Rolls-Royce has been producing Phantoms for 100 years, making its pinnacle model the longest-running nameplate in automotive history. Discover what makes each era of Phantom so opulent and oppressive.
Questionable Adventures in Automotive Co-Branding
In their quest to be omnipresent in their customers’ minds and lives, and/or to trade their august respect for flashy young social media hits, automakers have collaborated with all manner of other brands–human or otherwise. The effects are often thrillingly imprudent or inscrutible.
Why Are French Cars So Weird?
Credit the fin de siecle Parisian avant garde, French aeronautical pioneering, Andre Citroen’s gambling problem, national geography and demography, and the petri dish of a relatively closed vehicular economy. But be happy it all exists.
Click the thumbnails above, then click them again, to view a crappy scan. Or just subscribe to the magazine already, you chintzy bitch.
Bentley’s First All-Electric Car is Bonkers
Bentley just unveiled an all-electric concept, the EXP 15, and its outré appearance falls along the subjective spectrum between “bold” and “the designers have contracted brain worms.”
Departing GM Design Chief: “SUVs are Blah”
“Do I love SUVs? Not really. As a designer, an SUV is a marketing accommodation.”
Stars & Cars: Damson Idris
When filming, Idris was able to tap the knowledge of one the best known, and the best, racers of all time, Lewis Hamilton, who is a producer on the movie, and appears in it. “Lewis would come by set loads of times, and we’d sit in the trailers and he’d call BS on what was in the scripts, like, ‘That would never happen,’” Idris says, grinning.
New Short Fiction
I’ve returned to fiction writing recently, and just published my first short story in more than a decade. Check it out on p. 142 of this digital version of Chicago’s “Levitate” magazine.
The Future of the American Road Trip
Of course, integrating all of this experiential technology into a car questions the exploration endemic to such travel. “These are the sort of things you do in your living room. When people go on a road trip, aren’t they trying to get away from aspects of their daily lives?”
Count(ach) Me Out
I drove the best Lamborghini Countach in the world. It still sucked.
Click on the weirdly fuzzy thumbnail above (and then click again, if you like) to acquire a very clear view of what looks like an illegible scan. Or just subscribe to the magazine already, you Chintzy Bitch.
Who Drives What?
In Los Angeles, a car completes the look. It’s the last article of clothing that we put on before heading out, an accessory, like shoes, that is at once intensely personal and a functional necessity. Nowhere is this truer than in the entertainment industry, where everything in L.A. is distilled to its essence. So what do A-listers and top execs in Hollywood drive?