Jeremy Clarkson once commented: “Buying a Saab is like turning down Cindy Crawford for a Labrador” and in turn as consumers followed his lead, the company went bust in 2011.
The collapse of this Swedish company attracted much press attention as it was considered by many to be one of the “strangest and most unique car companies that ever engaged in mass production”. Now, with an auction of 78 of the last Saabs built by the firm, Saab lovers can cast a final die for one of these vehicles “born from jets”.
Tomorrow, 26th March 2013 at 7.30pm EDT, the 2014 Land Rover Range Rover Sport will be unveiled at the 113th New York Motor Show. In a departure from the traditional way in which cars are launched, Land Rover have drafted in James Bond star Daniel Craig to star in a video advertising campaign that will accompany this. It will conclude with a live-stream movie shot in “secret locations” around Manhattan.
Images of Rolls-Royce’s latest model, the Wraith, are leaked ahead of its Geneva debut
When someone “incurs your wrath”, they make you angry but with the addition of an ‘I’ the word comes to be a Scottish dialectal word for “ghost” or “spirit”.
Today, 5th March 2013, Rolls-Royce launch their latest model, an elegant fastback based on the Rolls-Royce Ghost. Named the Wraith, the car was to be unveiled this morning at the Geneva International Motor Show but pictures were leaked onto the Internet late last night and we reveal them for you here.
The 2013 Rolls-Royce WraithThe front of the WraithThe interior of the WraithThe car’s roof lining features Starlight Headliner technology to give the feel of a starlit night
The stylish Wraith is the most powerful Rolls-Royce ever with a delivery that is said to be “effortless, but dramatic”, thanks to a 6.7 litre V12 engine and 8-speed automatic ZF transmission. A phenomenal 624 bhp / 465kW is available to the driver while the 0-60 mph can be achieved in just 4.4 seconds, compared with the Ghost’s 4.7 seconds.
With a stiffened suspension, the Wraith is said to be “distinctly on the sport[s] side” and a “Rolls-Royce to drive, not be driven in”. Of it, Torsten Müller-Ötvös, CEO of Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, suggested:
“[The Wraith coupé] has a hint of menace in the design that is new to the brand, but with the driving experience and performance to live up to that promise”.
As is to be expected from this iconic brand, styling, finish and attention to detail have also been given utmost consideration during the Wraith’s development. The interior of this four seat vehicle, for example, features Starlight Headliner technology which consists of 1,340 fibre optic lamps hand-woven into the roof lining to give the impression of a glittering, starry night sky.
In his statement about the Wraith, Müller-Ötvös concluded:
“Today we launch the ultimate gentlemen’s gran turismo, a car that embodies the spirit of Charles Stewart Rolls… The most powerful Rolls-Royce in history, Wraith promises the sense of adventure and speed that drove our founding forefather. But of course, Wraith’s starting point is luxury, refinement and quality, traits that remain as important to Rolls-Royce customers today as they were more than a century ago”.
First deliveries of the Wraith will be made in the final quarter of 2013 and prices are expected to start at around £225,000.
Rolls-Royce may feel a little peeved that images of the Wraith have bolted from the stable a little early but, instead, we would suggest, they should be extremely proud of what they have let loose. Wraith not wrath is what is required.
The 2012/2013 shooting season may well be over, but one of Italy’s finest automotive design houses, Bertone, are about to showcase a shooting brake they have created to coincide with Aston Martin’s centenary and their having worked with the English brand for 60 years at the 2013 Geneva International Motor Show.
“I never joke about my work” stated Q when James Bond enquires about the ejector seat in his new Aston Martin DB5 in Goldfinger.
In October 2010, RM Auctions in association with Sotheby’s sold one of the four world famous 1964 Aston Martin DB5’s made for the film to an Ohio based property tycoon named Harry Yeaggy on behalf of Jerry Lee, a broadcaster and philanthropist. The car, which was used by Sean Connery in Goldfinger and Thunderball, achieved a price of £2,600,000 against an estimate of £3,500,000.
Richard Stewart Williams seek £3 million for this promotional James Bond 1964 Aston Martin DB5
Now Cobham based Aston Martin heritage specialist Richard Stewart Williams is marketing another of the DB5 vehicles produced for the franchise’s Thunderball. This one, though only used for promotional purposes, features all the gadgets Bond required including revolving licence plates, hubcap blades, hidden guns, a bulletproof screen, radar and a smoke machine.
It features hidden guns ideal for seeing off anyone attacking from the frontAnd a bullet proof screen that rises from the bootAdvanced for its years, there is even a Sat Nav system and all manner of other special featuresThe design even incorporated a mobile telephoneThe vehicle was specially adapted by John Stears (1934 – 1999)
The adaptations to the vehicle, last sold in 2005 in Arizona for approximately £1,300,000, were orchestrated by the renowned special effects designer Michael John Stears (1934 – 1999). Better know as “The Real Q”, Stears also built flying cars for Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and The Man with the Golden Gun and created mechanical effects for Star Wars. He won two Academy Awards for his work and his talent and vision plainly can be seen in this vehicle for which Richard Stewart Williams seek £3,000,000.
For more information contact Richard Williams of Richard Stewart Williams Limited on +44 (0) 1932 868377.
A video clip of a Rolls-Royce Phantom in a far from typical setting
This week’s video of the week was sent to us by Anthony Brown and features a most unusual use of a Rolls-Royce Phantom.
A most unusual use of a Rolls-Royce PhantomThe driver plainly likes mudBut the tyres no doubt had to be replaced
In it, an unknown driver takes the vehicle off road at speed. Surprisingly, the 5,800-pound curb weight car copes well as it careers through the parkland of an English country estate and though the tyres were no doubt trashed, we thought it well worth sharing.
Watch the video at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-pzol0sxro
This Californian became a child star to help solve the financial woes of his family. He excelled in Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps and received a $15 million cheque for Transformers: Dark of the Moon. Aside from acting, he’s been in relationships with Carey Mulligan, Isabel Lucas and Megan Fox but it is bar brawls that seem to form a staple of his existence. LaBeouf was questioned by the Los Angeles Police Department after one at the Mad Bull’s Tavern in February 2011, thrown out of another called the Cinema Public House in Vancouver in October 2011 and lost his hat during another at the Hobgoblin in London, SE14 in November 2012. We somehow doubt this wild child will be transforming into a reformed citizen any time soon but we’re also betting his career will rocket.
A marine residence with a history tied to the Rolls-Royce Spirit of Ecstasy, the Special Operations Executive and Babycham
The House on the Shore on Thorns Beach at Beaulieu in Hampshire is a home that wouldn’t look out of place in the Hamptons or Rhode Island. Dramatically situated next to the Solent waters to the north of the Isle of Wight, this suitably named building wouldn’t have been out of place in the 1980s BBC series Howards’ Way. It could. Indeed, have been an ideal home for Gerald and Polly Urquhart. (more…)
Matthew Steeples compares two comparable examples of motoring excess: the “Golden Zebra” and the Fulda Maybach Exelero
In recent weeks I’ve received a number of messages about an $8,000,000 car named a Fulda Maybach Exelero. One of them referred to it as “one of the most over the top cars on the planet” and so it piqued my interest.
The 2005 Fulda Maybach Exelero concept car was inspired by the design of the 1939 Maybach SW38 StromlinieThe front of the car is dominated by an aggressively styled grilleWhilst the rear would most definitely appeal to BatmanA view from the side illustrates just how long this 5890mm vehicle truly is
In these straightened times, such a figure seems quite a lot for a car but what, you may ask, makes it so special? Well, for a start it was a one off and commissioned in 2005 by the tyre company Fulda to showcase their Carat Exelero range. Designed for them by a 24-year old student named Fredrik Burchhardt of the Pforzheim Polytechnic Department of Transport Design and built on the chassis of a Maybach 57 limousine, this 2-seater coupé is 5890mm long and 2140mm wide. The vehicle, which weighs a not so insubstantial 2.6 tonnes, has a 5.9 litre V12 twin turbo engine and in testing achieved a top speed of 218mph at southern Italy’s Motodrom Nardo.
In due course the Exelero was sold to André Action Diakité Jackson, a diamond industrialist, for €5,000,000. Jackson allowed Jay-Z to use the car in his Lost One music video before selling it to a “European entrepreneur” named Arnaud Massartic. Subsequently, various reports state that Massartic sold the vehicle on to the rapper Bryan “Birdman” Williams for $8,000,000 in April 2011 but other articles suggest that he failed to pay for the vehicle. Who knows where it is now.
Rapper Bryan Williams (AKA “Birdman”) is best known as one half of the Big Tymers and is also the co-founder of Cash Money Records (http://birdmanstunna.com)Birdman in another of his cars, a Maybach 62s LandauletSir Bernard and Lady DockerThe ex-London Motor Show 1955 Daimler DK400 “Golden Zebra” coupé with coachwork by Hooper & Company. Registration number: TYL 575, chassis number: 92705 and engine number: 48771.The front of the “Golden Zebra”
Whether or not this piece of “automotive art” is indeed in the ownership of a “bling-king,” there are countless other examples of individually designed vehicular excess but amongst the most extravagant has to be an example commissioned by Lady Docker in 1955.
Norah Docker (1905 – 1983), whose third husband was Sir Bernard Docker, chairman of Birmingham Small Arms and its subsidiary the Daimler Motor Company, spent £12,000 in 1955 creating the “Golden Zebra” coupé on the chassis of a DK400 limousine. She replaced anything on the car that would have normally been made in chrome with gold and upholstered it in real zebra hide. Black, white and gold-trimmed accessories completed the look and amongst them were picnic stools, folding rear seats complete with a cocktail bar and an elephant ivory dashboard makeup table with a mirror, compact, comb, brush, cigarette case and cream jars.
Commenting as to why she chose to use zebra for the car’s upholstery, Lady Docker’s justification, in a quote that Barbara Amiel could only dream of having come up with, was simple:
“Because mink is too hot to sit on.”
The zebra hide upholstered interior of “The Golden Zebra”The car even features a golden zebra as a mascotLady Docker, considered a visionary in her design skills by some and as vulgar and brash by others, even thought to include a drinks cabinet within the folding rear seats.In the front, an elephant ivory dashboard makeup table with a mirror, compact, comb, brush, cigarette case and cream jars show how much thought she put into the vehicle’s creation.Conrad Black and his wife Barbara Amiel have been much discussed in the press in recent days for their “extravagance.” They had nothing on Sir Bernard and Lady Docker.
The 4.6 litre “Golden Zebra” was to be last of the cars created to Lady Docker’s designs as shortly afterwards, in May 1956, Sir Bernard Docker was sacked from BSA’s board for squandering the company’s cash. In addition to the extravagance of the “Docker Daimlers,” he’d used shareholder money, in a manner that could indeed be compared to Lord and Lady Black’s days at Hollinger, to buy his wife a castle in Wales and maintain a 212ft motor yacht named Shemara.
Daimler forced the Dockers to return the Daimler vehicles Lady Docker had so diligently designed and in revenge she bought a Bentley Continental from the firm’s rival, Rolls-Royce. The “Golden Zebra” and the other “Docker Daimlers” were stripped of their expensive trimmings and sold. In 1966, the car was offered for sale by Daimler distributors Henlys of Chester for just £1,400 and after passing through the hands of several other owners ended up in California.
In 1988, the “Golden Zebra” was purchased by a Daimler collector named John Wentworth. He restored the vehicle to its original glory with the help of experienced craftsmen and even managed to locate Kenyan zebra hides at a tannery in South Africa. Wentworth died prior to the completion of the car’s restoration and in 2006, it achieved £177,500 at Bonhams. The “Golden Zebra” came up for sale again in 2011 for £175,000 in Florida. It is now on display in the Louwman Museum in The Hague, Netherlands.
“The Golden Zebra” was certainly a car that reflected the excesses of the 1950s and the Exelero was without doubt the equivalent for the 2000s. What on earth could usurp these two moving monuments of extravagence next? We are on the lookout.
Matthew Steeples discovers a penthouse that even the most ambitious estate agent may struggle to flog
Estate agents are a tough breed and there are very few properties that they might admit could verge on being impossible to sell. We believe, however, that we might have found one that could be in the same league as, perhaps, the homes of Myra Hindley, Harold Shipman or John Christie. In fact, this Leeds penthouse could be even more difficult to sell given how many photographs the last owner had taken there during his lifetime.
The exterior of Lake View Court, Roundhay, Leeds, West Yorkshire, LS8 2TX gives little a way other than the resemblance to a Soviet apartment blockThe penthouse enjoys superb views across Roundhay Park and the Waterloo LakeThe split-level 33ft reception offers a vast entertaining space and comes complete with a shagpile carpet that Austin Powers would be proud ofIn view of their tiling advertisement, perhaps the owner did a deal with Callerton Kitchens (http://www.callerton.co.uk)A bedroom gives further indication that this place hasn’t had much done to it since the 1970s
On first inspection, this 3-bedroomed £325,000 top floor flat in Lake View Court at Roundhay in Leeds sounds like it could be a bargain. It includes a 33ft by 13ft split-level living room, a large balcony, a fitted kitchen (that bizarrely features tiling prominently displaying the name of the kitchen’s manufacturer, Callerton Kitchens), 2 bathrooms, a single garage and a double parking space in an underground garage.
Though the agents, Alan Cooke, give a hint that it needs a complete makeover when they state that the apartment is “now ripe for improvement,” it has a “security entry phone system, an automatic lift giving private access, gas central heating system and double glazing.” They also add that it features a “magnificent outlook” across Roundhay Park and the Waterloo Lake and is on a lease of 125 years from 1971. The ground rent is just £60 per annum and a maintenance charge of £2,000 per annum doesn’t seem to be too bad either.
“And here, for our home and studio audience, here’s who house it was…” Jimmy SavileThis image of Savile in a state of undress might indeed have put off a few buyersSavile pictured in the reception room of the penthouse
Now what could be wrong with this pad and why has it languished on the market since the summer? Well, it turns out that this is the former main home of the late Jimmy Savile. Though his possessions were removed and auctioned some months ago, the disgraced television presenter’s tawdry style of décor remains as a legacy of his occupation of the flat. One simply would not want to think of what the Jim’ll Fix It presenter got upto in this place and frankly, who’d want to move into this poisoned chalice?
Equally, we don’t think Loyd Grossman will be calling round at any point in the near future to ask: “Now, who’d want to live in a house like this?”
For more information on The Penthouse, Lake View Court, Roundhay, Leeds, West Yorkshire, LS8 2TX, contact agents Alan Cooke Moortown, Moortown, Leeds, LS17 6PY on +44 (0) 113 288 8666.
