Romeo B.A.T. 7 quickly came to be seen as the most visually arresting and conceptually daring of the three Berlina Aerodinamica Tecnica studies. Conceived by Franco Scaglione for Bertone, it represented a moment when imagination and science moved in perfect synchrony. First unveiled at the Turin Motor Show, the B.A.T. 7 startled audiences with a form unlike anything on the road at the time.
