BMW and Paris Photo celebrate anniversary with 1979 Art Car and 6-Series GranCoupe burlesque photos

At L.A.'s Paramount Pictures Studios

Andy Warhol's 1979 BMW Art Car was presented at the inaugural fair of Paris Photo at L.A.'s Paramount Pictures Studios.

Andy Warhol raced at Le Mans and he wanted to give the M1 "a vivid depiction of speed. If a car is really fast, all contours and colors will become blurred." Those who are attending the event can also have a look at the making-of clip of Warhol working on the special BMW M1.

For the same occasion, the Bavarian marque is also showcasing several burlesque-style photos of the 6-Series GranCoupe (650i) made by German photographer Uwe Düttmann.

Source: BMW

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THE SUPER 86 GETS DIRTY

Last month we got a little preview of Monster Tajima’s new “Super 86″ hillclimb machine. Since then, the car has been making its way around Japan appearing at various events including the recent All Japan Dirt Trial meet in Kyushu. Car@Nifty was there and captured this video clip of Monster ripping around the course.

Not only is the Super 86 impressive to see, I’m also thinking that we gotta get Dino out to one of these dirt trial events sometime. Looks like a ton of fun!

21st Century Watchmaking Men: Urwerk

When the atomic clock clicked over to 00:01 on 1 January 2000, the 21st Century had arrived. So would the prophecies of so many sci-fi writers come true? The horological world rose to the occasion with new brands such as Urwerk bringing radical new ways of reading the time with complex, over-sized watches. 

The company was founded in 1995 by brothers Felix and Thomas Baumgartner, in partnership with their friend Martin Frei, an artist and designer. The trio wanted to break the mould of typical round case/round dial watches with traditional hands. Having produced their first piece in 1997 (the UR-101), it was in 2003 that Urwerk made the UR-103, a four-dialled watch with hours indicated by one of the four rotating dials in analogue and digital displays, and minutes by the precise position of one dial as it arcs across the minute chapter.



That the original watches looked like a mixture of a Star Trek Communicator and a Star Wars CLE-004 Window Cleaning Droid is mainly thanks to Frei’s enthusiasm for science fiction. If you look at the images above, from the Urwerk creative department’s ‘mood wall’ on its virtual desktop, you will get the picture. There, stills from Fritz Lang’s ‘Metropolis’ are mixed with the Millennium Falcon from ‘Star Wars’.

In the first decade of the millennium, Urwerk injected a much-needed breath of fresh air into a sometimes stuck-in-a-rut Swiss watch industry. It was a completely new way of thinking, and a logical step for the trio was to launch a pocket watch that played on the image of a time-travelling Victorian adventurer.

The new device, the UR-1001, featured in the 2003 sci-fi fantasy film ‘The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen’. In addition to days, hours and minutes, the display also showed centuries and millennia.Despite some criticism from the Swiss watchmaking industry ‘establishment’ for their outlandish designs, the trio is unrepentant, proving that the horological world belongs to the brave, not just the traditional.Text: J. Philip Rathgen (Classic Driver)
Photos: Urwerk

Maria Sharapova named Porsche ambassador

Three-year contract

Porsche has named 26-year-old tennis player Maria Sharapova as brand ambassador.

She signed a three-year contract with Porsche and during this period she will be involved in the firm's global communications campaign. She is familiar with the brand as last year in Stuttgart at the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix she won a white 911 Carrera S Cabriolet, along with the prize money.

CEO of Porsche AG Matthias Mueller describes Maria Sharapova as "an exceptional athlete. She combines top performance in her sports with elegance and power. These are precisely the qualities that are embroiled in our sports cars." Sharapova declared during her presentation in Stuttgart "I have had the privilege to be associated with some of the best brands in the world, but now to be partners with Porsche is such an amazing honor."

Source: Porsche

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