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EDITOR’S
LETTER
M
uch the same as a rock group having to follow an astonishing debut
album with a second that exhibits the same brilliance that got everyone
excited in the first place, putting together an issue of Road Book that
beats the first one takes some doing. After such tremendously positive
feedback from all corners, how were we ever going to top that? The
answer lies within these very pages.
To be fair, it’s hardly a challenge to bring you the very best that exists in the world
of luxury, as there’s no shortage of material to whet the appetites of even those who
believe they have seen and done it all. But we strive to open the doors on hard-to-comeby opportunities, like taking James Bond’s Aston Martin DB5 to Scotland or getting
behind the wheel of what many still consider to be the greatest supercar that ever was:
the stunning McLaren F1. Richard Meaden’s expertly written and utterly engaging
feature on this most valuable machine is a must-read.
But we’re not simply obsessed with incredible automobiles. If the ocean is your
playground, you’ll no doubt be fascinated to read James McCarthy’s insight into
the world of personal submarines. Possibly the ultimate boys’ toys, these fascinating
machines turn the sea into a different sort of playground altogether and many owners
of the world’s most luxurious yachts are getting in on the act, discovering for themselves
a new take on maritime adventures.
Luxury doesn’t have to cost tens of millions of dollars, though, and the French
perfume house of Creed proves that beyond doubt. With a rich history in providing
the most discerning clients with the finest products, it is the envy of an industry that is
in danger of going too far by saturating the market with a bewildering and often bland
array of throwaway scents. Creed marks you out as an individual and we have been
talking with the man who will take that family business into a new age, while maintaining the core attributes that made it such a success in the first place.
So, with such a brilliant and wide variety of contents, we’re left with just one
problem: how on earth will we top this? You’ll have to get your hands on the next issue
of Road Book to find out.
Kevin Hackett, Editor-in-Chief.
CONTENTS
25
Road test: Masarati Quattroporte
One of the world’s most elegant saloon
cars has been replaced by a new model
that looks less distinctive but excels in
every other respect.
29
Road test: Lamborghini
Aventador Roadster
How could the outrageous Aventador
possibly be improved upon? Bizarrely,
by removing its roof. Just remember
to pack (extremely) lightly.
33
Road test: Porsche Caymen
It always was a great driving machine
but the all-new Cayman S has just
leveled the playing field, setting a new
standard for all sports cars to follow.
36
Gentlemen on a Journey
We talk with Jeremy Hackett, founder
of one of the most respected names
in men’s fashion, about style, success,
beating football hooligans and tracking
down his birth parents.
46
Cuban Missiles
Practically any luxury item is subject
to counterfeiting, but fake Cuban cigars
are some of the most difficult to spot.
Richard Whitehead sorts the fine leaves
from the bananas.
CONTENTS
54
Eurocopter EC145
Mercedes-Benz Style
When one of the world’s foremost
helicopter companies wanted to produce
a luxury vehicle for business users,
it turned to Mercedes-Benz and the
result was an S-Class for the skies.
61
McLaren: From Man to Team
The Formula One racing team is a
household name and the automotive
company is making huge strides, too.
But the story began with a remarkably
talented New Zealander called Bruce.
70
The Lord of the Land
It could rightly claim to be the most
important car ever produced and we
take the world’s oldest Land Rover
back to the place where it was conceived.
Say hello to Huey.
80
Double 0 Heaven
We’ll let the stunning photography of
Matt Howell speak for itself, while the
story of how James Bond came to be
driving this very Aston Martin DB5,
on these very roads, unfolds.
CONTENTS
92
Downwardly Mobile
If you think you’ve seen and done it all,
or that there’s nothing left on the wish
list, then perhaps it’s time you explored
the oceans’ depths in your very own
personal submarine.
100
Empire of the Senses
Creed has been an artisan of fragrance
since 1760, and it remains a family
business to this day. We catch up with
Erwin Creed, the company’s next
guardian, to talk past, present and future.
104
The Mighty McLaren F1
For years it reigned as the world’s fastest
production car and the ultra-rare F1 is
still, after two decades, viewed by many
as the greatest supercar of all.
114
Class Asset
There are those that think it’s safer to
put your savings under the mattress than
in a bank these days but, if you know
what classic cars to buy (and when),
they can yield a healthy return from
a low risk investment.
1st Prize in the Classic Category
CONTENTS
124
High Road to Morocco
If you’re going to take part in an epic
road trip across continents and five-star
hotels are thin on the ground, the new
Range Rover and an iconic Airstream
trailer make the perfect pairing.
136
Vertu
The company that invented the luxury
mobile phone has, for some time now,
been lambasted for not keeping up with
technology. But that’s all set to change
with the new TI smartphone handset –
a phone with benefits.
142
Spy Watch
Product placement in cinema is nothing
new but there are some things we don’t
mind seeing on the big screen. Like the
Omega watches that keep the world’s least
discreet secret agent on time these days.
146
Tissot Le LocLe AutomAtic
chronometer
Classic watch with an automatic COSC certified movement,
316L stainless steel case, scratch-resistant sapphire crystal
and water resistance up to 3 bar (30 m / 100 ft).
IN TOUCH WITH YOUR TIME
Get in touch at www.tissot.ch
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Marina Square Shopping Centre, Tel: 6336 9757 – Raffles City Shopping Centre, Tel: 6338 2829
The Shoppes at Marina Bay Sands, Tel: 6688 7348 – Wisma Atria, Tel: 6836 9659
Customer Service Centre Wheelock Place, #04-05/05A Tel: 6275 6388
The Limited Lange
The world’s finest wristwatches are
all handmade in Switzerland, right?
A. Lange and Söhne would beg to differ
and the German company’s Tourbillon
Pour le Merite is one of the world’s
most collectable.
154
The Height of Fashion
It started the trend for (literally) designer
hotels and is incredibly popular with
visitors from Southeast Asia. But does
the Armani Hotel in Dubai still have
what it takes to be one of the world’s
best? Nick Leech investigates.
CONTRIBUTORS
Road Book is published by
Singapore
Indicium (Singapore) Pte Ltd
Level 30, 6 Battery Road
Singapore 049909
[email protected]
Dejan Jovanovic
Born in Serbia and raised
in South Africa, Dejan’s
rather varied upbringing has
given him a special outlook
on life. His is a demeanour
of positivity and towering
enthusiasm, especially when
it comes to the high-octane
world of motorsport. He
has, over the years, become
a walking encyclopedia on
the subject and, for this issue
of Road Book, he throws the
spotlight on Bruce McLaren.
François Oosthuizen
Based in Bangkok, this perfect
gentleman is guardian of
another Indicium title – the
gorgeous Sur La Terre – and
is waging a war on mediocrity
everywhere. A man of
refined and exclusive tastes,
François has the rare ability
of being able to turn a hobby
or interest into readable and
entertaining prose. You can
enjoy his take on the house
of Creed in this issue.
Richard Meaden
It’s rare for a talented
journalist to be an expert
race driver (and vice versa)
but Richard ‘Dickie’ Meaden
is definitely both, as well as
being one of the nicest guys
in either business. And it’s
this breadth of abilities that
puts owners of the world’s
most valuable cars at ease
– cars like the McLaren F1,
which he drives and describes
for us in glorious detail.
PATH-StRegisAd-RoadBookSingaporeThailand-Mar-Apr13.indd 1
2/28/13 5:20 PM
Max Earey
Beginning his career in
photography atop a surfboard in the 1990s, Max
has steadily built up an
impressive portfolio of
work that encompasses
sport, nature, architecture
and some of the most
incredible cars of all time –
a job that causes him to
exist out of a suitcase most
weeks. But he’s still smiling.
For Road Book, he superbly
captured the world’s oldest
Land Rover on location
in North Wales.
James McCarthy
James McCarthy has been
writing about all things
luxury for more than 15
years. Truly a larger than
life character, his enthusiasm
for supercars, jets, boats
and facial topiary seemingly
knows no bounds. But, for
this issue, we tasked him with
heading beneath the waves
to explore the exciting world
of personal submarines.
Simon de Burton
Self-effacing, hard working
and always smiling, Simon
is inextricably linked with
the world of luxury. Having
previously worked for
Sotheby’s, his extraordinary
insight when it comes to
timepieces, antiques, automobiles and motorcycles is
unsurpassed as a journalist,
and it is an honour to have
him on board for Road Book.
Richard Whitehead
Over the years, he has
edited and contributed to
a number of international
car titles and visited a
wealth of iconic automotive
locations, from Sant’Agata
Bolognese and Suzuka, to
Stuttgart and Sunderland.
He also happens to be the
former editor of a cigar
connoisseurs’ magazine –
something we’ve been able
to turn to our advantage
in this issue.
Nick Leech
Nick Leech is a writer who
can turn his hand to just
about anything: travel,
architecture, conservation,
and heritage. But not cars.
Despite being 40 years of
age, Nick still cannot drive
and now lives in Abu Dhabi,
where his unashamed
pedestrianism (amongst other
things) makes him something
of an oddity.
Matt Howell
Photographer Matt Howell
started his career over 20
years ago and spends much
of his time travelling the
world shooting commercial
work for many luxury brands,
but admits what he loves
most is photographing rare
and beautiful classic cars.
We’ve been keeping him
busy and, for Road Book
02, he shot the Skyfall DB5,
McLaren F1 and the Range
Rover/Airstream combo.
R OA D T E S T
M a s e r at i
Q u at t r o p o r t e
Writ t en by J ef f R eed
T
T H E S H O P P E S AT M A R I N A B AY S A N D S
T E L E P H O N E : +65 6634 1253
B1 73/74 GALLERIA LEVEL
E - M A I L : [email protected]
SINGAPORE 018972
W E B S I T E : WWW.UOMOGROUP.COM
here aren’t many more
picturesque places
to drive than on the
twisty mountain blacktop surrounding the Côte d’Azur.
And, as if my exotic surroundings
are not pretty enough, I have
just been handed the keys to
the very attractive and all-new
Maserati Quattroporte.
If you think it can’t get any
better than this, it can and
it does – and at the mere depression of a button – as the silence
and tranquility of the countryside is rent
asunder by the thunderous exhaust note
emanating from the chrome quad tips
of this new Italian. Under the shapely
bonnet lies a new, 3.8-litre twin turbo V8
and it has been tuned to a whopping
530hp and, a bordering on the ludicrous,
710Nm of torque.
A dab of the accelerator sends the
rear 20-inch wheels spinning into a frenzy.
The 285/35 Continental tyres, though
extremely grippy, don’t stand a chance if
you’re possessed of a heavy right foot. Thick
white smoke fills the air and the tyres are
screaming for mercy. I’m in no mood to
relent, however, and while I probably ought
to feel a twinge of guilt for such resourcedepleting behaviour, I’m having way too
much fun to worry about trivial matters
such as the environment. Get over it, Earth.
I make my way up the mountain
pass and this sixth-generation model, which
has arrived 50 years after the original,
is rumbling along in stunning fashion.
With 200Nm more twist than even the
current Quattroporte Sport GTS, it wills
me to keep my foot buried in the plush
carpet and I duly oblige. The engine
sings at full cry and I almost touch its
307kph top speed on a long and empty
straight. Conditions are perfect to give
this road rocket a proper seeing to,
and I’ve ditched my usual mild manners
behind the wheel for a far more aggressive
approach. It’s getting me so much more
out of this car and, when a tunnel homes
into view, it’s the ideal opportunity to power
25
down the windows, reengage
Sport mode and get another
hit of that raucous exhaust note.
It’s a beautiful yet malevolent
sound that fills me with a mixture
of fear and delight.
The Maserati delivers
a mighty thump of power; the
speedometer flings itself from
100kph to 200kph in the blink
of an eye and it’s still climbing.
The power is addictive but far
more enjoyable is the way this
car sounds. The roar, created by
pneumatic valves in the tubing in each bank,
reverberates off the tunnel walls and shakes
me to the bone. This is aural pleasure
at its very finest.
But driving this car hard can be a
tricky affair. It takes a little while to get used
to the size of it, as the Quattroporte has
significantly grown. It is now 150mm
longer than before, with a total length of
5,262mm. Throw in a large, sloping
bonnet, which makes telling where it
ends almost impossible, and finding
your bearings in the new top Maserati takes
some doing. And these mountain roads
can become very narrow, which makes
rapid driving all the more daunting,
especially as the car’s width has also swelled
to 1,948mm.
The wheelbase, too, has been stretched by
97mm and it just adds to the pressure. – it’s
proving to be a rather large car for these
narrow European highways. I pass a sign
warning me of falling rocks and the last
thing I want is to be responsible for a
pebbledash-like finish on this car’s svelte
exterior so, as the road finally opens up,
I pull over to give the handcrafted interior
a proper appraisal.
It’s obvious that there is far more room
on offer here than in the outgoing model,
and it is far better looking, too. The fascia
is dominated by classy, veneered wood trim,
while almost all of the controls have been
buried inside the huge 8.4-inch touchscreen
infotainment system. This means there are
less buttons and switchgear on the dash
and centre console, which gives the cabin
a very clean and clutter-free look. Though
rear seat legroom has grown by an impressive 101.6mm and the 15-speaker, 1,280
watts Bowers and Wilkins audio system
sounds wonderful, I’m surprised that
the new car lacks many of the latest
driver-assistance software. For instance,
it doesn’t have a blind spot warning system,
lane departure system or even adaptive
cruise control.
However, I don’t dwell on this for too
long – a prod of the throttle to reawaken
the engine makes sure of that. Assembled
by Ferrari at Maranello, the direct-injected 3.8-litre, 90-degree V8 is fitted with a
pair of low-inertia, twin-scroll parallel
turbochargers, making it way more powerful than the old 4.7-litre V8, as well as 20
per cent more fuel efficient. It’s been
married to a new ZF eight-speed automatic transmission (with paddle shifters
on the fat steering wheel) and it boasts five
driving modes: Auto Normal, Auto Sport,
Manual Normal, Manual Sport and
Increased Control Efficiency (or I.C.E.).
It doesn’t seem to matter which mode I’m
in – the big V8 accelerates exceptionally
hard and the cogs shift with a silky smoothness regardless. But, for a real punch in
the stomach, leave it Manual Sport and
brace yourself. This sharpens up the throttle response, stiffens up the double-wishbone front and five-link rear suspension
(it also has Maserati’s Skyhook adjustable
dampers), and makes the exhaust note even
angrier. With peak torque available from
as little as 2,250rpm, the new engine proves
to be exceptionally quick and an absolute
blast. But only in a straight line.
Even though it is some 100kg lighter
than the previous model (thanks to its new
aluminium structure), it still tips the scales
at a rather portly 1,900kg, and you can
feel that weight when you tackle the corners.
Its beautifully sculpted exterior (let’s be
honest, though, that rear end now looks
so generic it could be mistaken for a Volkswagen Passat) could initially have you
hoping it’s as nimble as it looks, but the
truth is that the chassis is fighting a bit of
a losing battle. It doesn’t handle as sharply
as I had hoped, and feels very much like
the large saloon that it obviously is.
No complaints with the stoppers,
though; the Brembo-developed dual cast
brakes don’t seem to suffer any fade, no
matter how hard I push this luxury barge,
while the hydraulic power steering offers
decent levels of feedback.
Maserati wishes to become a large
volume carmaker, and would love nothing
more than to see the famous, evocative
Trident badge on every street corner, all
over the world. If most of them are fitted
to Quattroportes, I won’t be complaining,
especially if I can take one on a long, open
and straight road with the occasional
tunnel. Make no mistake, this is not a sports
car. But it is an entirely worthy flagship
for a company on the up, and a vast
improvement over the outgoing model
in virtually every respect.
R OA D T E S T
Lamborghini
Av e n ta d o r R o a d s t e r
WRIT T EN BY Ke v in Hackett
“So what do we do with our luggage?
Send it ahead by FedEx?”
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C
ue nervous, stifled laughter
throughout the room, as
Stephan Winkelmann, Lamborghini’s president, thinks on
his feet for a couple of seconds. The American journalist who posed the question
during the press conference just asked out
loud what we were all wondering anyway.
“You, ahh, travel to your destination
with the roof up. Then, when you have
checked in to your hotel, and your bags are
not in the car, you can have some fun with
the roof off,” comes his considered reply.
Cue more sniggers, this time a bit more
relaxed. Winkelmann knows that the new
Aventador Roadster is a ridiculous car – an
extreme machine – and that if you really
need practicality in your life, you won’t be
buying one of these as the daily driver.
Of course, the ‘normal’ Aventador
does, indeed, have a small luggage compartment sited within its nose, like practically
any other mid-engined supercar you can
think of. But the Roadster? That’s where
you keep the two roof panels, which slot
beautifully into the space where you’d nor29
mally be packing your clean underwear.
Once those panels are snapped into place
above the car’s open cockpit, normal space
duties resume, so Winkelmann’s theory is
the only one that makes even the slightest
bit of sense. The Aventador’s interior does
feature a small cubbyhole between the seats
but even that is only sufficient to house a
couple of credit (or organ donor) cards.
The Aventador Roadster is about as
far removed from ‘normal’ as it’s possible
to be when it comes to motoring. It’s a
statement piece, a halo car for a brand that,
this year, celebrates its 50th anniversary.
Against all the odds, Lamborghini has survived financial destitution, often suspect
product ranges and a succession of owners
who, frankly, had no clue what to do with
the company set up as an almighty ‘up
yours’ to Enzo Ferrari.
R OA D T E S T
There isn’t a single duff line on this car. It
is an utterly perfect design, at once jagged,
vicious, sharp and creased, yet beautiful,
harmonious and stunning in its execution.
While the Murcielago and the Diablo before
it were outrageous, they both appeared
awkward from some angles, but not this
thing. It’s an absolute triumph and, even if
it was rubbish to drive, it would still be worth
buying, just to be able to open the garage
door and look at it. Having previously spent
quality time in the coupé, I know the Roadster will be capable of incredible feats.
Miami, Florida, is the perfect environment for Lamborghini, especially for models
that allow for open-air thrills, such as this.
If you think it’s hard turning heads with
your any new car these days, this place is
even more used to seeing the extraordinary
and the outrageous. Yet the Aventador
Roadster, from what I’ve experienced so
far on this trip, is a sensation. Pedestrians
cheer as the cars rumble through the streets
of South Beach, shouting out to ask if the
drivers mind if they take a photo or shoot
some video footage with their phones. If
Megan Fox was to disrobe and walk into
town, she wouldn’t get any more attention
that this car. It’s a bona fide superstar but
I need to give this Lamborghini some proper
exercise and, at least in this part of the US,
that means heading for the racetrack.
Miami’s Homestead Speedway has
claimed numerous lives since its opening
in 1995. And this little nugget of information means that, today at least, I’ll be taking
it a little easier than normal. The drill is a
familiar one on Lamborghini’s launch
events: three or four cars out on track at a
time, with a lead car up front, whose driver
is in communication with the rest via a
radio that sits on the passenger seat (no
handy storage bins in a car like this). Four
hot laps, then a cool down lap, then it’s
back to the pits for a coffee until it’s your
turn to go again. The beauty of doing
things this way is that, although you’re
constantly under supervision, you really
do get to give the car a hammering, because
those lead drivers don’t hang about. It’s
your duty to keep up with everyone else
and it’s a proper adrenaline rush when your
fellow drivers are really on the pace.
My first lap is one that could best be summed
up as “hesitant”. It’s been almost 18 months
since I last drove an Aventador and I’d forgotten just how brutal it is when you’re
driving hard. Every gear change snaps back
my neck, the gathering of pace relentless
and violent when I open the taps and allow
all the pent up fury of the V12 behind my
head to vent itself. This is a car that absolutely demands respect, despite its fourwheel-drive transmission and its carbon
brakes. 700hp can be a corruptible force,
especially when one is pressing on around
an unfamiliar and unforgiving circuit.
There seems to be loose gravel and
other detritus covering large swathes of the
track surface, and the Roadster in front of
me on my first couple of laps is obviously
struggling to retain traction. Its rear end is
shimmying around, its driver must be petrified. We’ve been forbidden from disengaging the traction control, so there will always
be a degree of electronic intervention, but
it does not do to throw oneself entirely upon
its mercy. You need to think ahead, at all
times, and preempt as many potential problems as possible.
This means not straying too far up
the banking around the main track, and
getting on the brakes hard as you’re
approaching the sharp corners of the infield
areas, leaving it as late as possible to get
back on the power, without losing your
momentum. It’s a nerve shredding exercise
for the first few laps but, when it’s my turn
again, I delve and find reserves of bravery
I thought had long since vanished. And the
resulting laps are extraordinarily thrilling.
The structure of any Aventador is
made up primarily of carbon fibre – a material Lamborghini has been busying itself
with for decades – and that expertise really
shines through with the Roadster because,
even without its roof in place, this car is as
stiff as it gets. The structural integrity provided by the central tub, makes for zero
flex, even when you’re taking corners at
ridiculous speeds. When the two panels are
fixed in place, the structure becomes even
stiffer, and the Roadster feels every bit as
honed and as tight as its coupé brother. The
effort that has been put into making this
model as good as it is, is exemplary and yes,
31
FedExing those bags would be a worthwhile
exercise, just so you can enjoy the hedonistic, riotous fun this car provides.
But while, given the right amount of
respect, the car can indeed be fun, it still
bites the hands of those who make the occasional mistake. On the infield circuit, just
before the banking begins, another journalist makes an error, probably due to a splitsecond lapse of concentration, and he gets
on the power just that little bit too early
when coming out of the final, tight bend.
The car is in its normal ‘Strada’ drive mode,
the most forgiving and benign of its three
settings, yet in the blink of an eye he’s entered
a spin, from which there is no way back.
He tries to steer into the skid, tries to
control the slide with the brakes, but it’s all
too little, too late. The spinning car leaves
the track, hits the grass and digs itself in,
coming to a rest. It’s all happened within
two or three seconds and, in order to avoid
a pile-up, the two drivers behind have ended
up going off-piste as well. What could have
been carnage, however, ends up being one
stoved-in front spoiler section and a properly bruised ego for the guy who was first
spanked by this wild car. It could have happened to anyone.
What this car needs is space, and lots
of it. The circuit here is too tight – what
we need is a wide, perfectly smooth road,
with long and sweeping bends. I know just
where to take it when the Roadster is next
in my custody, and that will be another story
for another day. Take it from me, though,
that the Aventador Roadster is currently
the pinnacle of what Lamborghini is capable
of. It’s fast on an epic scale, it’s extremely
well engineered and exquisitely crafted and
it’s still wild, just like a V12 Lamborghini
should be. Of course, it’s ridiculous in every
single way, but aren’t you glad that there’s
still at least one company out there unafraid
to stick its neck out and be different from
all the rest? Me too.
R OA D T E S T
P o r s c h e C ay m a n S
WRIT T EN BY Ke v in Hackett
“Bam!
Bam!
Bam!
Bam!”
C
M
Y
CM
MY
CY
MY
K
L
ast night, outside a Portugese restaurant, Markus Baumann was
doing his best impression of Porsche’s flat-six engine, his right hand
quickly moving back and forth as he uttered
those sounds. He was talking, rather excitedly, about the manual gearbox in the new
Cayman, and his enthusiasm was both
contagious and entirely understandable.
Yesterday, after a tortuous series of
flights to get to Portugal, where this car is
being launched for the international media,
I got to drive a Cayman S from a Porsche
dealership to our hotel on the coast. I’d
almost forgotten what it was like to pilot a
pure sports car along truly mind blowing
mountain roads. Within five minutes I knew,
without a single nagging doubt, that this is
the very best driver’s car available today.
And I don’t say this sort of thing lightly.
Baumann is the man in charge of
engine development, and the manual transmission now benefits, in Sport Plus mode
at least, from an automatic blip when performing downshifts. It’s an unnecessary
feature but it’s fun. And that, more than
anything, is what the new Cayman is about:
the one f-word we love to say, but rarely
get to, when describing the driving experience on offer from a new car.
It’s improved in every possible way over
the outgoing model. It looks stunning, like
a diminutive Carrera GT with a roof. The
wheelbase is 60mm longer and its track is
wider, for improved handling. The engines
(2.7-litre for the normal one and 3.4 for
the S) are more powerful, lighter and drink
less. And yet they sound utterly intoxicating, especially when you hit Sport Plus and
the trick exhaust opens its throat. It’s pure
racecar and, when you lift off the throttle,
the pops and bangs and gurgles that pour
forth are sonic heaven. I’m struggling to
think of any aspect about this car that
doesn’t delight me.
So I have accepted what I already knew
deep down. This is the perfect sports car –
something I was close to saying about the
new Boxster last year, after driving one for
a few days. But the Cayman is stiffer, more
focused on delivering a better hit, better able
to unleash that enthusiastic driver you know
33
you are, if only you had the right wheels
and the right roads at your disposal. I don’t
often take the opportunity to talk cars with
the people I meet on press launches, who
are responsible for developing them, but last
night I couldn’t help myself. I just had to go
and shake their hands and congratulate them
on doing the very best possible job.
But today is the real test. As blindingly brilliant as a car can be on public roads,
it’s the racetrack that sifts the wheat from
the chaff, sorts the men from the boys. Today,
the weather is just right – cool, free of wind
and the sun is shining. And the track, that
I had assumed would be little more than a
glorified karting circuit, is nothing of the
sort. The Autodromo Internacional Algarve
is one of the best I have ever had the privilege of experiencing – extremely long, with
a flawless surface for plenty of grip, and
numerous blind crests and scary dips to be
taken flat-out, if you’re brave enough.
R OA d | B oo k
“For five incredible laps, this car
provides the most addictive adrenaline rush,
exhibiting perfect poise and balance”
34
R OA D T E S T
I climb into an S model with Porsche’s
excellent PDK dual-clutch transmission
(tellingly, not a single car here is blighted
by the infernal toggle switches that normally ruin the experience – they’re all either
manual or fitted with proper, beautifully
engineered alloy paddle shifters) and adjust
my seat. As I wait for the lead car’s driver
to give us the nod to head on track, I take
a moment to look around the cabin and
it’s as though the previous model had never
existed. Everything is intuitive, tactile and
lovely to look at. The seats (bucket items
yesterday, regulars today) are wonderfully
comfortable, supportive and easy to position
for just the right posture.
It’s time to go, and the lead instructor
doesn’t hang about. He’s in a new 911
Carrera S and immediately guns it out of
the pit lane – even on the first familiarisation lap it’s scarily quick. I have my car in
Sport Plus mode, for increased punch and
a stiffer chassis set-up, and it doesn’t disappoint. For five incredible laps, this car pro-
35
vides the most addictive adrenaline rush,
exhibiting perfect poise and balance, and
more than enough power to keep on the
tail of that wailing Carrera up front.
The grip from the Cayman’s front
tyres is terrific, allowing the tightest corners
to be taken at speeds that would have most
other cars struggling to maintain the driver’s chosen line. The S puts down its 325hp
with eagerness, practically egging you on,
no matter how undulating the track or road
surface happens to be. There’s nothing
intimidating about its delivery, though. It’s
back to that f-word again because, quite
unlike a 911 GT2, this car never gives the
impression that it’s out for your scalp, even
at speeds that would have you locked up
in most countries.
For anyone hell bent on buying the
Cayman’s bigger and older Carrera brother,
this car could well sway them if they
approach it with an open mind. Granted,
the Cayman has only two seats, but it does
have two boots: one fore and one aft of
the cockpit, making it entirely practical for
a car of its type. Porsche’s performance
claims always err on the side of downplaying, but consider the official statistics, such
as its 0-100kph time of under five seconds,
together with a maximum speed of 283kph
and – get this – combined fuel economy
to the tune of 8.8-litres per 100km, and
you have to wonder why anyone would
want for more.
Those figures don’t paint the full
picture, of course, but the Cayman consistently feels staggeringly quick, eminently
chuckable through the bends and inspires
huge levels of confidence in the driver,
rewarding him or her with the drive of
their lives, time after time.
Have I managed to discover a chink
in its armour? No I have not. In fact, as I
write these words, my legs are still shaking
– it’s that exhilarating. Jaguar, your F-Type
has a new benchmark – the Cayman S has
just set the bar higher than it ever was. And,
if you’re in the market for a new Porsche,
take off those 911-shaped blinkers because
this little car is the thinking person’s Carrera.
R OA d | B oo k
gentleman on a journey
jeremy hackett
W R I T T E N BY K E V I N h ac k ett
I
36
It was one life’s pivotal moments for me. Sat on a busy commuter train, there it was – my name emblazoned across the
chest of another man. My surname, the thing that made life
so miserable for me as an adolescent living in the wilds of
North Wales in the UK, was there on a polo shirt being worn
by someone that looked like he knew how to dress.
My surname seemed somehow socially acceptable, so I owe
Jeremy Hackett, founder of the eponymous gentleman’s outfitters,
a debt of gratitude. He made me glad I wasn’t born Jones, Williams or Thomas. Hackett was, and still is, where it’s at for me.
You’ll have seen them yourself – often brightly coloured,
always beautifully finished polo and rugby shirts with that name
in bold capital letters proudly on display. They’re found on men
and boys the world over and say, in an instant, that the wearer
knows a thing or two about style. But Hackett’s repertoire extends
well beyond the world of sports clothing. It’s a brand that encapsulates every aspect of classic, British menswear and, whether
you’re in the market for a tuxedo, a pair of hunting boots,
some shades or striped pyjamas, you’ll find the very best
in a Hackett store.
So meeting the man himself, in the glorious confines of
Hackett’s Sloane Street store in London, is something I have
been looking forward to for a long time. Dressed, as I knew he
would be, sharp as a knife in a classically tailored two-piece
pinstripe suit, Jeremy Hackett is the perfect ambassador for the
company that bears his name. Instantly likeable, he’s friendly,
slightly reserved and softly spoken. Many people in his position
are often unreachable and distant but this man simply puts
others at ease with a manner that seems foreign to some involved
in his particular industry.
Just what was the story behind this brand that has become,
in some eyes, as iconically British as Rolls-Royce, The Ritz or Big
Ben? It’s a story of hard work, determination in the face of adversity and, most importantly, classic and timeless British style.
It’s a story that inspires and fascinates in equal measure.
Brought up in Clifton, Bristol, Jeremy Hackett spent his first
few years in a care home, before being adopted at the age of six.
“It was a terrible time,” he says, “and I didn’t get along very well
at school.” Leaving secular education behind when he was 17, he
entered the world of gentleman’s fashion by taking on a full-time
job at a store where previously he’d worked as a Saturday boy. He
wasn’t there for long, heading for London less than a year later,
working in the fashionable King’s Road. From there he took on
a role at a tailor’s shop in Savile Row and the dreams of running
his own business started in earnest.
“I used to go to Paris a lot and on one particular visit I went
to a flea market where I found a man selling vintage clothes, all
of them British and all very good quality,” remembers Jeremy.
“He said, ‘why don’t you source these for me in England then I’ll
come to London and buy them off you?’ I thought that seemed
like a good idea so I started going around the markets and shops,
buying up the best I could find. And because I’d been in the business all my life anyway, I knew what I was looking at.”
The Parisian gentleman started visiting Jeremy once a month
and the money came rolling in. “I made quite a good business
out of that but soon I started thinking that maybe I should start
j e r e m y h ac k e t t
“Word soon got around London that Hackett,
situated in what their bank manager described as
ʻthe wrong endʼ of King’s Road, was the place for
the best in classic British clothing.”
selling these clothes to the end customers myself. From that idea
Hackett was born”.
Before this, though, Jeremy had gone into business with Ashley
Lloyd-Jennings, opening up a shoe store in 1978. It was in a
“completely deserted street full of old warehouses” and lasted,
under the Lloyd-Jennings name, for three years or so until the
money ran out and it inevitably closed its doors. “We were scratching around for something to do,” says Jeremy, “when this whole
vintage thing came up. There was never any business plan, it was
more a case of ‘oh well, this might be a bit of fun, might make
a few bob’”.
In 1983, still without any proper funding behind them,
the two opened Hackett after investing £1000 each from their
own pockets and the bank matching that with another couple of
thousand. “We opened our first shop in Parson’s Green and took
£1000 in the first week, which we both thought was absolutely
amazing and, from that point on, the business just took off.” Word
soon got around London that Hackett, situated in what their bank
manager described as “the wrong end” of King’s Road, was the
place for the best in classic British clothing.
With the shop selling nothing but second-hand clothes (funny
how ‘vintage’ these days sounds far more palatable yet means
exactly the same thing) for nearly two years, it was becoming
increasingly difficult to source good quality items. “We’d get one
good jacket in and have ten people fighting over it,” says Jeremy,
“so it was obvious there was a demand for the kinds of things we
were selling. We just thought it would be a good idea, rather than
trading down by buying in junk, to try to reproduce those things
and meet that demand”.
Starting out, in 1985, with “some tweed jackets and nice
shirts”, Hackett took the lease on a shop next door, knocked through
and expanded. “At first nobody would go in there,” he admits.
“They just wanted the vintage stuff but soon, when customers
couldn’t find anything they wanted or something that fitted
properly, they relented and bought the new items”. It wasn’t long
before sales of vintage clothing were phased out and Hackett, as
a brand in its own right, forged ahead with healthy sales of brand
new clothes.
A year later and Hackett had done rather well for itself and
had opened more stores, all within a hundred metres of each
other. There was one for shirts and ties, one for tailoring,
a specialist formalwear shop, a barber’s and gentlemen’s accessories shop, and a sportswear shop. The area even became
known by London cabbies as ‘Hackett Cross’.
39
Left
old store photographs
prove just how far
Hackett’s corporate
image has come
along in three decades.
In the early days they
sold a mix of new and
vintage clothing.
Following page
Jeremy Hackett in the
company’s flagship
Sloane Street store,
talks to Road Book
about his recently
discovered families in
Australia and America.
Photograph by
Holly Falconer
R OA d | B oo k
What, though, about the polo shirts that managed to get
United States. “It was the wrong time for us and Boston was obvia name like mine to enter the subconscious of a nation, to become,
ously the wrong place,” Jeremy concedes. “We rapidly ran out of
dare I say it, a status symbol of sorts?
money and the company was in very real danger. The one thing
In 1987 Jeremy was approached by two polo-playing army
I’d never do, though, is put my suppliers through any difficulties,
officers who were looking for sponsorship. The Hackett Polo Team
so keeping Hackett going was always the top priority.” At the time
was formed and the polo shirt was born. Originally made solely
(1991), many of the smaller fashion houses were being bought up
for the team, Hackett customers who had spent a pleasant afterby Japanese companies and there was speculation in the media
noon watching a match kept asking to buy the shirts. Hackett
as to whether Hackett might be one of them. Alfred Dunhill wasn’t
eventually relented and the branded polo shirt became an instant
prepared to sit back and watch that happen, so approached Hackett
smash hit.
about buying a majority shareholding in the company.
Unfortunately for Hackett, by the early part of this decade,
By 1992 Hackett was in safe hands and Dunhill (later to
the polo shirt had become popular with many football hooligans,
become the Richemont Luxury Goods Group) invested heavily,
evidently taken with the fact that some of the designs featured
enabling the opening of what is still Hackett’s flagship store on
the St. George Cross. It was, as Jeremy remarks, soul destroying
London’s Sloane Street. It was at this stage that Jeremy came up
to open a newspaper and see some hoodlum that had been
with a slogan for the brand that instantly struck a chord with the
arrested the day before with his surname across his chest
marketplace: Essential British Kit. It perfectly describes Hackett
for the entire world to see. It was
– the style could never be mistaken
hardly Hackett’s fault – no company
for Italian or Oriental, it’s unmistak“We’re only beginning to scratch the
can completely control the demoably British throughout.
surface, it wasn’t long ago that we opened
graphic that buys its products, espeThe following year was when
cially when there’s an element
Hackett
first got involved with
our first shop in Japan and that market
of wholesale as part of the corpoanother great British institution:
has turned out to be huge for us, with similar motor sport, becoming the first
rate structure.
How does a company counter
sponsor of the now hallowed Goodsuccess across Southeast Asia. It’s really
this negativity? How can you diswood Festival of Speed. The assotaken us all by surprise”
suade a particular group of people
ciation with this glamorous world
from wearing your clothes and
still continues and Hackett has, for
bearing your name? The answer came by getting involved with
many years now, sponsored the Aston Martin Racing team, coming
an altogether different ball game: rugby. There is an old saying
up with a range of AMR clothing that sells in extremely healthy
that goes, “football is a gentleman’s game played by hooligans
numbers. “In the Middle East, we sell more Aston Martin branded
and rugby is a hooligan’s game played by gentlemen”. You don’t
goods than anything else,” he remarks. “It’s been an extraordinary
hear of rioting at rugby matches and the term “rugby hooligan”
success for us.”
has yet to become part of the British vernacular. As a sport it was
Expansion into Paris came in 1994 and, a year later, Hackett
perfectly suited to the Hackett brand and a certain Jonny Wilkinbegan selling children’s clothing. The company’s enduring assoson became the face of Hackett in its advertising and promotion.
ciation with high profile sports paid off with increased brand
It was enough to send the football fanatics over to Burberry, and
awareness and there has always been a very good relationship
saved Hackett from a messy demise.
with Europe’s fashion press, too. As a result, expansion was inevThe timing could not have been more perfect. A year later
itable and Jeremy recognises that there’s a fine line to tread between
in 2003, England became Rugby World Champions and Wilkincommercial success and diluting the very things about a brand
son, the team’s captain, was a national hero, a household name.
that made it a hit in the first place. But Hackett, he says, won’t
When the team was paraded in front of the world’s media in an
veer into women’s wear. “Every season, fashion for women goes
open-top bus around the streets of London, each player was wearing
through immense changes and it’s almost impossible to keep up
a Hackett tailored suit. Nobody thought about football riots when
with it. Men are different. They tend to find something they like
the Hackett name was mentioned, they just associated it with
and stick with it, keeping the same sense of style for many years.
national pride and a man that millions looked to as a role model.
That’s what Hackett is all about.”
That, as they say, was a result.
Jeremy was approached by the UK’S Independent on Sunday
Another hurdle Hackett had to overcome during the football
newspaper in 2005, to write a weekly style column called
hooligan phase was when the company tried to expand into the
Mr Classic. He agreed and quickly discovered a natural ability
40
j e r e m y h ac k e t t
to write engaging and humorous copy.
This lasted for two years and the columns
were serialised into a book that has
sold consistently well. Also in 2005, Hackett
was sold by Richemont to Spanish investment group, Torreal, which again has
resulted in massive investment, with major
revamps of the Sloane Street and Jermyn
Street shops in London, as well as expansion across Europe, Central America,
South Africa and into Asian countries. “We
are in Dubai, Japan, Hong Kong, both of
which have received us extremely well.
We’re in Kuala Lumpur, about to open in
Singapore, we’re in discussions regarding
opening in Thailand, we already operate
two stores in China, we’re in the Phillipines
and India, too.”
What, though, of Hackett’s future?
“I think we’re only beginning to scratch
the surface,” says Jeremy. “It wasn’t long
ago that we opened our first shop in Japan
and that market has turned out to be huge
for us, which has led to similar success across
Southeast Asia. There’s such affection for
the brand, it’s really taken us all by surprise.
If I walk into a menswear shop over there,
people instantly recognise me and they
know all about Mr Classic, too. They seem
to have an appreciation of Englishness that
we don’t have even in England.”
True to his roots, Jeremy still goes
around the market stalls, scanning for items
that Hackett can draw inspiration from.
“I keep my oar in,” he says. “I find things
from years ago that, with a bit of tweaking
or re-development, can be worked into our
own designs.” Yet it isn’t just vintage clothing that inspires Hackett. Jeremy says that
even today’s high-end fashion can bring
ideas to the table. “Admittedly what you
see on the catwalk will often be way too
extreme or avant garde for us as a brand
but there’s always a new take on things,
always a way of toning down ideas and
making them work for a more classic look”.
Going back to his adoption as a child,
Jeremy had, for many years, been curious
about his birth parents. “I decided to try
and trace them,” he says, “and went
through the Salvation Army. Eventually
they came back and said they’d found my
mother, from the information on my baptismal certificate. It turned out she lives in
Right and opposite
Jeremy is instantly
recognisable to millions,
yet extremely friendly
and approachable. His
two pet spaniels feature
prominently in his life,
even making their way
to his tie clip.
Photographs by
Holly Falconer
43
“Every one of our customers
should be made to feel incredibly special,
whether they’re buying a pair of socks
or a made-to-measure suit for thousands
of pounds, dollars or yen.”
Australia and I was due to visit the country, so I decided
against their advice, that it would be a nonsense if
I was to pass up on this opportunity.” He made contact,
made his way over and met both her and an entire
family he never before knew existed. “They’ve all done
very well for themselves, my brothers and sisters. And
my mother, who had spent her whole life wondering
about me, turned out to be an incredibly stylish,
wonderful woman. I definitely get my dress sense
from her.”
He still sees them whenever he can, but what
about his father? “Eventually I got to the truth of who
he was. When my mother was a young nurse in Oxford,
she sweetly says she ‘let her guard down’ and had a
short fling with a US serviceman. He had no idea
about me and returned to America and by the time
I tracked him down he had already passed away,” he
adds. “But when I did, I discovered a second group
of brothers and sisters, so I have this huge, incredible
family now.” As for his father’s sense of style, Jeremy
says he sadly didn’t have any. “From the photographs
I’ve seen, he used to dress like Robert De Niro’s character in Casino,” he laughs. “Although he was a keen
amateur racing driver, owned a number of beautiful
sports cars and was really into watches, all similar
interests to my own. It’s clear to me that the way
I turned out has a great deal to do with who my birth
parents were.”
As chairman of such a successful company, what
does he think makes Hackett the company so special,
apart from the obvious edge with style and fashion?
“Customer service”, he says without hesitation.
“Every one of our customers should be made to feel
incredibly special, whether they’re buying a pair of
socks or a made-to-measure suit for thousands of
pounds, dollars or yen. It’s an element sadly lacking
in today’s high streets, but I know it makes us stand
out as being different. It works too, and we have our
reputation built on that very foundation.”
He’s right. Hackett is all about feeling good.
The quality of the company’s garments and the
service received in any of its stores is beyond question.
The style is one that won’t date overnight, and the
image is one that will never be anything other than
Great British. With Hackett sorted, if only someone
would make the name Kevin trendy, I’d be a very
happy man indeed. Some things, I fear, are not fixable
by a fashionable polo shirt.
CUBAN
MISSILES
The country that produces the world’s finest cigars
also floods the market with hard-to-spot counterfeits
W R I T T E N BY R I C H A R D W H I T E H E A D
F
or every torcedor in the pristine Partagás factory in central
Havana, there is another operating out of a mouldy backstreet
dive just a couple of blocks away. As prime examples of
Cuba’s mind-boggling dual economy, either one spends his
days deftly rolling the brown leaves that keep the decaying
country on the world map.
Both possess the skills of an artisan; they are masters of their craft
of rolling the picked, dried and matured leaves into the finished cigars
that are then boxed and sent to connoisseurs all round the world.
In Havana, the torcedor (literally meaning the roller or twister) is the
glamour boy of the cigar factory. He is the lead actor, ace matador and
racecar driver of the country’s sexiest industry.
To reach this level, the torcedor has progressed through years of
training to develop the kind of muscle memory a golfer or pianist would
yearn for. By middle age – and by appearance even older, as Cuban
workers age faster through their hardship – they can count hundreds
of thousands of finished cigars apiece, each one crafted as if it were
a masterpiece.
The man in the factory is an employee of Cubatabaco, the government-owned company that has controlled Cuban cigar production
in its entirety since the island’s dozens of small businesses were collectivised after the Revolution. For his part, the backstreet torcedor is a
capitalist: the product of Havana’s vibrant crime scene and one of the
many souls who roll the fakes that flood the global market. He works for
one of the many highly organised rings that centre on Cuba’s capital.
By Western standards, both men make a pittance, although one does
much better than the other because the world wants Cuban cigars,
a product that is ridiculously easy to fake.
In the world of luxury goods, cigars are unique. For one, they are
very reasonably priced, and even the finest Havanas are within the reach
of most consumers. But while they are relatively inexpensive, they are
also handcrafted, picked from undeniably the world’s finest raw materials, produced by the best qualified and most highly trained craftsmen
and distributed to some of the most discerning individuals on earth.
They also sell by the millions.
CUBAN MISSILES
“While many counterfeiters use secondhand
boxes to house their cigars, there are those in the
game with high-end sticks that invest in their
own brand new containers, and these are often
better made than the originals.”
All this is meat and drink to the counterfeiters, for they
relish operating in a big market with very few players.
They figure that a cigar buyer is looking to see the
legend tripa corta, totalmente a mano (the mark of
a handmade Cuban), not caveat emptor.
As with anything, cigar knock-offs come in a wide
range of quality standards, from the cigar equivalent
of the Nigerian 419 email scam – cheap, cheerful and
designed to net the most gullible – to high-quality fakes
that are seemingly identical to the original. The latter
can be so accomplished that it could fool even the most
seasoned expert. The fake is unmistakable, and often
unsmokable. While still made from Cuban leaves, they
often come from factory sweepings mixed with palm
or banana leaves.This is big business and the counterfeiters go out of their way to present “genuine” fakes
that are thoroughly perfect in the way they are packaged.
And it is this craving for perfection that will give many
cigar buyers their first and leading clue that what they
are being offered is a fake. An eternal quirk of Cuban
cigars is that their distributor, Cubatabaco, has an appalling record in terms of packaging, distribution and quality
control. Ironically, the shoddier the stick or packaging,
the more likely it is to be the genuine article.
Cubans have much more to worry about than
the appearance of their cigar boxes, and they are happy
to justify this by pointing out that the cigars their
country exports are almost always handmade.
Put very simply, if a cigar box looks absolutely perfect,
and isn’t on sale from an official outlet, a consumer
should be a little concerned as to its veracity. While
many counterfeiters use secondhand boxes to house
their cigars (and again, these are often supplied from
sources inside the genuine factory) there are those in
the game with high-end sticks that invest in their own
brand new containers, and these are often better made
than the originals.
Another giveaway is the quality of the label,
although any number of wild irregularities can drop
into genuine products. For example, it is not unheard
of for an H. Upmann Monarch to sport a red ring,
instead of the usual brown one. Indeed, given the level
of quality control at some Havana factories, the oftenseen Upmann red could even be viewed as a minor
curiosity line.
It is perfectly normal to witness, say, Bolívar
Belicoso Finos with different policy stamps or the same
code letters from two sets of authorities. The cedar
paper separating the lower and upper rows can be
frayed and non-uniformly set to different dimensions.
And, as one might expect from this resource-poor
country, there is plenty of mix and match when it
comes to materials. This could be in the form of Hoyo
de Monterrey des Dieux Cabinets wrapped in the yellow
silky ribbon of the Hoyo du Prince, to the point that
the legend “Hoyo du Prince” is even stamped on it.
Above
Government-controlled
factories are housed
in rundown buildings,
where quality control
and packaging are
often poor.
Right
Boxes of genuine cigars
are likely to be imperfect.
If the one you’re looking
at is flawless, you should
be suspicious.
To put it bluntly, Cubatabaco is a textbook example
of a small, nationalised company from a tin-pot dictatorship trying to compete in a world of slick, multinational corporates and demanding markets. Meanwhile,
Habanos SA, the arm of Cubatabaco that controls the
promotion, distribution and export of Cuban cigars
worldwide, also isn’t a pumping, thrusting temple to
marketing when you visit its offices just a stone’s throw
from Havana’s Straights of Florida seafront.
Rather, it is dusty and crumbling in the most
elegant, Spanish colonial way. Decrepit wall and ceiling
fans whir away ineffectively in the Caribbean heat
and many of the desks inside remain empty for much
of the day; for their would-be occupants, work hours
are the basis for an eternal negotiation. Welcome to
communism in the Caribbean: it is testament to the
world’s love for Cuban cigars that this creaking, derelict company has managed to survive for so long.
Habanos owns the trademarks of every brand
of Cuban-made cigars in each of its export markets,
and it controls the franchises of its La Casa del Habano
chain of cigar retail stores.
In 2000, the Franco-Spanish tobacco giant Altadis
bought half of Habanos, and since then there has
been a degree of modernisation. However, observers
joke that the European corporate spent its money
purchasing the smaller half of the company, given
the power the government continues to wield in Cuba.
But there have been suggestions that Altadis’
influence has led to Habanos’ drastic restructuring
of its cigar lines and size offerings, the adoption of
more modern marketing practices and production
methods, more in line with cigar companies that market
in the United States.
It can only really be as a result of Altadis’ involvement, that Habanos has started to take a stand on
fakes at long last and, through some savvy marketing,
even capitalised on the market’s fears of being duped.
The creation of the ultra high-end Cohíba Behike
BHK trio of cigars in 2010 was extremely well received
around the world. The sticks, all of them with pigtail
caps, were delicious, attractive and, above all else,
pricey. Added to this, the packaging was tremendously sophisticated and designed to keep the counterfeiters at bay.
The true Cohíba Behike BHK band is ornate,
with a number of devices meant to make it difficult
for fakers to reproduce – a little like adding the
watermark to bank notes. It is not hard for punters
to note the artfully lettered words “BEHIKE” and
“COHIBA”, each one raised in embossed type,
so they can feel the texture on the genuine band.
Most counterfeits miss this step.
R OA d | B oo k
“Decrepit wall and ceiling fans whir away ineffectively
in the Caribbean heat and many of the desks inside remain
empty for much of the day; for their would-be occupants,
work hours are the basis for an eternal negotiation.”
The real band also features a pair of holograms. The first is within
the golden Taino Indian head (Cohíba’s logo), which has ridges
on the inside, along with a second, smaller head. The second
hologram appears as a number of small heads and the word
Cohíba repeated.
The cigars come packed in very glossy, black boxes of 10,
although many fake Behikes have been packed in bundles, due to
the exquisite detail of the genuine box, but recently some fake
boxes that attempt to replicate the artwork have been discovered.
Initially, the first counterfeit Behike cigars were pigtailed sticks
with standard Cohíba bands.
This is at the high-end of Cuban cigars, and while there isn’t
really a low-end to the market as such – all sticks from the island
being vastly superior to most other non-Cuban brands in most
people’s minds – some of Habanos’ lesser-known labels are at
particular risk of being copied. This is primarily because the likes
of Juan López – a rarely chosen but exceptionally rewarding smoke
– Fonseca and Gispert do not feature highly in Habanos’ balance
book and marketing plans, so are made and marketed today the
same way they were a generation ago, and counterfeiters like this.
So how do you detect a fake? First of all, check out the box.
A green and white warranty seal should be visible on the leftfront-side of it; its colour can range from forest to lime-green, and
inside the seal is an insignia that contains a shield with a hat resting
on top. Take a close look at this, as the fold line of the seal should
run directly through the centre of the shield.
On the box’s upper-right corner should be a white Habanos
sticker, pasted diagonally. The box should look in neat and clean
condition, free of smudges and scuffmarks or any dullness in colour.
On the bottom of the box you will find a Habanos heat stamp.
Make sure this is impressed into the box, and not an ink stamp.
Below the heat stamp will be an ink factory code, usually in green,
blue or black. This tells you the factory where the cigars were
rolled and the date.
Upon opening the box, pull back the flap and smell the
tobacco. The fragrance should be pleasing, with a rich, deep aroma,
and the cigars should be uniform in both colour and shape.
The top face of the cigar may appear flattened, or what is known
as box-pressed, and this is particularly true for torpedo shape.
The caps (the mouth ends) should look identical, all resting at an
equal distance from the top of the box. The foot of the cigar
should be cut clean and straight, and the bands should be identical and perfectly aligned. Next, pull a cigar out of the box and
feel it, by holding it between your thumb and forefinger. Press
together down along the whole length of the cigar and it should
feel firm and even; if there are hard spots followed by soft spot,
this is a dead giveaway that the cigars are counterfeit.
With increasingly more online cigar sources, consider some
red flags when buying sight unseen. First, watch out for websites
that always seem to stock ediciones limitadadas from 2000 onwards,
from Cohíba, Montecristo and Partagás. These limited editions
are notoriously difficult to get hold of and will always command
a premium, so make sure the site you choose is charging a decent
amount for your order.
Also, be aware of sites that never stock smaller ring gauge
brands. Check if niche names such as Cuaba, Fonseca, Jose L.
Piedra, La Flor de Cano, Por Larranaga and Rafael González
are often listed but never in stock. And see whether the site can
supply orders for tubes, or three- and five-cigar packs, as each of
these is harder to counterfeit.
Just as it is difficult to tell apart the Habanos torcedor and
the counterfeiter based on his experience and skills, it is tremendously hard to tell the fake product from the real. And for this
reason there is one golden rule to consider: always buy from an
official distributor like La Casa del Habano, or at least from one
you trust.
This may not always be practical or the most cost-effective
method, but one thing is for sure: you will never have to bear the
cost, embarrassment or inconvenience of finding that the cigar
you are holding was never meant for smoking.
52
Men and women of
all age groups are
employed by the
industry and use only
the finest tobacco
leaves to produce the
genuine articles,
whereas fake Cuban
cigars often contain
floor sweepings mixed
with banana leaves.
E u r o c o p te r E C 1 4 5
M e r ce d e s - B e n z St y le
WRIT T EN BY Wi l l i a m Chu n g
R OA d | B oo k
I
t seems like the most logical thing in the world:
harness the expertise of a renowned luxury car
manufacturer, who has over a century of experience in maximising the intelligent use of limited
space, to design the interior of a helicopter. Why
had no one thought of this before? Okay, so
Embraer started the ball rolling with its involvement
with BMW but the confines of a helicopter are much
more restrictive than even a small passenger jet.
Eurocopter supplies the civilian and military
markets with an impressive range of aircraft and its
medium-sized EC145 is, the company maintains, the
ultimate multi-role helicopter. And, two years ago, the
special edition ‘EC145 Mercedes-Benz Style went into
production, and it signified a completely new direction
for the car manufacturer.
Designed by Mercedes’ Advanced Design Studio
in Como, Italy, with the corporate and luxury holiday
traveller in mind, this joint venture was a world first.
Mercedes-Benz, along with BMW and Audi, builds
cars with the world’s finest interiors, in layout, ergonomics and quality of construction. And the EC145 MBS
(seating for eight passengers) had its cabin design inspired
by Merc’s groundbreaking R-Class – a luxury vehicle
that combines the physical size of an S-Class with the
space and practicality of a seven-seater SUV. Just the
thing for literally high flying executives on the move
– it even has tinted windows to keep the prying lenses
of paparazzi photographers at bay.
All the helicopter’s (leather, naturally) seats are
mounted on rails for quick and easy configuration and
they can be simply removed if extra floorspace is called
for. Multi-function boxes house cup holders, chillers,
monitors and DVD players and beautiful, colouradjustable ambient lighting has been lifted from the
E- and S-Class cars. The tail section has also been
redesigned to accommodate golf clubs/bicycles/surfboards/anything you can think of for your holiday or
business trip. In fact, no stone has been left unturned
when it comes to luxury and it manages to make many
executive limos appear rather cheap in comparison.
The turbine-powered EC145 aircraft is at the top
of its class in the medium-sized, twin-engine helicopter
category. It combines Eurocopter’s leading-edge developments in cockpit design and avionics, while also
incorporating a hinge-less rotor system and enhanced
rotor blades that reduce sound and vibration levels.
Many hundreds of EC145s have been sold around the
globe for a full range of operations, and it is the only
helicopter of its type that can seat up to eight passengers.
Mercedes is keen to point out that this joint venture
was just the beginning and that a raft of other, nonautomotive designs will be steadily unveiled (they’ve
started introducing powerboats and even the occasional sofa). On the basis of this extremely versatile
and well-appointed Eurocopter, that can surely only
be a good thing.
T HE S HOPPES AT M ARINA B AY S ANDS, B1- 75 G ALLERIA L EVEL, SINGAPORE 018972
T: +65 6634 1093
56
-
[email protected]
L I V ING B EY OND WEALT H
www.indiciumgroup.com
At just 32 years of age, New Zealander Bruce
McLaren perished in a violent crash. But his genius
behind the wheel, as well as the drawing board,
left a lasting legacy.
W r i t t e n by D e ja n J ova n ov i c
Right
Bruce McLaren spent
his formative years
hanging around the
Auckland service station
and workshop run by his
parents, putting him in
good stead for a future
in motorsport.
Far right and below
McLaren won four
Grands Prix but never
a championship –
something the company
that bears his name
has since made up for,
becoming the third
most successful of
all F1 constructors.
S
t. Mary’s is a fast left, giving you a moment to exhale
before swinging the wheel right for the sharp Lavant
Corner, then opening up wide, winding out the steering wheel for Goodwood Circuit’s longest straight.
Any race car will quickly get up to 250kph on this
part of the short track before braking for the final, second fastest
turn, the double-apex Woodcote.
The orange M8D Can-Am car was bursting the warm air
of that summer noon, its monstrous silicon-aluminium 7.6-litre
V8 bombarding the calm of the Sussex countryside. It had Goodwood all to itself on this test day of June 2, 1970. Bruce McLaren
pulled into the pits to cull the oversteer of his team’s car and adjust
the enormous rear wing sprouting from the smooth, organic
bodywork. He was ready to go again at 12:19, careened through
St. Mary’s and Lavant one last time, the 670hp Chevrolet bigblock open wide for the slight kink in the middle of the straight.
The rear wing let go, the composite bodywork peeled off the
monocoque chassis, and the M8D veered off the track at 270kph.
Papaya Orange bits littered the trackside, two 16-inch wide
black rubber strips pointed straight towards a marshal’s embankment, debris laid everywhere. The young Bruce McLaren was
thrown out of the destroyed car and died instantly. It was all over,
but it had only just begun…
Today McLaren Racing celebrates 50 years since its founding, having competed in 722 Grands Prix, amassing eight constructors’ championships and 12 drivers’ titles on the way, with
155 pole positions, 151 fastest laps, and 182 race victories – the
highest winning ratio of any team ever. Higher even than Scuderia Ferrari, despite the Italian outfit’s 16-year head start.
“To do something well is so worthwhile that to die trying to
do it better cannot be foolhardy. It would be a waste of life to do
nothing with one's ability, for I feel that life is measured in achievement, not in years alone,” Bruce once wrote. And how right could
one man be?
Bruce McLaren came from the small country of New Zealand
– Chris Amon, Denny Hulme, Howden Ganley, Mike Thackwell,
rally driver Possum Bourne, the Millen family, Jim Richards (arguably the greatest tin-top racer of all time) all originate from there,
a land of just four million people. They must have some highoctane water. In perspective, how many Costa Rican, Georgian,
“McLaren didn’t get a head start
in racing, bitten by the bug only when
he was about sixteen after his first
competitive event on a beach,
west of his hometown, Auckland.”
62
Croatian or Moldovan racing drivers have
you heard of ?
The roads throughout New Zealand
are mostly gravel, the weather unpredictable, and in the countryside laws lax, allowing young boys to perch themselves into
a car and gain valuable early experience
slipping and sliding past the farms.
All those mentioned are great drivers
without a doubt, but Bruce McLaren and
1967 Formula One world champion Denny
Hulme stand out. Their paths seemed
destined to run in parallel – born just two
months apart in 1937, both their racing
careers began in their home country and
both men ended up pursuing glory
in Europe thanks to Australian Jack
Brabham. McLaren, however, didn’t get
a head start in racing, bitten by the bug
only when he was about sixteen after his
first competitive event on a beach west of
his hometown, Auckland.
“I was the one who brought Bruce
McLaren over, really, because I had
a driver-to-Europe scheme in New Zealand,
and he won that,” said the three-time
Formula One champion Brabham.
“Of course that only gave him airfare to
England, and that’s not a lot of good –
getting over here is only half the fight.”
But Bruce was always a fighter. In his
childhood he battled persistent health
problems, suffering loss of bone mass in
his leg. Doctors kept him in hospital for
weeks, and three years little Bruce had to
be in plaster. Through sheer will, the condition eventually settled and he was left
with a leg 1.5-inches shorter than the other,
but that wouldn’t stop the boy rising
to heady heights.
Under ‘Black Jack’s’ wing, an astonishing Formula 2 victory at the Nürburgring
followed by a win in Casablanca got Bruce
into John Cooper’s good books – his illustrious new boss even suggested the youngster should assemble his own car, with a
bit more colour than that… (“Where’s you
car?? In that pipe rack I reckon, boy.”)
Finishing second in the Autosport F2
champion first time out must have helped
endear Bruce to the team. At the race of
races, the Monaco Grand Prix, Bruce drove
a 1.5-litre rear-engined Cooper while his
competition benefited from more powerful
2.5-litre motors, yet with finesse and talent
the chequered flag waved his F2 car home
in second place. Europe, and the world,
would remember the young Kiwi’s name.
Immediately Cooper promoted him
to the sport’s top-tier class of racing, and
nearing the end of the 1959 Formula One
season, the 22-year old McLaren’s consistent results at the front of the pack dicing
with illustrious teammates Stirling Moss
and Brabham, cemented his status as a
world-class driver. He was especially noted
for his deftness behind the wheel of the
rear-engined Coopers (the rest of the grid
still had the ‘horse in front of the carriage’)
that were particularly tail-happy.
In fact, the sport’s layout revolution
has a disputed origin, depending on
whether you believe one John Cooper or
Bruce McLaren. The Kiwi at the time
claimed, “Hanging the engine off the
back of the monocoque was pretty much
my idea.”
Black Jack won that year’s title
by pushing his stricken car across the
line in the inaugural United States Grand
Prix, and gifting a maiden F1 victory to
his protégé.
Regardless, the others caught on to
“hanging the engine off the back of the
monocoque”, yet there were no handouts
in the first race of the 1960 season. Bruce
won the Argentine round in a car very
similar to his previous year’s chassis. With
this new rear-engined competition to
contend with, however, it was clear the
Cooper team would need a new design. It
was time for the multi-talented McLaren
to call on his years of education gained
hanging around his parents’ auto workshop
back home.
Left
Papaya Orange made
McLaren’s race cars
stand out and is still
used on the company’s
new road cars today.
Below
Bruce’s first F1 win at
the 1959 American
Grand Prix in Sebring,
Florida, made history.
At 22, he was the
youngest ever race
winner – a record that
stood until Alonso won
at Hungary in 2003.
“Lotus had turned up in Argentina with
this rear-engined car, the first rear-engined
Lotus, and it was very quick,” remembers
Cooper. “On the way home in the airplane
we said if we’re going to win the world
championship again, we’d better have a
completely new motor car, with a new
gearbox. And Jack and Bruce started
designing it on the way home in the plane.”
Brabham and McLaren now spent as
much time behind the wheels as in the
drawing office. Cooper’s underpowered
and unreliable Coventry-Climax engines
would necessitate all their car engineering
genius, and Black Jack would finish the year
lifting his second championship trophy. In
1961 however, Brabham abruptly left the
Cooper team, so Bruce started the 1962
season as the number one driver.
At the Zandvoort opener, McLaren
set the fastest lap and, at Monaco, the Kiwi
won his second career Grand Prix, not
including two additional victories in nonchampionship rounds at Goodwood and
Reims. But his engineering influence was
starting to be less felt in the Cooper team,
as the team’s owners wanted more authority in design. Behind his boyish smile Bruce
was starting to mature.
The following year Bruce founded
McLaren Racing Limited, and initially
concentrated on sports car racing and the
ultra-competitive world of Can-Am in
North America. These cars were essentially F1 bolides with enclosed wheels and
little rules to hold designers back. No
wonder, then, that with 600-plus-horsepower they lapped contemporary circuits
two or more seconds quicker than F1 cars.
Bruce was skeptical at first: “Jesus
Christ, there’s never been anything like this!
There’s no way we can use all this horsepower.” But on constant edge of adhesion,
Can-Am cars suited Bruce’s intimate feel
of a racing machine, and his ingenuity in
both design and driving meant McLaren
cars won five out of six races in their second
year of Can-Am competition. In 1967,
McLarens were victorious four times, and
in 1969 the orange monsters demolished
the field with 11 out of 11 wins. In between
Bruce even found time to win the 24 Hours
of Le Mans in a Ford GT40 in the closest
ever finish of the race, mere inches ahead
of the sister car of Englishman Ken Miles.
The pull of the grand prize, however,
was never far behind and for the 1966 season
Bruce first lined up his trademark Papaya
Orange F1 car at the new McLaren team’s
top-tier debut. Engine issues dogged the
M2B chassis all season though, and Bruce
could only manage two finishes scoring
meager points at Brands Hatch and Watkins
Glen. A BRM V12 hardly made things any
66
better the following year, with just one points
finish materialising in Monte Carlo.
Fortunately, scoring Cosworth’s legendary DFV engine for 1968 – a V8 that would
go on to power McLaren Grand Prix cars
until 1983 before turbochargers took over
– finally demonstrated the Kiwi’s engineering talents, as the new M7A car (co-designed
by Robin Herd, of Concorde fame) took
Bruce to victories at Brands Hatch and the
daunting Spa-Francorchamps. Further wins
by teammate, countryman and old friend
Hulme in Italy and Canada, as well as nonchampionship success at Silverstone, bagged
the McLaren team its first real achievement
with second place on the constructors’ table
behind Lotus.
While the ‘Bruce and Denny show’
rumbled on to great success in Can-Am,
1969 saw the McLaren team finish third
on the F1 table with Hulme taking the last
round in Mexico.
“I enjoyed the Can-Am cars more,
probably,” recalls Hulme. “They were much
more exciting, the American people were
much more enthusiastic, and certainly the
money was a hell of a lot better. I thought
the McLaren Can-Am cars were the best
I’ve ever driven, and I still do. They were
certainly fun. You could go out and knock
a second off, and then go out again and
knock two or three seconds off.”
“The pull of the grand prize was never far
behind and, for the 1966 season, Bruce first
lined up his trademark Papaya Orange F1 car
at the new McLaren team’s top-tier debut.”
But it wasn’t all certain fun. Bruce once said: “You’re doing 170mph
and the unexpected happens, you lose your brakes, a wheel comes
off, the steering goes dead. This has happened to me many times.”
When it happened one last time for Bruce, as the previous
year’s Can-Am title defendant, crashing at Goodwood on that
fateful June afternoon just days before the 1970 opener at Mosport
in Canada began, his words still echoed through the factory halls:
“To do something well is so worthwhile that to die trying to do it
better cannot be foolhardy.”
His team picked itself up and won nine out of 10 races that
year, and Papaya Orange was but a blur all over North America,
from Mont-Tremblant to Riverside, through Watkins Glen and
Laguna Seca.
A mere four years later, the Grand Prix squad began its
glorious ascent and the trophy cabinets started overfilling. Brazilian Emerson Fittipaldi gave McLaren its first drivers’ championship title in 1974, and from the 1980s to the early 1990s the team
dominated with seven drivers’ crowns and six constructors’ titles,
pioneering mainstay technologies like carbonfibre construction.
Its 1988 MP4/4 chassis epitomised McLaren excellence by winning
all but one Grand Prix of the season, and is still regarded by many
as the greatest F1 car of all time.
The humble British team with New Zealand roots is today
a group of successful companies, supplying the entire F1 grid with
electronic control units, and revolutionising the world of super
sports cars with McLaren Automotive’s MP4-12C range, and
upcoming P1 hybrid hypercar reported to be capable of a sub-six
minute lap of the Nürburgring, a time which would have put the
machine on pole position in a 1970s Grand Prix.
“I feel that life is measured in achievement, not in years
alone,” McLaren once said. Half a century later, and the achievements still keep coming.
69
The Lord of the Land
wri t t en by Ke v i n h ac k e t t
photog ra p h y by M a x E a r e y
R OA d | B oo k
C
limbing aboard the Land
Rover affectionately
known as Huey after
having spent a morning
cosseted inside a luxurious,
supercharged Range
Rover V8 is nothing short of a culture shock.
With no power assistance for anything, no
soundproofing, no leather upholstery, no
creature comforts whatsoever, this is motoring from a bygone era and it's not easy.
There are some rudimentary instruments in the centre of what barely passes
for a dashboard, a couple of levers protruding from the bare metal floor, a measly,
leatherette seat squab between my derrière
and the fuel tank and that's about it. It's
slow off the mark, as you might expect from
a 50hp car that was built in 1948, and it's
noisy. I can hear transmission whine and
practically every valve, every piston, every
lever doing its stuff. Change gear and you
can feel the ker-thunk as metal meets metal
and the next ratio is brought into play.
It's not ideal transport for that allimportant first date and you wouldn't want
this four-wheel-drive for the school run either,
but Huey positively oozes charisma. History
is squeezing its way through every one of
his enormous panel gaps. HUE 166 is the
world's oldest Land Rover and I'm driving
him in the place of, if not his birth, then at
least his conception 66 years ago: Red Wharf
Bay on the North Wales island of Anglesey
in the UK. Which happens to be about five
minutes from where I used to live.
For it was here, in the summer of
1947, that Maurice Wilks (then technical
chief of Rover) first came up with the idea
of a world-conquering vehicle to kick-start
exports for the ailing Rover car company.
After the Second World War, steel was in
short supply and Rover needed it to build
cars. However, the government demanded
guarantees of overseas sales to boost the
country's battered economy before supplies
would be forthcoming.
A stopgap model, one that appealed
to overseas markets, was required to boost
the company coffers and Wilks was the man
with a plan. He and his brother Spencer
(Rover's then managing director) owned a
farm on Anglesey, where their families used
to holiday. To get about the land they used
“HUE 166
is the
world's oldest
Land Rover”
a war-surplus American Willys Jeep bought
from a neighbour back home in Warwickshire, but they soon found weaknesses in
its design as it often managed to get stuck
in the muddy soil. Maurice reasoned that
Rover could do better.
While some work was going on at the
farmhouse, the Wilks family stayed at a tiny
hamlet on Anglesey called Wern-y-Wylan,
where a single-lane track takes visitors down
to the vast sands of Red Wharf Bay.
Maurice and Spencer walked towards the
ocean, talking about the idea and sketched
a basic design for a new vehicle in the damp
sand. It would offer the benefits of a tractor
with on-road usability. It would be a Rover
for the land. A Land Rover.
The Wilks brothers bought another
Jeep and fitted it with a Rover engine and
gearbox. It worked. Then they commissioned
a prototype known as the "Centre Steer",
due to its central steering column. This was
far too complex for production, so the idea
was shelved and the car dismantled. The
drawing in the sand was the same basic
design used for the Centre Steer, but subtle
changes were brought in for the next prototype and it's the one you see here.
Much debate rages about Huey's provenance. Some claim he's actually the first
production car built after an initial batch of
48 prototypes, but Land Rover's technical
communications manager, Roger Crathorne,
is here with me and is quite adamant.
"Huey is the first of the prototypes,
no doubt," he tells me. "His chassis number
is LR1 and the comprehensive records we
hold tell the whole story. HUE 166 first
rolled out of the factory on 11th March,
1948." Crathorne joined Land Rover as an
engineer in 1963 and is still there, so if
anyone should know, he should.
72
R OA d | B oo k
t h e lor d o f t h e l a n d
“Their simplicity
of construction has made
them ideal for use in some of
the planet's most remote and
inhospitable areas”
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75
R OA d | B oo k
t h e lor d o f t h e l a n d
Series production started in June 1948, with Rover still viewing
the £450 model as nothing but a short-term fix. Ninety-year-old
Bert Gosling was there right at the beginning, and remembers the
early days with great fondness:
“The only tools we had were those on the shop floor: hammers,
saws, simple folding presses. The designs were all sketched
on scraps of paper. They didn't even have measurements on
them and we were told to make what we could but without press
tools. We made them up as we went along and none of those
first cars were identical.”
Ironically, given that the Land Rover was born from a desire to
secure supplies of steel, the car was (and still is) mostly made from
aluminium, a metal that was bountiful in supply thanks to its use
in aircraft manufacture during the war. The Land Rover's bulkhead
was made from steel for strength, as was its chassis, but the rest
was aluminium alloy – no doubt the reason that so many old Land
Rovers survive to this day.
Within a month of building the vehicles for paying customers, it was obvious Rover had a major hit on its hands and production was significantly increased from 100 vehicles a week to 500.
Since then well over two million of these stopgap models have
been built and sold, with an estimated 65 per cent of all examples
still in regular use. Incredible.
The reason for its success, reckons Crathorne, is obvious: "A
Land Rover, unlike any other vehicle, gives its occupants a sense
of adventure. You really do feel as though you could go anywhere.
It's a classless vehicle, too," he adds, "and is equally at home in
the urban jungle or in the wilds of Africa. Land Rovers give their
occupants an enormous sense of well-being."
Another reason for Land Rover's success is that, while the
brand has diversified with a range of vehicles that range from the
humble Defender and LR2, to the ubiquitous LR4s and the mighty,
SUV-inventing Range Rover, as well as the fashionable Evoque,
none has ever been compromised when it comes to off-road ability
– something that cannot be said for the company's rivals.
And here with Huey, on this sodden, beautiful ground, the
sense of occasion is almost overwhelming. I arrived in the palatial
luxury of a new Range Rover V8, which simply hammers home
to me the point that the old timer is possibly the most important
vehicle to ever turn a wheel.
If you think I'm exaggerating, just consider the uses that
Land Rovers have been put to over the decades. Quite apart from
the original intended agricultural jobs (they can even power ploughs
and hay baling machines as they're towing them), Land Rovers
have been pressed into service in the armed forces all over the
world. They've continue to see active duty in war zones and they're
used as ambulances, fire engines, mountain rescue vehicles, trucks
(some with caterpillar tracks), as well as simple, everyday cars.
Their simplicity of construction has made them ideal for use
in some of the planet's most remote and inhospitable areas, with
the majority of problems being fixable in situ with a little technical knowledge and a hammer.
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By contrast, the latest Range Rovers are complex beyond words.
Packed to the gunnels with every refinement and luxury imaginable, they're like Bentleys you can drive through fields, rivers,
over mountains – wherever you want – and it shows just how far
Land Rover has been able to evolve that original idea.
Without this car, without this beach and without that sketch
in the sand, which vanished as soon as the tide rolled in on that
pivotal day, would we have the SUVs that have become so commonplace today? Possibly, but the original Land Rover's breadth
of capabilities set a template for all that followed and the world
owes it a debt of gratitude.
Huey is owned and cared for by Jaguar Land Rover and, when
I press Crathorne for a valuation, he remains tight-lipped. "We
can't really put a price on him," he sighs. "He's priceless and anyway,
as a company we'd never let him go. We need to look back on our
humble origins and as a marketing tool, Huey has been invaluable."
With its value obviously far greater than the sum of its greenpainted parts, this Land Rover has indeed become something of
a celebrity and is frequently wheeled out, especially when Land
Rover launches a new model. And its shape, which has become
one of the most recognisable in the world, remains fundamentally unaltered in the form of the aptly named Defender. But the
winds of change are blowing and soon an all-new design will be
decided on and built, replacing the boxy, simple Landie.
Currently code-named DC100, the concept cars have been
doing the rounds at motor shows all over the world for more than
a year now and, while I think they do look incredibly cool and a
lot of fun, when the last Defender rolls off the production line,
undoubtedly I will feel a twinge of sadness. Because I miss simplicity enough in my life already, and Huey serves as a poignant
reminder that when a basic design is right in the first place, there's
little point in changing it.
So, is Huey the most important vehicle ever built? You know,
I think he just might be.
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D ou b l e 0 h e aven
s ky fa l l a s to n m a rt i n d b 5
wri t t en by K ev i n hack et t
Photogra p hy by Mat t H owe ll
S
kyfall, the 23rd official James Bond film, has, in just a
few short months, become the seventh-highest grossing motion picture of all time and, at the time of
writing, is still doing rather brisk business in China. It
was recently released on DVD and, chances are that,
if you’re on a long haul flight at any time in the coming weeks,
you’ll be able to watch it from the comfort of your first class seat.
If you’re one of the very few people yet to see it, sort that out at
your earliest convenience – it isn’t without its faults but it is a very
special piece of cinema and is just one of a tiny, elite group of
films to take more than a billion dollars at the box office.
With Sam Mendes in the director’s chair, Skyfall was always
going to be something special. Having been responsible for classics such as American Beauty and Road to Perdition, Mendes’ admittedly short career in film has established him as a safe pair of
hands and a storyteller par excellence. Anyway, he was never going
to make a film worse than 2008’s Quantum of Solace, was he?
Make no mistake, the James Bond franchise needed a shot in the
arm and Mendes sorted that in inimitable style. Yet for all the
action set pieces, the brooding malevolence of Javier Bardem’s
villain and the majestic location photography, for many the real
star of the show was a classic car: an Aston Martin DB5. This
Aston Martin DB5, to be precise.
Since Sean Connery blasted onto the screen in a DB5 in
1964’s Goldfinger, the British luxury carmaker has been inextricably linked with the world’s least discreet secret agent, and that
gadget laden Aston has easily become the most famous car of all
time. Only two DB5s were used for the filming of Goldfinger – one
of them was sold by RM Auctions in 2010 for $4.6 million, while
the other went AWOL years ago and is believed by many to have
been stolen. A further two were commissioned by Eon Productions
after the release of 1965’s Thunderball (by which time the film
franchise has become a global phenomenon) for promotional
duties, with the deadly arsenals retrofitted.
At least three of those four cars were, unbelievably,
taken back to their original specifications once no
longer required for duty. All the Bond paraphernalia
was ditched and they were, once again, normal DB5s.
Over the years, the owners sensibly had everything
put back on them, and though they weren’t exactly
‘original’ anymore, that has never seemed to matter
in the eyes of hungry collectors.
The DB5 you see before you, however, is not one
of them. Those four original Bond cars would always
be too precious to use in further celluloid adventures
and, when the DB5 was next seen in a 007 film, it was
as late as 1996, when Pierce Brosnan assumed the
role in Goldeneye. Chasing down a twisting mountain
road, conducting the ultimate four-wheeled flirtation
with a brunette seductress who happened to be a dab
hand behind the wheel of a red Ferrari F355, while
his elegant therapist was sat beside him, it was a
welcome return for the glamorous Aston Martin, even
if the Ferrari would actually have thrashed it had the
scene been played out for real.
A cameo appearance for the DB5 cropped up
in 2006, when Daniel Craig stepped into the tux for
Casino Royale, winning a coincidentally silver example
in a game of poker. And while these self-reverential
in-jokes have raised the occasional smile or eyebrow,
there was something tangible missing. We might not
have realised it at the time, but we yearned to see that
car in all its widescreen, cinematic glory, for more
than just a fleeting few seconds. And it took Sam
Mendes to make that happen.
As is normally the case, two identical cars were
used in filming Skyfall. One of them is actually owned
by Eon and another needed to be sourced, so that different cars could be used for internal and external
driving shots. Here is where the production team ran
into some difficulty, because these incredibly valuable
Aston Martins are not easy to get hold of for filming.
They needed a car of precisely the same vintage, with
the same Silver Birch paintwork and the same black
leather upholstery.
Turning to Aston Martin’s Works (formerly Works
Service) department at the company’s former
headquarters in Newport Pagnell seemed to sensible
thing to do. As luck would have it, a DB5 had been
taken in for a complete restoration and they hadn’t
yet commenced work on it. The owner was happy
enough to loan the car for filming but there were,
inevitably, further problems.
For starters, it was dark green and had tan leather
seats. It also needed some work to get it roadworthy,
so Works set about matching the colour and dying the
leather interior (with a distressing process that gave it
the required patina), as well as making minor changes
to the dashboard instrumentation. The
external aerial had to be removed, the
correct three-eared wheel spinners and a
pair of wing mirrors sourced, as well as
bumper overriders, clear indicator lenses,
period correct Avon tyres and a pair of
pressed black and silver metal number
plates. Oh, and the correct ‘GB’ badge had
to be specially manufactured for the boot
lid. Some repair work was carried out to
the floorpan, and it was good to go.
All of this took just six weeks, with the
plan being that, after its six months’ tour of
duty with Daniel Craig, it would be returned
to Works for the original planned restoration
to commence. However, since the car
became such a hit, the owner has decided
against returning it to its original specification and it is currently being rebuilt as an
exact replica of how it appeared in the film.
The Silver Birch paint of this DB5 simply
adds to the moody drama of the bleak
Scottish roads that were used in Skyfall
during his escape journey to the Bond
ancestral home in the Highlands. Autumnal brown and orange and muted green
shades cover the desolate hills and mountainsides like a subtle tartan while low, dark
grey clouds sweep into the frame. It could
only be the north of Scotland.
This is a staggeringly beautiful, yet
savage part of the British Isles, and the
DB5 seems right at home here. It takes a
firm, decisive hand to wring the best out
of these cars – no power steering, a sometimes-recalcitrant gearbox and a hefty
clutch pedal see to that. A new Vanquish
or DB9 would be a far easier drive but these
old timers offer their own, unique charms.
Long journeys can seem daunting thanks
to the deep, sonorous boom from its fourlitre, straight-six engine, and the seats aren’t
exactly cutting edge when it comes to
lumbar support but none of that matters
when you’re inside something as glamorous
as this. To many eyes (mine included), Aston
Martin has never built anything to touch
the DB5’s perfect lines and proportions – it’s
a glorious combination of Italian flair and
old school Britishness.
During the film, one of the lighter
moments was a scene where, just as Bond
and M are leaving London in the Aston,
to head for Scotland, she bitterly complains
about the seat not being comfortable. Bond,
fed up with her complaining, jokingly
thumbs the gear lever, to reveal the famous
red button that had been used to such great
effect in Goldfinger, when Sean Connery
jettisoned an unwanted passenger. In that
R OA d | B oo k
“Aston Martin has never built
anything to touch the DB5’s perfect lines
and proportions – it’s a glorious
combination of Italian flair and
old school Britishness”
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d o u b l e 0 h e av e n
film, pressing the red button engaged and
fired the passenger ejector seat, after a
section of the roof panel had been blown
off, but M need not have worried this time,
because the black outline on this DB5
is a fake. A simple painted-on outline to
convince cinemagoers that this could very
well be the car that Connery smashed up
in Auric Goldfinger’s warehouse compound
back in 1964.
Filmmaking has come a
long way in the past 50 years,
and this is perfectly exemplified
by the DB5’s excruciating
demise in Skyfall. Parked up
outside the family pile of the
same name, the Aston that fired
its machine guns at Bond’s
would be assassins, eventually
being blown to smithereens,
wasn’t an Aston at all, much to
the relief of classic car aficionados the world over.
Unbelievably, the car we
saw being decimated on screen,
was actually a third-scale
model. Three were commissioned, each made from 18
parts, so they could be filmed
being blown apart while the real
one cowered somewhere off set.
Not models in the traditional
sense, these were created using
‘3D printing’ processes. Rather
than print using ink on paper,
these machines use the digital
information from the scan of
a real object and ‘print’, layer
by layer, using liquids, powders
and resins, to form an accurate
facsimile of anything from a
human head to a Bond car.
It’s incredible technology that massively cuts costs and means there’s very
little that’s not possible when it comes to
making feature films like this. If anything
were to go wrong during filming, they’d
simply have another one printed and carry
on. If only something similar had been
available when the original Italian Job was
being filmed, we’d still have one Lamborghini Miura, an Aston Martin DB4
Volante and a couple more E-Type Jaguars
in our midst.
But while we may have reached the stage
where we can believe nothing we see on
our cinema or television screens, one thing
remains as real as ever. And that is the hold
the DB5 has over the world at large. The
DB6 that followed it in 1965 did, indeed,
look quite similar, but its rear end lost some
of that daintiness and it just looked a bit
too heavily set. And once the DBS replaced
that, the styling language of Aston Martins
had irrevocably changed, with each successive model becoming larger and squarer.
The other thing that cinema trickery
cannot, as yet, replicate, is the ethereal
beauty of the Scottish Highlands. As this
wonderful Aston Martin pounds the roads
around Glencoe, it’s little wonder that CNN
Travel recently voted Scotland as its ‘Top
Travel Destination’, quoting its “dramatic
scenery” as a major draw for visitors, before
adding that, “anyone who saw Skyfall walked
away wishing they too could race through
91
Scotland’s dramatic countryside and hide
out in its misty Highlands”. More than
anything else in the past few years, it would
seem, a James Bond film and a classic car
have been responsible for firing the imaginations of people all over the planet.
Glencoe isn’t exactly peppered with
many roads but, the ones it does have, offer
views that will have your jaws scraping the
floor. Haunting lochs and glens, craggy and
desolate mountain peaks, they
all combine in the Highlands
like nowhere else. And if you
want to drive them yourself, you
can. When Bond and M arrive
in the Highlands, they’re travelling along the A82 road, at
the foot of the lofty peaks of
Buachaille Etive Mor and Buachaille Etive Beag. And if you
thought they looked familiar
when watching this film, that’s
probably because you’d already
seen them in Braveheart. You can
peel off the A82 whenever you
see the occasional junction, and
you’ll find even more bewildering beauty – it’s a country practically begging to be explored.
Explore it you must and,
given half the chance to do so
in a well sorted DB5, you just
might never want to return
home or look at another car.
James Bond will no doubt
return to our screens but, whatever film it ends up being, it has
the biggest possible shoes to fill.
After the Aston’s obliteration,
however, chances are that it’s
days are done. This chance to
shine was not wasted – cinemas
around the world reported audiences bursting into spontaneous applause when the
Aston took centre stage – and if you think
the asking prices read like telephone
numbers now, they’re only going to head
in one direction: up. It is a classic in every
sense of the word.
wri t t en
by
Ja mes
Mc Ca rt hy
downwardly
Mobile
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D OW N WA R D LY M O B I L E
“There is a growing demand by the
world’s wealthy for the ultimate weekend toy:
the personal submarine”
M
an has always had a
fascination with the
sea and what lurks
beneath its glassy epidermis. Since the first
coracle carried a man
into open water, we have been regaled by
tales of Atlantis and mysteries of the briny
deep, through yellowed and frayed parchment maps declaring “here be monsters,”
to literary masterpieces such as Jules
Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. In
popular culture, men of a certain age will
remember wishing through their childhoods that they could have been as debonair as Gerry Anderson’s Troy Tempest,
dashing captain of the eponymous Stingray submarine; or gasping at that moment
when Roger Moore plummeted into the
Corsican sea in a Lotus Esprit.
The idea of exploring the earth’s
final frontier, then, is ingrained in man’s
nature, and since tales of the Nautilus
submarine and its charismatic Captain
Nemo first enthralled readers of the 19th
century, we have strived to find ways to
plumb the depths of the world’s oceans.
There are records of boat-towed
submersibles from as early as 1620, but
the first human-powered (usually with a
hand crank driven propeller) submarines
started to appear in the 1860s. Much of
their development seems to have been
driven by the American civil war, used for
sabotage of enemy vessels and dropping
mines. There were also applications for
pearling in the Panamanian sea. None
of these designs, however, proved overly
successful, with many sinking on their
maiden voyages or being abandoned
once their crews contracted, and later
died from, decompression sickness (also
referred to as the Bends) of which little
was known at the time.
It was in 1864 that the first mechanically driven submarine – as we would
know such a craft today – was developed.
The two-man 14-metre Ictineo II used
an air independent engine to propel it
through the water. It performed two dives
of 30-metres, remaining underwater for
two hours and was double hulled, solving
pressure and buoyancy issues that had
scuppered earlier attempts at building
such craft.
Then along came Verne in 1870
with his novel and, as a man who was
way ahead of his time, also writing about
how rockets would one day fire men into
space, it was his industrial age imagination that spurred inventors to create
vessels more akin to the Nautilus.
It was war, not altruism or scientific curiosity that encouraged the rapid
development of submarine vehicles, from
the Russo-Japanese war at the turn of
the last century, to the two World Wars
that followed. Even today, it is this constant race to arms that continues to drive
their development, particularly in the use
of alternative fuels like nuclear fission,
but, pretty soon, it is likely to be the
world’s wealthy – who are now able to
indulge their merman tendencies – that
will fuel such invention, thanks to the top
few companies that comprise a market
that is experiencing significant year-onyear growth.
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The two big players are U-Boat Worx
(UBW), founded by Bert Houtman, a
Dutch software entrepreneur whose
desire to revolutionise the personal submarine market with a more attractive,
reliable, safe and accessible product built
very much around the user’s experience
has borne a very successful niche market,
and Triton Submarines, built by a team
with a combined 300 years experience in
making vehicles to traverse the deep blue
abyss: these are the sub-aquatic equivalents of a Rolls-Royce or a Bentley.
“There is a tremendous body of
knowledge that goes into the design and
construction of each submersible,” notes
Marc Deppe from Triton. “You could
pick any one of our guys out of the shop,
and they'll be able to point to some part
of each Triton that they had their hand in,
based on their decades’ worth of experience of actually operating, building and
maintaining subs in the market place.
There's nothing that can replace that.
D OW N WA R D LY M O B I L E
Current and
Following page
Photographs by
David Pearlman
a drop in the ocean
Triton Submarines 3300/3
The 3300/3 is Triton’s most versatile
model, fitted with, the company claims,
the largest acrylic sphere on any manned
submersible. Two main thrusters and
twin vertan thrusters enable the sub to
travel at a speed of three knots to depths
of 1,000 metres and it’s controlled with
a multi-directional joystick. The moveable battery banks can be dropped in an
emergency and, aside from the 10-hour
dive time, there is an extra 96 hours of
life support. “It’s designed to take three
passengers to a depth of 3,300 feet [1,005
metres], which is the key to its popularity,” explains Deppe. “If the owner is the
pilot he can have two guests with him.
And if you look at the short operating
history of the Triton 3300/3, it's already
done some spectacular things. Not least
of which was its recent mission with
Discovery Channel and NHK in Japan,
where they captured the first ever giant
squid footage, and that was done at 600to-900 metres.”
“Itʼs not only reflected in the building of the
product, when we go and test these things,
your life depends on the fact that your guys
have all done their job. One of the things
that we'll always say to a customer, is ‘a
thousand meters down, is not where you
want to have made compromises.’”
As one would expect, safety in the submarine market, is paramount. The last
thing any manufacturer wants is for their
sub to be the one that drowns a software
company CEO or world-famous actor.
Fortunately, as Deppe points out, there is
a 100 per cent safety record in the personal submarine market. “To date, they
have a perfect operational safety record,
with no serious injuries or fatalities.
From a statistic standpoint, that's a really
remarkable thing. You could say that it is
safer than any other transport method in
the world, though we do knock on wood
every time that we say that!”
These vehicles are incredibly robust
with, which both manufacturers point
out, many layers of redundancy built-in.
The biggest threat to the subs while they
are underwater is entanglement from
fishing nets of heavy gauge filament lines.
U-Boat Worx C–Explorer
Currently one of UBW’s most popular
models due to its practical configuration and full 360-degree acrylic pressure
hull, this exceptional submersible cruises
at three knots below the surface and can
dive to 1,000 metres. Fully equipped and
air conditioned, it comfortably seats three
people and special atmospheric systems
prevent the acrylic dome from fogging,
ensuring the best possible experience.
Lithium Ion batteries offer 16 hours of
dive time, with back up power and life
support systems for 96 hours, in case of
an emergency. According to Hasselman,
“The looks of the submersibles attract
people and the specifications and operating characteristics are mind blowing.
Our subs can take you to places that
no one has ever seen before – and you
can stay there until your batteries run out.
Or until you need to go to the toilet.”
www.uboatworx.com
www.tritonsubs.com
And for something completely different...
The Seabreacher
It looks like a cross between a submarine
and a dolphin (or killer whale or shark,
depending on which model you go for)
but the Seabreacher drives like a highpowered jet ski. If deep-sea exploration is not your thing, but the occasional
adrenaline rush is, then this is the toy for
you. Built by US company Innespace, the
Seabreacher can glide both on top of the
water at speeds of 72kph, and dive to a
depth of five metres, travelling at a speed
of around 32kph. The power supplied
by the 1,500cc, 215hp marine engine
means it has enough power to soar out
of the water and fly through the air, but
is able to right itself upon splash down.
Using a fibreglass hull and a polycarbonate canopy, it dives using its forward
momentum, rather than ballast, to sink
under the weight of water, meaning that
should something go wrong during a
dive, the Seabreacher always pops to the
surface and self-rights. It uses a snorkle
system to supply oxygen to the engine, but
allows the boat to dive lower for up to 20
seconds. It takes around 90 days to build.
www.innespace.com
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In the case of UBW, having a sleek an exterior as possible helps
prevent it, but Erik Hasselman at U-Boat Worx notes that, “if a
submersible does get stuck, we always operate with a safety plan,
and divers or a recovery vehicle can come down to assist. There
is oxygen, CO2 filters, food, water and power for 96 hours, so
there is plenty of time. Also, each sub is equipped with a safety
buoy, tracking system and communication system in order to
locate the sub easily.”
Deppe adds that the greatest risk involved is to have an
owner or a crewmember disregard the safety procedures that
they have been taught, or an owner who makes the decision to
pilot the submersible without proper training.
For both Triton and U-Boat Worx, the training is key.
And intensive. It can take between two to three weeks, including elements of theory, simulator operation and confined water
dives. In the case of UBW, a pilot has to have at least 20 open
water dives under his or her belt before certification. There is
also learning how to launch and recover the sub from the water
safely. These time frames are just guides, though, as Hasselman
explains: “The actual required training is ultimately dependent on the individual progress of the trainees. At the end of
the day we will only issue the certificate if we feel the trainee is
a hundred per cent capable to operate the vessel.
that those looking to dip their toe in the water, so to speak, should
have some basic understanding of the environment they will be
entering before they hit the simulators and start their training.
“We recommend that potential owners consider getting a SCUBA
diving certificate, it is highly recommended for awareness of the
underwater environment and circumstances, as well as diving
theory, while a power boat license will offer the basic knowledge about boating.” Other ideal technical requirements would
include things like a VHF radio licence and a first aid certificate.
However, while early adopters of these watercraft would
have been adventurous types, Deppe suggests that there is a new
trend emerging amongst owners. “Sitting in a climate controlled
bubble, sipping champagne and eating caviar is very different to
throwing on scuba gear and jumping into the water. It's a much
more sophisticated, elegant and soft way of exploring underwater. You could be completely out of shape, and you could be the
least adventurous person in the world, but all you have to do is
sit in a chair.”
However, he does concede that it is still those with experience of scuba diving who make the difference. “Generally the
thought process that leads someone to owning a submarine is
an adventurous one, someone who wants to do something different. But we are also seeing people who have never been in a
submarine and are not divers, who would like to have one on
their yacht. Even not knowing anything about it, just finding the
best submarine and putting it on their boat and figuring out if
they like it later.”
This is a massive shift in the luxury boating market for
those who want everything and can actually have it. Submarines
are now becoming a commodity product to the super-wealthy,
like a helicopter or a luxury powerboat, to the point that your
mega yacht doesn’t have everything unless there is a submersible
aboard. In fact, the trend for these products is reportedly reaching such a tipping point, that yacht manufacturers are approaching the likes of UBW and Triton in order to build the necessary
storage, maintenance, launch and recovery facilities into their
boats from the word go. Deppe even says that there is a trend
towards ‘shadow yachts’, vessels designed and built by yacht
owners “just to follow them around to carry the toys”.
So, the crux of the matter is, not having a $2 million sub
aboard your $60 million yacht – or its $20 million chase boat –
is likely to get you blackballed from the best bridge parties next
time you moor up in Monaco. Without one, there is a whole
lot of holiday fun that you are missing out on. Once you are in
the water, the options for a new experience and a great holiday
“Although you don’t need to be an engineer or technician to drive
the submarine, it is useful to have some technical knowledge to
understand some of the basics behind the submarine’s systems.”
Deppe points out that there are two different levels of operation.
“There's moving the submersible around in the water, ‘driving’
it so to speak, and then there's piloting it. Piloting it is a whole
different ballgame. It’s more than just being able to maneuver
the submersible, it is being a responsible party in a chain of commands for operations.”
He likens it to taking a flying lesson where the instructor
hands you the yoke and you can turn left, right, up and down
but, if there’s an emergency, the instructor resumes control. “If
the owner is not a pilot or his guests aren't pilots and they just
want to have a go at operating the sub underwater, it's very intuitive and simple,” he adds. “Itʼs just a matter of minutes and they
could be doing it. There are usually auxiliary joysticks where the
pilot can flip a switch and the passenger can take control and
drive that sub around fairly simply.”
While there is no formal licensing or pre-requisite for
owning and operating a personal submarine, Hasselman suggests
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D OW N WA R D LY M O B I L E
story are practically limitless. The guys
at Triton and UBW say that any good
SCUBA site is an ideal starting point,
from Fiji to Belize, while Deppe adds that
one his clients went diving with Great
White sharks recently, which he found
to be “an interesting experience.” If that
kind of winning anecdote doesn’t earn
you Sir Ranulph Fiennes-type kudos at
your next yacht club AGM, there’s not
much that will.
However, with 95 percent of the
world’s oceans still unexplored, perhaps
the real question is why wouldn’t you
have one? In that vein, the last word goes
to UBW’s Hasselman who, quite rightly,
concludes that “now that we can go
deeper and stay longer, there is a whole
new world waiting to be discovered.”
So, dip your hand in your pocket,
drop your sub in the water and re-live
those long-forgotten Stingray fantasies. As
Troy Tempest in the opening credits once
proclaimed: “Anything could happen in
the next half hour...”
99
Empire
of the
Senses
P erfu m e house C reed has been m aking
e x traordinary fragrances by hand for se v en
generations . T he co m pany ’ s D N A is , l itera l ly,
that of a long l ine of scent crafters ,
and owning a bott l e of C reed can be l ikened
to owning a s l ice of o l factory history –
with q ua l ity, q ua l ity, q ua l ity as the m antra .
W R I T T E N BY F R A N Ç O I S O O S T H U I Z E N
P R O D U C T P H OTO G R A P H Y BY
K arn S a m an vorawong
R OA d | B oo k
EMPIRE OF THE SENSES
Back to work, Erwin has most recently worked with his father on
the redevelopment of Millésime Imperial, and also new in the
Creed stable is Les Royales’ Exclusives, an ultra-exclusive collection of six male and female scents that come in an elegant handblown Pochet glass bottle etched with the brand’s crest – fragrance
and art object in one. “At the moment I am also working on
a very exciting new release that we hope to have ready before
July,” he says, letting the cat out of the bag.
According to Erwin, the prize of owning a bottle of Creed
is not so much about elitism. Instead, it is the knowledge that each
scent is made of the highest concentration of natural oils ever
bottled. “A Creed perfume evolves over several hours, and our
customers recognise it in the same way that one knows a Picasso
when you see one,” he says. And it is this insider knowledge, far
from mass market instant fragrance hits that, ultimately, make
Creed users part of an exclusive circle.
Erwin seems to have it all worked out – his future at Creed
and the responsibilities that come with his role. In his private life,
however, there’s a very important little detail he has yet to figure
out. His search for a ‘better half ’ has proved less successful. “There’s
no pressure on me yet to get married and produce children,
but it is something I do see in my future. I really would like to
ind the right woman for me. But the more I’ve searched, the less
I’ve found…”
At least that’s good news for his scores of female fans.
“The house has produced more than 200
exclusive scents over the years, all original
and handmade, containing the highest
percentage of natural components in the
French perfume industry.”
A
An impressive crowd of customers has gathered
at Bangkok’s upscale Siam Paragon shopping mall.
They’re all die-hard Creed fans, hoping to get a
glimpse of the dashing and debonair 30-something
Erwin Creed, the seventh-generation heir to one
of the oldest family-owned businesses in the world and, indeed,
one of the oldest perfumeries still in business. Better even, they’re
counting on getting their own bottle of Creed signed by Erwin,
whose official title is vice-president, or at the very least a photo
opportunity with him to upload on their Facebook pages.
Such is the scene wherever the eligible bachelor travels around
the world to promote a new fragrance release – be it at Harrods
in London or Neiman Marcus in New York – in between sourcing
only the finest ingredients from suppliers far and wide; say, roses
in Bulgaria and the most fragrant lemons from Italy. The Creed
dynasty, evidently, is in good hands. A perfume legacy is set
to continue.
Founded in 1760 in London, the House of Creed became a
favourite with the English Court, appointed by Queen Victoria
as an official supplier. Word rapidly spread of Creed’s creations
– recognised for their quality, refinement and originality – and
soon Creed became the perfume of choice, too, of Napoléon III,
Empress Eugénie, Francis-Joseph, Elizabeth of Austro-Hungaria
and Christina of Spain.
In 1854 the family-owned business relocated to Paris, and
not much has changed since. Except perhaps, for Creed’s growing
product line, and an enviable and exclusive clientele: Sir Winston
Churchill, Audrey Hepburn, Cary Grant, John F. Kennedy,
Madonna, Julia Roberts, Michelle Obama and the likes of wealthy
Saudi princes. Prince Rainer of Monaco was one of Creed’s more
recent monarch patrons, having commissioned a special perfume
for his wife, former Hollywood actress Grace Kelly, for their wedding
day. Fleurissimo, inspired by the scent of the princess’ wedding
bouquet, went on to become one of Creed’s bestselling perfumes.
The infusion technique used by the perfume house, now abandoned
by modern industry, enables Olivier Creed, Master Perfumer and
Erwin’s father, to preserve the originality of his fragrances.
(Olivier is credited for classic creations like Green Irish Tweed,
Millésime Imperial, Silver Mountain Water, Aventus and, more
recently, Himalaya.)
Among the infusions created by Creed are vanilla, civet,
musk and ambergris. The components are weighed, mixed, macerated and filtered, all by hand in the same tradition of the founder,
James Henry Creed. The house has produced more than 200
exclusive scents over the years, all original and handmade, containing the highest percentage of natural components in the French
perfume industry. No factories, testing on animals or even market
testing – just a continuation of exactly how things have been done
for the past 253 years.
All Creed fragrances are made in a single location, a workshop
in the woods of Fontainebleau, France, by a staff of approximately 30 people who handle bottling by hand. And that’s what
sets the House of Creed apart from the rest of its kind, together
with the quiet luxury status it enjoys.
Later, with the Siam Paragon promotion out of the way, and
as we sit down for a chat at Erwin Creed’s plush suite at Bangkok’s
Grand Hyatt Erawan over a glass of Champagne, I find him –
rather surprisingly – somewhat shy and reserved. His accent is
distinctly and charmingly French, his words chosen in a calculated manner. Groomed impeccably from head to toe, Erwin is
the personification of the modern-day Creed user; he fits the shoes
of Creed ambassador to the tee. And that image is of vital importance – not only to capture the hearts and the minds of a new
generation of Creed user, but also to remain relevant in a complex,
competitive consumer market.
“Honestly,” he says, “I’m just a simple man who likes to
preserve my private life. I love sport, perfume, good food, fine
wines and doing business. We make great perfume from natural
Above
Creed’s bottles
are distinctive
yet understated.
Opposite
Erwin Creed is mobbed
by adoring fans
wherever he goes.
102
products, and yes, it’s expensive. But it’s a quality product and
young people have a taste for luxe, too. So it’s great to see a younger
Creed following nowadays.”
Erwin reiterates that the quality of the ingredients used to
create Creed fragrances is, above all, key to the brand’s success.
“We don’t have a real marketing vision. Our success has relied on
quality since the day [the House of ] Creed was formed – that’s
the foundation of our brand, and it will always be like that. We
are dependent on suppliers for the best quality ingredients, much
like a chef preparing fine cuisine. If we don’t have the right ingredients, we can close our ‘restaurant’.” One day, when he takes
over from his father as Master Perfumer, Erwin says, his most
important objective will be to continue this tradition, and in the
very same way.
He had his first taste of the family business as an eight-year
old boy, accompanying dad Olivier to the fragrance workshop.
It is here he learned the secrets of the trade, and how to develop
his own sense of smell – admitting now, many years later, that
there is certainly a very strong connection between fragrance and
memory. “I like it when I smell something that reminds me of
my childhood.”
Whether the ‘fragrance gene’ in the Creed family is a question of nature or nurture, Erwin admits that he had different
childhood aspirations. “When I was young, I wanted to be a racing
driver. But, as I grew older, the perfume industry and our family
business became more interesting. The more I became involved
[in it], the more I realised you can do a lot of things with it.
It’s like my baby, and I want to treat it with care...”
That’s not to say Erwin Creed is all business and no play. He
did race cars at one time (as a hobby), but says that the kind of
money required for that is just “ridiculous”. “These days, I still
enjoy go-karting, but my big passion is skiing. Speed is like a drug,
really, it’s very easy to get hooked. I love the sheer thrill and extreme
sensation it provides,” he muses.
103
The Mighty
McLaren
W r i t t e n bY
Richard Meaden
P h oto g r a p h y bY M at t H ow e l l
THE MIGHT Y McLAREN F 1
In 1992, McLaren launched its first
road car, and the incredible F1 remains a
benchmark for how hypercars should be built.
We drive one of just 64 roadgoing F1s
ever made, while we still can.
L
ooking back, it seems outrageous that the F1 was McLaren’s first attempt at a production car, such was its level of
superiority over the established players, whose efforts
it made an absolute mockery of. Then
again, if you give a man like Gordon
Murray a clean sheet of paper, and the
freedom – both creative and financial – to
involve the people he most respected, to
clothe and power his creation (take a bow
Peter Stevens and BMW Motorsport’s Paul
Roche), great things are bound to happen.
And happen they did.
Its carbon fibre construction – then
a world-first for a road car – might now
seem like a basic supercar requirement,
but so much of the McLaren F1 remains
extraordinary. For starters, it looks so understated. Slim-hipped, shorn of drag-inducing embellishments and free from the
complex addenda that brings unnecessary
weight, time has done nothing to diminish
the beauty of its functional form. Then
there’s the three-seater configuration and
central driving position. When you stand
and stare at this low, narrow car, you simply
cannot believe there’s room inside for three
people, their luggage and a six-litre V12
engine. But there, clear as day, is the steering wheel and instrument binnacle, pushed
1 07
forwards into the heart of that bubble
canopy windscreen, flanked as it is by two
rear-set passenger seats. Even now, 21 years
after its launch, it remains a most audacious
piece of packaging.
Press the glossy chrome door release
button (the left-hand door, not the right,
so you don’t have to clamber over the gearlever) and feel the gas strut immediately
push the flyweight dihedral door skywards.
Owners have been refining the best way
to climb into the F1’s central driver’s seat
for more than 20 years, but still there’s no
easy means of ingress. It feels like you’re
attempting some extreme yoga position,
and it probably looks that way too. Nevertheless, once you’ve finally managed to
thread your legs into the pedalbox, dropped
your lucky posterior into the driver’s seat
and reached out to grasp the simple, palmfilling steering wheel, you have to conclude
that Murray’s central driving position was
a stroke of genius.
You can’t relax, though, for more
potential humiliation lies in wait for the F1
novice. The ignition key – which is disappointingly humdrum – slots into a keep to
your right, adjacent to the gearlever and a
number of other mysterious buttons and
latches. Turn it clockwise and the analogue
dash comes to life, leaving you the awkward
task of finding the starter button. It lurks
R OA d | B oo k
beneath a flip-up alloy flap that’s pleasingly reminiscent
of a trigger guard from a fighter plane. Thumb this
up and you’ll find a small red pip, which you press to
fire the six-litre BMW Motorsport V12 into life.
It quickly catches, after a shrill spin of the starter
motor. Not for McLaren the vulgar bypass valve bellow
of today’s supercars; instead, this V12 instantly settles
to a muted simmer that’s discreet yet potent. As with
all true supercars, you let the F1 sit and idle, watching
mesmerised in the two rearview mirrors (yes, two) as
vapour begins to curl from the tailpipes and heat percolates into the bones of the engine and gearbox. It’s
a ritual steeped in respect and reverence, considerate
foreplay before the main event.
And it will be quite an event, for we’ve come to
the world famous mountain roads of Snowdonia in
north Wales; the grandest stage we could find within
reasonable striking distance of the secure bunker this
F1 calls home. Thanks to Ray Bellm and the F1 Owners
Club, I’ve been loaned this precious car by a very
relaxed and helpful owner, but still the responsibility
of borrowing a car like this is onerous in the extreme.
Insurance was the first hurdle. Value? $6 million. Followed quickly by having to find somewhere to store
the car securely overnight. It really is like driving a
four-wheeled Fabergé egg.
By the time the trailer arrives at our hotel and
the unloading process begins, a small crowd has gathered around the car. Most onlookers know what it is,
but few know the joyous, nerdy factoids that have always
made the F1 unique. Predictably, conversations centre
on “how much?”, or “how fast?”, and I begin to feel
a little sorry for the F1, emerging as it is into a postBugatti Veyron world. Nowadays, power is measured
in hundredths of horsepower, 0-to-100 acceleration
times begin with a two, gearshift times take milliseconds
and boast-worthy top speeds have to be at least 400kph.
Has the F1’s glory faded? On the most superficial
of levels, yes. But Murray’s creation was never designed
to titillate. It was – is – all about the cerebral numbers
centred on drag, weight and, therefore, its power-toweight ratio. Get these right and the rest will follow.
Just how right they are bears repeating, for they tell a
tale of all-round performance that still cannot be
beaten. Weighing just 1,137kg, the F1 is lighter than
Central command
position (left) and
no-nonsense cockpit
that seats three,
is indicative of the
F1's extraordinary
driver focus
Pagani’s or Koenigsegg’s most anorexic efforts and,
despite the time-sapping shift speeds of its manual
transmission, the F1’s standing start acceleration
remains blistering, 100kph from rest arriving in 3.6
seconds, 160kph in just 6.4. The all-wheel drive, paddle-shift 1,200hp Veyron Super Sport steals a few tenths
through superior traction, but then only gains a few
more on the way to 160, despite having twice the power,
almost three times the torque and the small matter of
four turbochargers. The hardware required to generate that pace comes at a price. 800kg to be precise,
and there’s no room for luggage and certainly not two
passengers. It might be the fastest production car in
the world, but the Veyron Super Sport is also the car
that proves the Law of Diminishing Returns.
108
So the joy of the F1 is its cleverness and
purity, but this uncompromising simplicity
also dates it. It’s inconceivable that in, 2013,
a manufacturer would build a 390kph
supercar without power steering, traction
control or even antilock brakes, yet Murray
applied ruthless racecar logic to its design.
That focus kept the evils of excess mass at
bay, but when you’re sat in a now warmedthrough F1, and raindrops begin to patter
on the windscreen, that refusal to compromise seems like the ultimate folly.
To say your first few kilometres in an
F1 on wet Welsh roads are circumspect, is
something of an understatement. There’s
no slack, no sensory filter nor numbing
anaesthesia to the controls. It’s entirely
down to you and all the sensitivity you can
muster. The engine is incredibly responsive,
the slim tacho needle leaping through its
long, languid arc with every slight squeeze
of the throttle. Such scant flywheel effect
punishes a shaky left leg, so any mismatch
of throttle and clutch leads to an embarrassing stall.
When you finally pull away, the
McLaren F1 comes alive. Just tickling the
accelerator gives a hint of the epic induction noise to come, as cold air rushes into
the V12’s throat via the snorkel intake
running from the roof and curling down
behind your back. At first it feels odd being
sat in the middle of the car, but you soon
relax and use the tops of the front wings
to position the F1 and place it just-so. The
steering has a directness and fluidity that
restores some of your confidence, connecting you to the road by wriggling gently in
your hands over cambers and white lines,
but its weight increases significantly with
lock. It’s a reassuring feeling, for it gives
you something to ‘lean’ against and gauge
the build-up of lateral loading, but it also
suggests you would need to be extremely
quick with any corrective lock, should the
need arise.
Like the clutch and throttle pedals,
the brake pedal has a fabulous firmness
but, as you push against, it the response
feels a bit dead. It’s now I remember that,
not only did Mr Murray shun ABS, but he
also steered clear of servo assistance,
meaning that mustering sufficient braking
pressure is solely down to my left leg
muscles. It’s no wonder the F1 makes you
feel like you’re learning to drive again: there
is no safety net, nothing to catch your fall.
I ponder this as we rumble through
Betws-y-Coed on our way to some of the
best – and most challenging – driving roads
in the UK. The bustling crowds of tourists
provide some light relief because, when
you’re driving a silly car, it’s always fun to
scan the faces of onlookers to see how they
react. And the F1 is no exception. Because
it’s subtle, it passes most people by, but for
those who know what they’re looking it’s
akin to a religious experience.
The need for photography is pressing
so, despite the rain, we get to work. While
Road Book’s regular photographer, Matt
Howell, stands in the deluge, I’m tasked
with driving up and down a mountain road,
which is hardly a chore. After a few runs,
I squeeze the throttle a little harder in
second gear and immediately the rear tyres
spin angrily. I’ve had closer calls than this,
but still my heart thumps in my chest before
a mixture of fear and relief is washed away
by an unavoidable wave of adrenalin.
Clearly this is not a car in which you take
liberties when the road is wet.
Mercifully, after stopping for a lunchtime coffee, we’re blessed with sunshine and
dry tarmac. I have a particular road in mind
for this afternoon’s driving – indeed, for
THE MIGHT Y McLAREN F 1
months I’ve been imagining how the F1
might feel along it at speed (it takes a while
to make these stories happen, you know),
and now that very moment has arrived.
Things in the F1 happen fast at
7,500rpm. The engine is otherworldly, at
once smooth and savage, like double cream
laced with broken glass, and so urgent that
your senses can’t quite keep up with the
way it builds its revs. There’s a rollercoaster quality to how 627hp and 649Nm of
twist throw 1,138kg of car down the road.
It’s instantaneous. No sense of gaining
momentum or building speed, just a snap
from, say 100kph to – ahem, rather more
– in a lunge that leaves your senses fizzing.
The F1’s throttle is connected to the
engine by a cable, not today’s zero feel, flyby-wire technology. And it’s this, combined
with the V12’s zero inertia and razor-sharp
edge, that feels so magical. Every millimetre of travel elicits a linear, directly proportionate response from the engine, rather
than the artificial response you get from a
modern unit, with its throttle programmed
to give more go earlier in the pedal’s travel.
The F1 gives, and gives, and gives some
more until the throttle hits the stop.
The gearshift always requires concentration. At lower speeds – and especially
when cold – it can feel a bit knotty. Even
when you’re really going for it, you never
just ram the lever through the gate. Instead
you think it home. When you get it right,
the shifts are sweet and super-quick but,
in truth, they need to be, for the engine’s
revs drop like a stone when you come off
the throttle.
The brakes also demand your full
attention. The lack of ABS is much less of
a concern in the dry, but there’s a tangible
sense that the brakes are the McLaren F1’s
weakness. The lack of servo assistance
might give you absolute control over the
modulation, but they also rely on you
pushing hard enough and soon enough.
That’s fine when you’re not going for it,
but when you’re carrying the kind of speed
the F1’s is capable of building between the
corners, it’s all too easy to find yourself
wanting a bit more retardation.
The suspension is surprisingly compliant (another Murray hallmark) with decent
travel and progression, yet the solid bushing
ensures you know exactly what’s happening
beneath you. There’s no rear anti-roll bar,
which I thought might make the car feel a
bit disconnected front to rear, but not only
does it help with the ride quality, it also
ensures you know how hard you’re working
the rear end. I’m sure it would need more
support on a racetrack, but it works on the
road, which is the habitat it was conceived
to dominate.
Traction is strong in the dry, but you
do get the occasional flare of revs under
full throttle acceleration over bumps.
There’s plenty of road holding, too,
although thanks to the compliant suspension set-up, the calming effect of the unassisted steering and the chubby sidewalls of
the bespoke Michelin tyres, there’s a softedged feel to the F1’s cornering behaviour
that’s both effective and endearing. It
doesn’t have the mechanical grip of a
Pagani Zonda, and it certainly doesn’t have
the physics-defying dynamics of McLaren’s
new MP4-12C but, somehow, that doesn’t
seem to matter, because the F1 experience
is so organic, so generous.
It’s 5pm. Our 24-hours of insurance
cover has ended and, with it, my Cinderella moment. As the trailer door closes, I
let out an involuntary sigh. Not just because
it means this $6,000,000 unicorn is now
someone else’s liability, but because this
could be the last time I ever get to drive
an F1. There’s something intoxicating about
this McLaren that no other car can replicate. Once you’ve experienced it, immersed
yourself in the process of driving it, surrounded yourself with that animalistic
induction roar, felt your heart thump as
you depress the throttle pedal to its stop,
then wiped the perspiration from your
clammy palms, you know your life will never
quite be the same again.
“The engine is otherworldly,
at once smooth and savage,
like double cream laced
with broken glass”
113
CLASS
ASSET
In a world where investment seems to have become
a dirty word, the right classic car can make a
healthy return on a relatively risk-free purchase.
W R I T T E N BY K e v in H ac kett
I M ag e s C O U R T E S Y O F R M AU C T I O N S
R OA d | B oo k
C L A S S ass e t
Left
Unloved in its early life,
Ferrari’s impossibly
beautiful 246 Dino now
commands healthy
premiums but buyers
need to look out for
poor restoration jobs.
Right
A proper, original or
restored Dino should
be entirely bereft of
Ferrari badges, as this
stunning US-spec model
sold by RM Auctions is.
Enzo felt that any road
car with a V6 engine
was undeserving of
the name.
I
am, by nature, a hoarder. Every now and then I have to
discipline myself to clear out all the detritus I’ve managed
to collect; old magazines, brochures, receipts and memorabilia. But some things are sacrosanct, much to the chagrin
of my wife. There’s no way, for instance, that I’ll ever get rid
of the car magazines and brochures I collected when I was growing
up, often a decade before I was legally entitled to drive.
Last weekend I purged my cupboards of all unnecessary junk
– always a therapeutic exercise. But I took longer than is normally the case because I was distracted from the task in hand by
opening up some of my old magazines and scanning some of the
classified adverts within. And what I found was startling.
Let’s take an issue of the wonderful Supercar Classics magazine from 1984. Beneath the closing words of a feature on Lord
Brocket’s collection of classic Ferraris (in 1996 he was sentenced
to five years in prison for insurance fraud with the very same cars),
is a half page advert for a dealer in Yorkshire, UK. What caught
my eye was a 12-year old Ferrari Dino. “A rare opportunity to
acquire probably the finest 246 on offer” it said. The asking price
was £18,250, so it was hardly loose change. However, a feature
on the Dino published in the same title in March 1989 – just five
years later – mentioned that the going price for a really good one
was, wait for it, £100,000.
In other words, the market for interesting classic cars had
rocketed skywards. That diminutive Ferrari had appreciated in
value by more than 400 per cent in five years and, by the late
1980s, even ropey examples were changing hands for huge prices.
“Designers enjoyed more freedom to express
themselves, often resulting in beautiful,
outlandish shapes that would be impossible
to legalise in these stricter times.”
116
It was nuts, and enthusiasts felt robbed by
investors who viewed classic cars as nothing
more than four-wheeled profit machines.
Anyone who had saved for years to buy the
car of their dreams suddenly found themselves unable to afford them.
As they say, what goes up must come
down. It’s as true in the world of financial
transactions as it is in anything and, while
speculators around the world thought there
was no end in sight for the huge demand
for property during the boom years, that
upward trajectory, when it started to freefall, caught practically everyone by surprise.
Rather than sink money into bricks and
mortar or stocks and shares, however, many
are once again turning to buying the right
cars at the right time and, crucially, knowing
when to sell them on.
Luxury can be interpreted in many
ways. For some of us, it’s the ability to wake
up every morning and not be stressed about
bills or bad weather. For others it could be
taking a holiday when and wherever you
like, for however long you like. For others
still, it’s being able to open a garage door
and drink in the gorgeous lines of a rare
thoroughbred sports or luxury car. No different to possessing a piece of art, whether
it’s a sculpture, painting, photograph or
original piece of sheet music penned by
Mozart himself, owning a rare car can be
a most joyous experience.
The appeal is obvious. As cars have,
in modern times, become more or less the
same in order to appease legislators, many
are nothing more than amorphous, androgynous blobs on wheels. Safer and more
economical than ever, most are quite dull
to look at and to drive. Yet, looking back
three decades or more, things were very
different – designers enjoyed more freedom
to express themselves, often resulting
in beautiful, outlandish shapes that would
be impossible to legalise in these stricter
times. Owning a rare or classic car marks
you out as an individual, separate from the
masses, and that is always going to be
a desirable trait.
117
R OA d | B oo k
But there can be a lot more to it than that
because, if you buy the right wheels, you
could make a tidy profit when it comes to
selling them on to a future owner – something you couldn’t say about the vast majority of new cars on sale today. That isn’t to
say that a new car couldn’t make money.
Take the Audi R8, for instance. When that
car was first launched, the world went into
a bit of a frenzy – everyone wanted one,
yet initially they were in short supply
and owners of the first batch of R8s were
able to sell their cars for 30 per cent more
than they’d paid for them. Six years on,
however, and you can pick up those same
cars for half the new price because there
are plenty out there to choose from –
the rules of supply and demand can work
for or against anybody.
This R8-type phenomenon rarely
occurs but new cars that are built in strictly limited numbers will always be a safe
bet. The Bugatti Veyron, for instance,
is suffering depreciation at the moment
because, if your pockets are deep enough,
you can still place an order for a new one.
Soon, though, the order book will close
and production will cease; and when
that happens, the values of the 450 cars
made will undoubtedly start creeping
upwards. Aston Martin’s One-77, of which,
as its name suggests, only 77 examples
were hand made, will no doubt enjoy the
same resurgence.
In the boom years of the late 1980s,
desirable cars were being bought and sold
with alarming speed, often hiding some
real horror stories after rushed ‘restoration’
jobs to make them look nice. A Ferrari
specialist I know is still seeing cars that bear
the scars of this haphazard treatment. “A
client approached me to inspect a Dino
246 he was interested in buying,” he recently told me. “When we started to delve into
its history, it had changed hands frequently in the late 80s but on the surface it
appeared decent enough. Once we examined the chassis, however, we could see
where areas of corrosion had been
‘repaired’ using Coke cans! That car needed
more than the asking price spending on it
to make it good again, so our advice was
to walk away.”
It’s just one example of greed getting the
better of people who are out to make a
quick buck at the expense of others but it
would appear that, at least when it comes
to classic cars, serious lessons have been
learned. When the economy nosedived in
the early 1990s, cars that had skyrocketed
in value in the late 1980s were suddenly
found languishing in the classified ads of
newspapers, their asking prices a fraction
of what they had been when the going was
good, and the market was, once again, one
for serious collectors and enthusiasts.
It’s taken 20-odd years but those
asking prices have started to recover to the
point they once were, and there are many
factors influencing this state of affairs. Most
of the car manufacturers whose models
were sought after in that time, are still in
business but these days are much more
prolific in their output. Aston Martin, for
instance, was only making a handful of
cars every year in the early 90s but is now
producing almost 5,000 annually. Ferrari,
Lamborghini, Bentley, Porsche – they’re
all making far more cars now than ever,
meaning two things: the current cars are
unlikely to make money for owners, and
the increased worldwide exposure to the
brands means that the older, much rarer
models, are again in demand.
The same rules as before apply,
however, meaning provenance and rarity
are important factors. But something as
simple as an anniversary can have a massive
impact on residual values, as demonstrated
by Jaguar’s ill-fated XJ 220 supercar.
A good friend of mine bought one early last
year for a not insignificant sum. 2012,
however, was that car’s twentieth anniversary, which resulted in some long overdue
media coverage, which, in turn, got the
market interested again. Now, just months
after buying his rare Jag (only 281 were ever
built), you’d be hard pressed to find a good
one for less than twice that amount he paid.
Certain brands will forever be collectible but you need to be careful about the
model you go for. Rarity is always good,
so the lower the build number the better.
Going back to Ferrari, one model the
company has never been able to top, at
least when it comes to external design, is
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C L A S S ass e t
American classics, such
as this fastback Ford
Mustang, are steadily
rising in value thanks to
the power of nostalgia
and the car’s place in
cinema history.
“When the economy nosedived in the early 1990s,
cars that had skyrocketed in value in the late 80s were
suddenly found languishing in the classified ads of
newspapers, their asking prices a fraction of what they
had been when the going was good.”
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R OA d | B oo k
C L A S S ass e t
“One need only look through the
catalogues of auction houses such as
RM Auctions, who are consistently
setting new sales records for prices
fetched. These precious machines can
bring their owners just as much
happiness as a Rembrandt.”
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121
R OA d | B oo k
C L A S S ass e t
A timeless Jaguar
E-Type, sold by RM
Auctions. They’re
not exactly rare but
the new F-Type’s
arrival may well
result in a spike in
worldwide demand
for well-preserved or
restored examples.
“In the boom years of the late 1980s,
desirable cars were being bought and sold
with alarming speed, often hiding some real
horror stories after rushed ‘restoration’ jobs
to make them look nice.”
the exquisite 308, as well as its 328 successor. As close to automotive sculpture as is possible, almost 20,000 were sold between 1975
and 1989, so they’re fairly common. As a result, values have been
stagnant over the years and relatively little money will still bag
you a pristine example.
Tempting, but as an investment not the soundest choice.
Far better to go for the almost-as-gorgeous 512 Berlinetta Boxer.
With lower production numbers (to the tune of one twentieth),
undoubtedly the Boxer’s time is nigh. Right now you can procure
a mint example for less than a brand new 458 Italia but the market
is waking up and soon they’ll be out of reach for all but the
wealthiest collectors. It’s a similar tale for one of the Boxer’s rivals
in the 1980s; the legendary Porsche 930. More commonly known
as the early 911 Turbo, in the past five years prices have doubled
John Hawkins is the garrulous boss of a Porsche dealership,
Specialist Cars of Malton in the UK; the company consistently
has a mouth-watering selection of classic Porsches on offer and
its customer base is hugely varied. “The early air-cooled Porsches
are always a safe bet,” he says, “especially anything that was
produced in limited numbers, like RS models.”
He says there’s huge interest and demand for rare Porsches
in Southeast Asia, an area where many of these older cars were
never available when new. “Thailand, Hong Kong, everywhere.
They’re snapping up what they deem to be ‘real’ Porsches, for
instance we recently sold five 964 RSs to Asian customers, one of
which went for £120,000.” Five years ago, half that amount would
have netted one of the very best and Hawkins agrees that the
famed 930 represents a sound investment, even now that prices
have doubled. “When Porsche started building water-cooled cars,
the fate of the earlier models was sealed and they’ll only ever go
up in value.”
122
But what does he think will happen to the ubiquitous modern
Porsches? “There’s no way we’ll ever see Cayennes or the like
increase in price,” he sighs. “In fact I paid £6,000 for one a couple
of weeks ago. There’s just too many of them but, when it comes
to modern Porsches, I can see values of limited production models
heading north, like the 996 GT3 RS. We recently sold a 4.0L GT3
RS to a customer in Hong Kong, at almost twice its new price.”
It isn’t just European prestige brands that are seeing a resurgence, either. Just try finding a 1960s Mustang Fastback – you’ll
be looking at huge prices, even for tatty examples and American
muscle cars, in general, are becoming more and more expensive.
There’s a good reason for this, too. There are plenty of people
who were children when these cars were movie stars and now that
they’re old enough and solvent enough, buying and running them
is a way of keeping the past present. Never underestimate the
power of nostalgia when it comes to the automobile.
Like property, paintings or sculptures, classic cars are often
works of art that happen to be mobile. One need only look through
the catalogues of auction houses such as RM Auctions, who are
consistently setting new sales records for prices fetched – some of
the metal that goes under its hammer is impossibly beautiful.
And these precious machines can bring their owners just as much
happiness, as a Rembrandt, simply by being able to look at them
and, on the odd occasion, drive them on some of the greatest
roads in the world – and that includes our very own region. That
these cars will always, from this point on, be worth at least what
you paid for them, is simply the icing on the cake.
123
h igh road to
m o r o cco
wr itten by b en sa muelson
PHOTOGRAPHY by Matt Howell
R OA d | B oo k
I
don’t think any of us had felt more
conspicuous in our entire lives. Far
above us, soldiers menacingly looked
down from the top of a cliff, while all
around was a traffic jam consisting
almost exclusively of battered cars from the
early 1980s. In front were dozens of CCTV
cameras, guarded by yet more seriouslooking soldiers. And then there were the
three of us: regular Road Book photographer, Matt Howell, my colleague Martin,
and me, inside 12.8-metres of the shiniest,
most expensive British-registered aluminium
imaginable. If we’d been dressed as Beefeaters and been driving the Queen’s Bentley,
we could hardly have stood out more.
We crawled forwards, the silence of
the car’s engine and the effectiveness of its
double-glazing making the scene outside
feel even more surreal. With a curt nod
and wave of the hand, we were ushered a
few metres forward, out of the last outpost
of the EU, and into a world as foreign as
any of us had ever seen; straight into the
pure chaos of Africa.
Hundreds of bystanders aimlessly
milled around, either in hooded Moroccan
robes or grandiose uniforms, and it was
suddenly bright, dusty, dirty and even more
intimidating. One of the men in djellaba
robes confidently knocked on the window.
He had photo ID hanging from his neck
but, as far we could tell, it could have be
his proof of membership of the Tangiers
branch of Blockbuster. He was quite insistent and, rather than create a scene, I opened
the window to find out what he wanted.
Mohammed introduced himself in
heavily accented English, to which I replied
in even more heavily accented schoolboy
French. Immediately the smile left Mohammed’s face. “Morocco, sir, is an Arab country,
and here we speak Arabic, not French.”
Pretty quickly it became clear it was
Mohammed who could help us clear
customs. And Martin, who had battled
Russian and Ukrainian customs posts on
past trips, produced a folder of such colour
coordinated, alphabetised magnificence,
that Mohammed decided it would only take
him an hour or two to get us through. Easy.
Just as he said this, a full-blown fight
broke out in front of us, as an elderly
Renault screeched to a halt, wheelspun
madly towards us and eventually came to
a rest buried among a heap of rubbish.
Mohammed dashed off to see whether
there was a better profit opportunity beckoning but, as he explained on his return,
it was only a Frenchman who was trying
to bring in a handgun without the correct
permits. As you do.
As Martin and I nervously queued,
Matt messaged his wife explaining that he
had “locked himself in the car while the
other two are off bribing the officials.” They
do say never to leave your photographer
unattended, and the wisdom of this was
reinforced as we arrived back at the car to
find a very cross-looking Moroccan soldier,
in a uniform rather more serious than any
we had already seen, waving his gun at our
slightly alarmed photographer. It transpired
that, thinking he ought to capture the
mayhem we had suddenly found ourselves
in, Matt had got into trouble as this chap
felt rather strongly that people shouldn’t
just barge into his country and photograph
confidential military installations. Which
is fair enough, really. Rather than have his
camera confiscated, get arrested or possibly
even shot, Matt frantically started deleting
as our friend Mohammed pleaded our case
to the soldier.
Pretty soon we were moving, picking
our way out of that hellish place and into
the traffic on the next, and most exciting
stage of our adventure to the Atlas Mountains, pulling the world’s smartest caravan
with the world’s smartest tow car.
126
“If we’d been
dressed as Beefeaters
and been driving
the Queen’s Bentley,
we could hardly have
stood out more”
“If you’re going to make a mad dash
across one continent and into another,
I can’t think of anything better to do
it with than an Airstream”
The whole thing had started a few months earlier, when we found
out from the people at Land Rover that they would be launching
their new flagship in Morocco. We already knew that the old
Range Rover was pretty good at towing, but wouldn’t it be amazing
to find out what the new one was like, by pulling an Airstream
over there? Over time, this morphed into an arrangement that,
providing we let them use the trailer for a couple of days of the
launch, the Land Rover chaps were delighted to help with.
We’d set off only five days earlier, picking up an Airstream
International 684 from Airstream’s European factory in a typically rain-lashed Lake District in the UK. Anyone who has any
interest in the history of transportation knows what an Airstream
is – but not many know that, for the past few years, Europeanspecification models have been designed and built just behind the
M6 motorway’s Tebay services.
The 684 is the top-of-the-range. On the outside, it’s classic
Airstream – acres of sleek aluminium – really given away only by
its modern alloy wheels. ‘Icon’ is an over-used word, but consider
the following: there’s an Airstream in New York’s Museum of
Modern Art, JFK had one as a campaign office, and NASA used
one as the quarantine facility for returning moon astronauts in
case they’d caught some sort of lunar flu. The list of stars that
own them is as long as an Oscars’ acceptance speech, too.
On the inside, the Airstream is like a boutique hotel on wheels:
modern, all red leather, Corian worktops and flat screen TVs and,
despite the fact that you can now buy an even bigger one (2.5
metres wide to our 2.3), it’s very spacious. There’s a proper double
bed at the back, with plenty of storage space, a good-sized wet
room with a cool, stainless steel sink, a galley with more than
enough kit to keep a big group fed, and a dining table and sofas
that convert to another double bed at the front.
If you’re going to make a mad dash across one continent
and into another, I can’t think of anything better to do it with
than an Airstream – and, in particular, with the new Range Rover
up front. With customer deliveries having only recently begun,
only the keenest car-spotters will have seen one on the road as
yet, but it’s unmistakably a Range Rover, albeit more modern and
more luxurious than ever. With an Airstream hitched to its electrically deployable tow bar, it looks incredible.
The first leg of our journey took us down the slightly less
exotic M6 motorway to Solihull, and to the factory where yet
another 800 people have just been taken on to build this new
car. Now owned by the enormous Tata conglomerate, Jaguar
Land Rover has been one of the great British success stories over
the past few years. Its Solihull factory has a busy, confident
air, and is proof that the British car industry is very much
alive and well.
From Solihull, a wet slog followed down the M40 motorway
to Portsmouth. At a cruising speed, the Range Rover’s mighty V8
engine was just ticking over at barely more than 1,000rpm and,
despite the fact our outfit weighed some five tonnes, we had yet
to experience a hill that caused it to change down a gear to maintain speed. Quite genuinely, the only criticism so far was that it
towed so effortlessly we almost forgot we had anything behind us.
R OA d | B oo k
We’d chosen to take the ferry to Santander in northern Spain, as it cuts 2,400 kilometres from the return trip, and anyway
it was the parts of the voyage further south
that excited us. The ferry itself is a rather
civilised way to start the journey, too, with
decent restaurants onboard, perfectly
acceptable cabins, wireless internet and
phone coverage. After two nights and 33
hours onboard, though, we were more than
ready to set off from Santander to pick up
photographer Matt from Bilbao Airport.
What we weren’t ready for, was the beauty
of that stretch of coast.
With Matt onboard, we headed up
into the mountains for our first photo stop:
the Marqués de Riscal winery and hotel
– a stunning Frank Gehry-designed building, whose own use of aluminium is famous
the world over. As the new Range Rover is
also manufactured from aluminium (as is
the body shell of the Airstream), it seemed
like a rather appropriate spot for our first
photo shoot. As the sun set over a bottle of
Rioja, we discussed how we’d be in Morocco
in just 36 hours’ time, and passing back
through northern Spain in just six days.
The first night in the trailer was at
Camping Fuentes Blancas, in Burgos, where
we arrived in the pitch black and freezing
cold. While Matt worked his magic with
camera, flash bulbs and car headlights, we
hooked up to the mains, plugged in our
water systems and got the heating going
before disappearing for more food and wine.
Before dawn, we were on the road
again, a mere 900 kilometres to cover in
order to reach our next overnight halt. The
fabulous Spanish motorways are the perfect
environment for the Range Rover. Huge
distances passed effortlessly, in utter comfort
and luxury with the amount of engine, road
and wind noise at towing speeds being
virtually imperceptible. The ride is phenomenal, too, with an ability to cope with
h i g h roa d to m oro c c o
bridge expansion joints that wheels that
size and air suspension shouldn’t possess.
As we reached altitudes more than
1,000 metres above sea level, the big Rangie
finally seemed to show a sign of weakness,
as it failed to maintain the speed set on the
cruise control during a particularly long,
steep drag. While mentally writing a slightly patronising sentence about the incident,
I thought I’d see what happened if I overrode the cruise control and pushed the
throttle to the floor. Blimey. Five tonnes
shot forward like a sports car, with no let
up of acceleration before good sense and
an unwillingness to spend time in a Spanish
prison caused me to back off.
Side winds became apparent as we
sailed down the other side. You could see
where trucks had actually been blown over
and occasionally you’d feel a bit of buffeting, but the Range Rover’s Trailer Stability Assist actually brakes its own wheels
individually, to eliminate any snaking before
it can even begin.
We arrived at our second campsite
after dark again, but to our mounting excitement, we realised we could see the lights
of Africa across the narrow Straits of
Gibraltar. We took the short ferry trip across
them a few hours later and, as we arrived
on the African continent, the sun was
shining. Ceuta is a fascinating little place,
yet the most memorable thing about it was
undoubtedly the border crossing – the other
side of which lies Morocco.
As we climbed up through the hills,
the elation of surviving our adventure in
the customs post, mingled with the excitement of driving on African roads, began
to hit home. And we picked our way
through some truly beautiful mountain
vistas for an hour or so, enjoying the double
takes our amazing rig caused at every turn.
Those first Moroccan roads weren’t
in great order but were probably no worse
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h i g h roa d to m oro c c o
As we drove down through northern Morocco, the terrain looked
more like Northern Italy, albeit with camels grazing, rather than
cattle. We decided to skirt the narrow streets of Rabat because
of our tight schedule and kept going to Camping Ocean Bleu a,
beachside site in Mohammedia, just outside Casablanca.
We got chatting to some of our neighbours in the campsite,
including a Cornish couple with a baby, who were heading south
in their 4x4 motorhome, seeing where the road took them. Another
Brit, Mark, pitched his tent nearby after riding in on his battered
old MZ motorbike, which he’d bought for £100 before setting
off on this trip to the Sahara and back. The following morning,
we made him a cup of proper tea and fed him Marmite on toast
to give him a taste of home. As he packed away his tent, while I
read The Times on my iPad, I felt a bit of a fraud. By contrast,
when I checked out the campsite’s lavatories, I was extremely
pleased we’d brought our own!
Not long after setting off for Marrakech the following day,
the landscape became much more spectacular. Although we were
still making good time on the toll motorway (too expensive for the
locals to use and very quiet as a result), we climbed through some
hills and all of a sudden the terrain and the architecture changed.
than many British ones during the winter months. As we dropped
down past the huge new container port at Tangier Med, we joined
the motorway, following the signs towards Rabat and Casablanca.
We stopped at the first motorway services, mindful of the fact you
can’t bring any of the local currency into the country and that
we were on a toll road. The services were surprisingly smart, tidy
and clean and the fuel was very cheap. Rather less pleasingly, the
cashpoint wasn’t working but, by sheer chance (or not) we discovered the man at the petrol pumps not only spoke French (like
virtually everyone else we met in Morocco, despite Mohammed’s
warnings) but would happily change some Euros for Dirhams.
The fact he’d probably just unplugged the cashpoint was an example
of the way moneymaking schemes work in some parts of Africa.
Before we left, we chatted to the driver of a Geneva-registered
Pinzgauer, which looked (and had sounded as we passed it on the
motorway) about as uncomfortable a means of transportation as
could be imagined. The driver was only too happy to explain, in
a splendidly cut-glass accent, that he was a doctor on his way
down to Malawi. We felt a little wimpish, with our heated, cooled,
massaging seats, the most comfortable headrests in automotive
history, and the luxuries of the Airstream behind us.
Houses were built from bricks made out of the local red mud,
and lonely shepherds tended small flocks of sheep. As we dropped
down towards Marrakech, it became sandy and rocky. This was
it. This was what we had come to see.
Our destination was Land Rover’s temporary headquarters
at the racetrack just south of Marrakech’s centre – an alarming
place to navigate, indeed. Taxis tried to get into the gap between
car and trailer, mopeds piled high with full families and a
week’s shopping dived down our inside and it was a particularly
stressful ten minutes before we were safe in the Land Rover bubble,
where the calm, immensely-competent men from the Midlands
took the rig to be prepped overnight for the following days’
photography shoots.
We set out for our first location – the ancient city walls adjacent to the royal palace – early the next morning. As the sun rose,
we even got into the middle of the Jemaa el-Fnaa, the famous
square that forms the historical heart of the city, which might be
a first for a car and caravan. But, before it got too crowded, we
headed out of town and up into the Atlas Mountains, which
vertiginously rise some 32 kilometres south of Marrakech. We
made our way up ever-steeper mountain roads, and the character
of the people and the terrain changed. Here the locals gave a
grave nod of great dignity as we drove past, something we had to
do ever more slowly as the road got narrower, the hairpins tighter
and the drops at either side more precipitous.
And then we were at the top – in Oukaïmeden, at an altitude
of 2,700 metres. Apart from its small military base, this place is
best known for its skiing. While it hardly resembles the well-groomed
pistes of Courchevel, where you definitely can’t get a donkey to
carry you and your skis to the top, we were able to sit down to
a magnificent breakfast in a pine chalet of astonishing Alpine
authenticity. Refuelled, we then drove back down the mountain
134
and, by lunchtime, were in the middle of the desert. Morocco is
nothing if not a country of contrasts.
We wanted to get a photograph of the trailer next to a traditional farmstead – what I had taken to calling our ‘Millennium
Falcon in Tatooine’ shot – and so, eventually, we took to a track
and headed out towards a place set right on its own in the middle
of the desert. As we came to a respectful halt 100 metres away, a
young man in a djebella walked over – the first Moroccan we’d
met that spoke absolutely no French. After lots of smiles, hand
gestures and pointing at Matt’s camera, he agreed to us using the
setting and sat down to watch us prepare with absolute fascination.
In between dashing about like idiots to get the best of the light,
we made him a cup of English tea and parted firm friends, despite
not having understood a word each other had said.
We headed back to the city in the dark - not something even
Land Rover’s ex-military security advisers were doing if they could
possibly avoid it, owing to totally unlit donkey carts and potholes
the size of Volkswagens – having finally got all the pictures to
document this mammoth trip.
As we pointed the Range Rover north the following day, for
an even more intense return leg, we realised how very doable this
trip actually is, if you had just a couple of weeks on your hands
and a true spirit of adventure. Just one thing, though, if you want
to do it in real style, make sure you do it in a Range Rover with
an Airstream behind it. That way you’ll be prepared for almost
any eventuality.
135
vertu phones
WRITTEN
BY
J o n at h a n
de Nardis
At lo n g l a s t, t h e wo r l d ’ s l e a d in g
lu x u ry m o bi l e p h o ne m a k er h a s t h e
te c h n o lo g y to m atc h t h e s ty l e .
Meet t h e V ert u T I .
137
R OA d | B oo k
I
In the rarefied world of supremely luxurious goods, one
relatively new company has doggedly stuck fast to its principles and struck a chord with a discerning marketplace that
has come to view the mobile phone as much more than simply
a device for speaking, messaging or surfing the world wide
web. For Vertu, the mobile phone is a device that should be as
desirable as a handmade Swiss timepiece or a Chanel handbag,
something one should aspire to possessing in a sea of Apple white
and Samsung black sameness.
The British company’s latest handset, the TI, is indeed
a thing of beauty. It isn’t the thinnest mobile phone, nor is it the
lightest. In fact the TI is decidedly weighty and has substantial
dimensions, quite at odds with the trend elsewhere for making
everything more slender and fragile. Comparing the TI with practically any other new handset is as futile as judging a Volkswagen
Polo with a Bentley Mulsanne – the thing positively reeks of handcrafted engineering brilliance.
Vertu was founded in 1998, as a division of mobile phone
giant, Nokia, with the notion that, if you don’t mind spending
tens of thousands of dollars on a watch, why not on a telephone?
And, against the odds and the naysayers, that gamble paid off.
A Vertu isn’t for everyone, obviously, but therein lies the secret of
the company’s success, and despite it lagging behind the established
players in the mobile phone market with its outdated technologies,
owners have seen past that and embraced what is known the world
over as one of the most luxurious status symbols there is. And
now modern technology has finally found its way inside these
handcrafted handsets, with the TI.
Steve Amstutz is Vertu’s Global Commercial Director, and
has been with the company since late 2009, coming from what
he perceives as Vertu’s only real rival, TAG Heuer, where for two
years he was responsible for the worldwide distribution and marketing strategy for that brand’s own mobile communications devices.
In the ten years before joining TAG Heuer, he was heavily involved
with Swatch Group, so it’s fair to say he knows a thing or two
about luxury goods and he guides me through a quick history
of Vertu before introducing me to the TI.
“It all started in the late 1990s,” he says, “with an idea that
was brought to the attention of Nokia’s head of design – the man
responsible for the look and feel of all those millions of phones
that were in use at the time. The thinking was, ‘why not create
an exceptional phone for exceptional people?’ and, with the
same thought process that men, in particular, are very much
into sports cars and fine watches. In 2002, the company launched
its Signature phone, and that is still in our portfolio today. It’s an
iconic product.”
He goes on to say that, when Vertu was just getting into its
stride, Nokia had a 40 per cent share in the mobile phone market,
so the technology inside Vertu’s handsets was certainly contemporary. “But then Blackberry came along, initially only in the US
and Canada, and that started a massive change in the way people
used their mobiles.”
Slowly but surely, however, the concept behind Vertu was
embraced by markets such as the US, Europe, the Middle East
vertu phones
01
04
02
“Comparing the TI with practically
any other new handset is as futile as
judging a Volkswagen Polo against a Bentley
Mulsanne – the thing positively reeks
of handcrafted engineering brilliance.”
03
01
The back of the TI incorporates
an eight-megapixel camera and
a removable panel that covers the
signature of the craftsperson who
made it by hand.
02
Push this button to access Vertu’s
unique Concierge services.
03
Exposed screw heads simply add
to the overall manliness of the new
Vertu handset.
04
The sapphire crystal glass screen
is also the user’s interface and it’s
so tough that only a diamond can
scratch its surface. Extremely strong
case is fashioned from titanium
but the TI still feels quite weighty.
138
139
Left
Optional alligator
leather trim
complements the
metal accents superbly,
while the Android
technology within
allows users to access
countless thousands
of apps.
“Understated elegance is now
part of the company’s future
and that is perfectly
encapsulated with the TI.”
and then China. Southeast Asia, the Pacific
Rim, they all came on board and it was
going very well for Vertu. “Then the iPhone
came to market,” he adds, “and nobody
really saw that coming, not even Nokia’s
directors. The iPhone changed the market
overnight, with its touch screen and Vertu
had to reinvent itself from voice-centric
devices into this new world of smartphones.
“And we did deliver our first smartphone in 2010, with a full ‘qwerty’ keypad,
which was, for us, a steep learning curve
due to the incredible complexities of their
technologies. At the end of the day, a smartphone is basically a handheld computer
you can talk to other with.”
A year later, Vertu launched its first
touch screen smartphone, the Constellation
T. “Even in the first part of this year,
58 per cent of Vertu’s sales were for that
model, the rest being the voice-centric
models. But our technology, even in our
smartphones, had started to lag behind
and we needed to make a big change,”
he admits.
“This change was activated by the
company changing ownership. In 2012,
Nokia sold Vertu to a private equity firm,
EQT, the largest of its kind in northern
Europe. And what this brought to Vertu
was total freedom when it came to the
technology we used inside our handsets.”
The technology that Vertu decided to
embrace last year was Android, which has
a 69 per cent market share when it comes
to the platform used by smartphones worldwide. “So we’ve gone from Symbian technology, which had less than five per cent
market share, to being in the majority, and
that is bringing us huge opportunities when
it comes to offering our customers the
widest possible choice of applications.”
Amstutz claims that Vertu enjoys a
95 per cent share of the luxury mobile
handset market, so which brands does he
see as being in the remaining five per cent?
“TAG Heuer has its fourth handset now,
and they very much believe in the power
of design and engineering. There’s Dior,
too, which has launched two phones and
Versace has made an attempt, too. Then
there’s Swiss company, Celsius, who mix
watchmaking technology into the phone,
even including a tourbillion. This is not
the way we do things. Technology, services, design and materials – Vertu owns
the land.”
He admits that Vertu could be perceived as having established itself by
appealing to a customer base that has
“more ostentatious tastes”, but claims that
understated design is now part of the
company’s future. And that is perfectly
encapsulated with the TI. “It’s not show
off, it’s just a beautiful design that has been
handcrafted from the finest materials,
and this is where we see growth.”
Whipping out a Signature model, the
design of which has hardly changed at all
in ten years, the cues are evident in the TI,
and there’s nothing at all wrong with that
– it’s a beautiful thing to look at and to
hold. Based around a titanium case that
has been used for its strength, elegance
and low weight, it also uses leather accents,
has the largest sapphire crystal screen ever
engineered and lots of masculine-looking
exposed watch screws. “The sapphire
crystal renders the screen virtually scratch
proof and it’s tested to be four times stronger than other smart phones in terms of
impact resistance,” says Amstutz as he
carefully wipes it with a polishing cloth.
“The titanium case is around five times
stronger than other smart phones, deforming less than 1mm when a 500Nm force
is applied.”
The TI is powered by the Android
4.0 ‘Ice Cream Sandwich’ operating
system, and is fitted with a 1.7 GH z
processor, resulting in an intuitive
and highly reactive user experience.
Other features include an eight megapixel rear camera with auto focus and
twin LED flash, a 1.3 MP front facing
Skype compliant camera, 64 GB of
internal memory and secure near field
communication technology.
Another example of Vertu’s continued
commitment to superior craftsmanship and
engineering is, says Amstutz, the new
handset’s audio ability. Its 11 x 15 mm
rectangular drivers are acoustically
integrated into the ‘chassis’ to maximise
frequency response and level. The result
is, he assures me, an “unrivalled symphonic sound from the phone’s own stereo speakers. They’re Bang and Olufsen certified”.
And then there is Vertu’s partypiece,
the ‘Vertu key’, which provides instant
access to a curated world of benefits and
services available via a global team of professionals to clients wherever they may be,
24 hours a day, seven days a week. These
services include Vertu Certainty, which
helps protect the device, its data and, where
necessary, the customer. Vertu Life –
tailored information, articles and benefits
– sits alongside the already famous ‘Concierge Service’. “If you have a Vertu device,
you’re guaranteed the best seats in town.”
The TI means that our customers can
leave the house in the morning with just
this phone in their pocket or bag, without
the need for any other device,” he adds while
slipping the black crocodile skin-covered
phone back into its protective sheath.
It certainly makes Vertu’s handsets
more relevant than ever, especially when
one considers the sheer speed at which this
kind of technology moves. But even if the
company had resolutely carried on with
the Nokia technology of old, it could probably have made it for a few years yet.
The continuing sales of its older (essentially outmoded) handsets is proof of that.
For some people, a phone is still just
a phone but, at last, Vertu is also able
to appeal to the tech geek that exists inside
a great many of us.
R OA d | B oo k
SPY WATCH
“There was also a bulky gold wristwatch on a well-used
brown crocodile strap. It was a Girard-Perregaux model
designed for people who like gadgets, and it had a sweep
second-hand and two little windows in the face to tell the day
of the month, and the month, and the phase of the moon...
the story it now told was 2.30 on June 10 with
the moon three-quarters full.”
S
So wrote Ian Fleming in the opening to his 1957 James
Bond novel From Russia With Love, regarded by many
as the greatest of all the 007 adventures.
That Girard-Perregaux wristwatch, so carefully
described, was the property of one Donovan Grant,
aka ‘red’ Grant, code-name ‘Granit,’ the bastard son of a Germanweightlifter and a southern Irish waitress who, having joined
the communists in Cold War Russia, worked his way up through
the ranks to become the ruthless chief executioner of SMERSH,
the Soviet assassination agency.
Like Bond, Fleming had been a naval commander and, like
Bond, he appreciated the finer things in life, among which he
counted prestigious motorcars – such as the bespoke Bentley he
gave Bond for ‘everyday use’ and the Aston Martin DBIII, which
the agent selected from the ‘pool’ at headquarters for a thrilling
chase across France in the novel Goldfinger. Then there were the
Turkish blend cigarettes, the Dunhill lighters, the Savile Row suits
and, of course, the quality wristwatches.
The detailed description of the Girard-Perregaux is designed
to tell us as much about the owner as it is about the watch: as
Fleming earlier states, it was a typical membership badge of ‘the
rich man’s club,’ but there is an intimation that Donovan Grant
wore it for all the wrong reasons – namely because it looked flashy
and had plenty of gadgets.
By the time From Russia With Love hit the big screen in 1963,
however, Grant’s ostentatious yet innocuous watch had been transformed into a lethal weapon – a timepiece which concealed a
garroting wire intended for use on Bond. In the event, of course,
1 42
R OA d | B oo k
007 turned the tables and used it on his attacker with
fatal results. (That watch briefly reappears, incidentally, in the 1969 film of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service,
being handled by George Lazenby).
Yet Fleming, always prepared to extend the bounds
of probability but never one to indulge in the fantastical, was far more conservative in his use of gadgets
in his books than were the props departments in
the films, which is why the most unusual thing
Bond’s Rolex Submariner ever did in the novels was
to kill an enemy guard when 007 wrapped it around
his fist to use as a knuckle duster in chapter 16 of On
Her Majesty’s Secret Service, smashing the crystal
in the process.
But when Bond's Aston Martin DB5 with its ejector
seat, rocket launchers and revolving number plates
became almost as much a star of the 1964 film Goldfinger as Sean Connery (who was equipped with
a standard Rolex submariner reference 6538) the producers of the Bond films quickly realised that gadgets
were a big hit with the audience – or the male contingent, at least – and males loved to see cool watches
just as much as they did cool cars.
The result was that ‘Q’ branch was put to work
modifying one watch after another as trick timepieces
became as integral to the films as outlandish vehicles
and superhuman villains. In Thunderball (1965)
Q provides Bond with a Breitling Top Time which
doubles as a Geiger counter and, in Live and Let Die
(1973) 007 – now played by Roger Moore – starts out
bang up to date by sporting a Pulsar, one of the world’s
first commercially-available quartz digital watches.
Q soon re-equips him with a Rolex; however, this
time neatly modified with a ‘hyper-intensified magnetic field’ for bullet deflecting and a bezel that doubles
as a buzz saw. Four years later in The Spy Who Loved
Me, Moore wears a Seiko with a built in teleprinter,
while Moonraker (1979) sees the same model return as
the hiding place for a small quantity of a powerful
explosive that 007 detonates via one of the pushpieces on the watch case.
Seiko watches reigned supreme throughout the
1980s doubling up, among other devices, as a radio
receiver (For Your Eyes Only, 1981) and a miniature television and homing device (Octopussy, 1983), but it was
all change in 1995 when Pierce Brosnan took on the
role of 007 in Goldeneye.
By now, the value of placing product in Bond
films was truly appreciated, and the world’s favourite
secret agent was given a BMW car and an all-new
watch – an Omega Seamaster, complete with laser
beam cutter and explosive detonator. In Tomorrow Never
Dies, Brosnan’s Seamaster features a bezel-activated
detonator, while the watch he wears in The World is
Not Enough boasts an LED torch and a built-in grappling hook. Die Another Day, meanwhile, introduced
Seamaster equipped with an upgraded detonator and
a laser beam.
Omega has held the plum job of official 007 timekeeper ever since and, after Daniel Craig made his
Bond debut in Casino Royale back in 2006, the two different Seamaster watches he wore in the film - the
Seamaster Planet Ocean from the opening sequences
and the Seamaster 300M dive chronometer he receives
after becoming ‘licensed to kill’ – became the stars of
an Omega-themed auction in Geneva where they
fetched Sfr 250,250 and Sfr 70,800 respectively.
But Bond fans without such impressive sums to
spend on their wrist wear shouldn't despair because,
since 2002’s Die Another Day, Omega has produced a
range of limited editions to mark each new Bond release
– and here they all are.
S P Y WATC H
Left
The iconic Omega
Seamaster made a more
fitting wristwatch for
Bond than the Seikos
worn by Roger Moore
in the 1970s and 80s.
Below
The back of the
‘buzz-saw’ Rolex
Submariner, as worn
by Roger Moore in
1973’s Live and Let
Die. It contains no
movement but is the
most valuable of all
Bond watches.
Die Another Day / Bond at 40 (2002)
This version of the Seamaster Professional 300M featured a blue dial embossed with
the 007 gun logo and had the legend ‘40
years of James Bond’ engraved on the back.
The bracelet design was also unique to the
model. 10,007 were made.
Seamaster James Bond
Limited Edition (2006)
Fitted with Omega’s now famous CoAxial movement, this watch had a blue dial
based on the spiral of a gun barrel, a 007
logo on the seconds hand and 007 engraved
on the case back. Again, 10,007 were made.
Seamaster Casino Royale
Planet Ocean (2006)
This chunky, 45.5 mm watch was fitted with
a special rubber strap and the name Casino
Royale on the case back. The edition was
limited to 5,007 numbered examples.
Quantum of Solace (2008)
Another Planet Ocean, this watch featured
the name of the movie engraved on the
sapphire crystal and a dial patterned to
resemble the grip of Bond’s Walther PPK.
The 007 logo was also engraved on the
case back and on the bracelet clasp. Again,
5,007 were produced.
The James Bond
Collector’s Piece (2008)
This black-dialled commemorative watch
featured a red 007 logo on the end of the
seconds hand and was supplied in a black
leather, silk lined box which hinted at
a Bond-like tuxedo. 10,007 produced.
144
145
Skyfall (2012)
This 42mm version of the Seamaster uses
the latest Calibre 8507 Co-Axial movement,
which can be seen through the transparent
case back. The winding rotor carries the
name of the film while the 007 gun logo
is seen on the dial at the seven o’clock position. 5,007 available.
Bond at 50 (2012)
Omega naturally had to mark 50 years of
Bond films and this watch is based on the
Seamaster 300M worn by Brosnan when
the brand first began supplying Bond in
Goldeneye. Made in two sizes – 41mm and
36mm – the watch features a red number
50 on the bezel and the dial is diagonally
embossed with 007 logos. The case back
gets the classic barrel rifling design and the
watches are available in editions o 11,007
and 3,007 respectively.
The Most Expensive Bond Rolex Ever
It was an undeniably sticky moment for
Roger Moore’s 007 when he was left tethered to a gantry above a pool full of sharks
in the 1973 film Live and Let Die. But it was
a situation easily rectified: the ever cool
British agent simply sliced through the ropes
with the buzz-saw bezel of his Rolex Submariner. Also equipped with a ‘hyper intensified magnetic field powerful to deflect the
path of a bullet at long range’ (Bond used
that feature to unzip the dress of a woman
called Miss Caruso) the watch really was
quite something – despite having had its
movement removed to enable its modification by Eon’s props department.
It was among the lots at a James Bond
auction in 1998 where it fetched £21,850
– but when it crossed the block again in
2011, it made almost $200,000!
t h e
L I
M
IT
E
D
L
W r i t t e n by S i m o n d e B u r to n
G e
A N
After surviving the double whammy of
war and communism, one of Germany’s
greatest watchmakers bounced back,
creating modern masterpieces that are
becoming increasingly collectible...
R OA d | B oo k
the limited LANGE
A. Lange and Söhne – often referred to
simply as ‘Lange’ – is considered by many
to be Saxony’s answer to Patek Philippe.
Possibly the greatest of all German watch
makers, it is based in the old Saxon town
of Glashutte which once did very nicely
out of extracting ore from the surrounding
Erzgebirge mountains. Until the early
1800s, that is, when it ran out.
A period in the economic doldrums
followed until Ferdinand Adolphe Lange,
master watch maker to the Saxon Court,
established the town's first watch factory
in 1845 and attracted
several masters of the art
to Glashutte who, by the
turn of the century, had
transformed the place
into an area of horological prowess to rival the
Swiss Jura.
But World War Two
left the region badly battered by relentless allied
bombing attacks and
many of the watch factories were razed to the
ground. Some bounced
back, but no sooner was
a degree of normality
resumed than the East
German state expropriated the main businesses
and created the Glashutter Uhrenbetrieb Factory,
a conglomerate formed
in 1951.
‘GUB’ as it was sometimes inelegantly
known, ploughed-on throughout the Cold
War period, making workmanlike and reliable mechanical watches for the masses and,
importantly, enabling vital horological skills
to be maintained.
After the collapse of the USSR, the
former state-owned company was bought
by the SWATCH Group and re-named
Glashutte Original, while Walter Lange
– the great grandson of Ferdinand – revived
his old family firm which now belongs to
luxury goods giant Richemont.
The story of the modern-day
A. Lange and Söhne is a phoenix from the
ashes tale in the very best tradition and,
unlike some historic brands which find
The polar opposite
of mass production,
practically every surface
of the Tourbillon Pour
Le Merite’s intricate
movement was hand
decorated. Just 200
were made and they’re
now highly sought after.
themselves in the hands of giant corporations, it has maintained the same ethos of
excellence on which the firm was founded
by Ferdinand Lange almost 170 years ago.
Indeed, it set about demonstrating its
intention to do so almost as soon as it was
revived in 1994 by producing a watch which
instantly came to be regarded as a modern
classic – the Tourbillon Pour Le Merite.
Named after a prestigious order
of merit sponsored by King Frederick
William IV in 1842 for outstanding scientific accomplishments, the piece is still
thought of today as one of the
most superbly engineered
tourbillon wristwatches ever
made. It has a chain-fusee
mechanism to equalize the
power of the mainspring and
virtually every surface of the
exquisitely finished movement
is hand decorated.
Produced between 1994
and 1998 in a strictly limited
series of 200 examples (120 in
yellow gold, 15 each in white
and pink gold and 50 in platinum), the Tourbillon Pour
le Merite had an entry price
of around $65,000, but quickly
became a collector's item which
has been rising steadily in value
ever since. Residual prices had
virtually doubled by the early
2000s and continued to rise
until relatively recently when
they began to level at between
$150,000 and $190,000 depending on
case material.
The outright record price for a Tourbillon Pour le Merite was set by Germany's
Dr Crott auction house in May 2012 when
one fetched Euros 330,000. This watch,
however, was a one-off which had been
custom made with a 36mm case, two mm
smaller than standard.
At this year’s salon International de
la Haute Horlogerie in Geneva, however,
Lange surpassed the excellence even of
the Tourbilon Pour Le Merite with the
announcement that it has now created a
Grand Complication wristwatch combining ‘grand sonnerie’ chimes, a perpetual
calendar and a split seconds chronograph.
“An unashamed display
of horological genius, each
watch takes a single maker
an entire year to create.
Just six will be made, each
priced at decidedly exclusive
€1.92 million apiece.”
148
149
R OA d | B oo k
An unashamed display of horological
genius, each watch takes a single maker
an entire year to create. Just six will be
made, each priced at decidedly exclusive
€1.92 million apiece.
Orders may be placed through alange-soehne.com
150
F o r g e n tleme n o n a j o u r n e y
coming soon . . .
01
T h e a m a z i n g s to r y o f o n e o f t h e m o s t s u c c e s s f u l a n d d e s i r a b l e
r ac i n g c a r s e v e r b u i lt: t h e Au to U n i o n
02
A s to n M a r t i n ’ s e xc e l l e n t n e w R a p i d e S d r i v e n o n s o m e
o f t h e wo r l d ’ s m o s t c h a l l e n g i n g r oa d s
03
Lot u s f o u n d e r , C o l i n C h a p m a n – d e s i g n e r ,
engineering genius and untried criminal
04
S u p p ly i n g r oya lt y f r o m M a r i e A n to i n e tt e to P r i n c e C h a r l e s
w i t h t h e i r e xq u i s i t e t i m e p i e c e s , B r e g u e t s t i l l s e t s t h e s ta n da r d
05
C h o pa r d ’ s i n vo lv e m e n t i n m oto r r ac i n g t i m e k e e p i n g
m a k e s i t a n at u r a l c h o i c e f o r au to m o b i l e c o l l e c to r s
with impeccable st yle
06
K e e p i n g yo u r f e e t w e l l d r e s s e d , J o h n Lo b b ’ s h a n d c r a f t e d
s h o e s a n d b o ot s a r e s t i l l t h e u lt i m at e a f t e r 1 5 0 y e a r s
AT
THE
HEIGHT
OF FASHION
W i t h a n e w s i b l i n g i n M i l a n a n d a n ot h e r
r u m o u r e d to b e o n i t s way, N i c k L e e c h v i s i t s t h e
o r i g i n a l A r m a n i H ot e l to f i n d o u t w h e t h e r i t ' s
s t i l l at t r ac t i n g t h e b e s t d r e s s e d i n D u b a i .
w r i t t e n by N i c k L e ac h
Left
The hotel has its own
entrance, separate
from the rest of the
Burj Khalifa.
Right
There is no mistaking
Giorgio Armani’s
minimalist style for
any other designer’s –
it’s a classy, elegant
and sophisticated
way to leave behind
the hussle and bussle
of one of the world’s
most visited cities.
Location
Ten very private and understated floors of
the tallest man-made structure on earth.
The 829.8 metres of the Burj Khalifa soar
over Downtown Dubai, the shopping,
leisure, and hospitality nexus around which
many of the city’s other superlatives coalesce. Neighbours include the recordbreaking Dubai Mall – reputedly more
popular in terms of visitor numbers than
the whole of New York – and the crowdpleasing Dubai Fountains, but the hotel is
separated from both by an intricate series
of terraces, pools, and gardens that swirl
around its base in a protective vortex.
The hoi polloi have access to the Burj
but fraternisation is physically and aesthetically impossible. Day-trippers arrive
at a separate entrance before being propelled at speeds faster than gravity straight
to the 124th floor observation deck that
provides the only real perspective on the
tower’s incomprehensible height. The
Armani sits serene and secluded amidst
the razzmatazz and, while it may be in the
very heart of the city, it is cut from a very
different cloth.
“It should come as no surprise that Armani’s
universe is one of heightened sensitivities. The subtlest
changes in materials, textures, and finishes combine
to slow the pulse and once your eyes adjust to the
hotel’s low light levels, even more layers of detail
and coordination emerge.”
156
Style
Nowhere is this difference more visible than
in the Armani’s design. Other hotels in
Dubai may be newer, bigger, taller, or more
opulent, but few are as refined. The hotel’s
concept – Stay with Armani – is to afford
guests the same kind of welcome that Mr
Armani would privately extend to his own
family and friends, and it should come as
no surprise that his universe is one of
heightened sensitivities. The subtlest
changes in materials, textures, and finishes combine to slow the pulse and once
your eyes adjust to the hotel’s low light
levels, even more layers of detail and coordination emerge. Those inured to Dubai’s
aesthetic chutzpah tend to find the effect
underwhelming, but for fans of Mr Armani’s particular brand of chocolate, mocha,
and cappuccino-coloured magic, the interiors act as a soothing tonic to the discordant realities of the city outside.
The Scene
The Armani was designed as a leisure hotel,
but it is as a more than luxurious business
destination that it excels. Despite this, the
lobby reveals a surprisingly wide variety
of guests. As well as casually dressed business types in handmade shoes, there are
luxury junkies, febrile from a little too much
conspicuous consumption, and carefully
attired ladies who not only lunch but
patently have time to do breakfast and
dinner as well. As with all of Dubai’s luxury
hotels, GCC-based tourists make up the
numbers while Chinese visitors, many of
whom book for just one night, arrive early
to make the most of their stay. The ambience is grown up throughout and there is
a noticeable absence of sartorial faux pas.
It would seem that guests come to do business and relax, not to preen or be seen.
Relaxation
The 12,000 square metre Armani/SPA
includes a gym, pool, relaxation rooms and
a four-stage ‘thermarium’ that takes guests
on a journey from the cleansing deep heat
of a sauna to a steam bath and laconium
and the cool mist walkaway of a final
sequential shower room. Spa experiences
start with a personal assessment after which
the selection of appropriate therapies and
treatments follow. The therapists are topnotch but, if anywhere in the hotel looks
a little tired after three years’ of demanding service, it is here.
Dining
The hotel has eight dining options including Indian and Japanese restaurants, the
latter with a room-sized sake cellar and
specialist sommelier to match. The hotel’s
signature restaurant is the dinner-only
Armani/Ristorante, an exercise in contemporary Italian fine dining in everything but
name. A sinuous, double-height space, it
features its own pre-dinner bar, cigarlounge, open kitchen, and three bottle-lined
Enoteche where small parties can meet,
drink, and dine in private.
All-day dining is available from the
impeccably displayed buffet at Armani/
Mediterraneo – even the juices compliment
the interior design here – and Armani/
Peck, a direct transplant to Dubai of Mr
Armani’s favourite 130-year-old Milanese
delicatessen. Dishes here include buratta,
miniature mozzarella whose unfeasibly soft
centre is mixed with cream, and grilled
giant prawns with spinach and a silky cannellini bean puree. The menu may sound
unambitious but the food, imported direct
from Italy, is consistently impressive.
Rooms
The hotel’s 160 guestrooms and suites are
divided between eleven categories, from
the 45 square metre Armani Deluxe Rooms
to the flagship 390 square metre Armani
Dubai Suite, designed by il maestro himself
and occupying the entire 39th floor. Thanks
to the Burj Khalifa’s unique, triple-lobed
footprint, most walls in the rooms and suites
are curved and perfunctory objects such
as TVs are hidden behind sliding screens
that follow the same undulating logic.
Left
Muted greys, browns
and greens make for a
relaxing night’s stay,
although the branding
on towels and bathrobes
slightly overdoes things.
Right
The hotel has eight
restaurants, catering
for Italian, Japanese
and Indian tastes.
Below
In the unlikely event
that you run out of
things to see and do
in Dubai, the Armani /
Spa makes the perfect
environment to top
up one’s batteries.
“The magic is broken by a total
absence of door handles –
which leads to continual
confusion over what is door
and what is wall.”
All but the smallest rooms have separate
living, bed and bathrooms and the latter
come with separate rainfall showers
and tubs.
The bathrooms are finished in a chalky
grey stone that’s naturally warm to the
touch, while carnelian-coloured soaps
shaped like stones speak to the level of input
that Mr Armani has had in the project: he
is said to have discovered the stone, his
favourite, while walking on an Italian beach.
Walls are clad in fine fabrics, liquid metals,
and dark leather while black lacquer, silvered wood, and silk dominate the Armani
Casa furnishings. The magic is broken
however by a total absence of door handles
– which leads to continual confusion over
what is door and what is wall – and by the
unnecessary and overblown Armani branding on the bathroom robes and towels.
158
Spend time
A record 10 million people visited Dubai
last year, attracted in part by the city’s guaranteed mix of sun, sand, spectacle and
shopping; however, a slightly chastened,
post-recession, Dubai is beginning to establish itself as something rather more than
that. Mercantilism is written into the city’s
DNA: first it was pearls, then it was oil, now
it is everything from tourism and property
to Islamic finance, gold, gemstones, and
art. A near constant stream of executives,
diplomats, dealers, and the ambitious make
pit stops in this frenetic city and, thanks to
its now confirmed position as a global
transport and logistics hub and gateway to
the new Silk Road, trade with the Far East
is booming.
The UAE topped Saudi Arabia as
Singapore's main trading partner last year
thanks to the oil and petrochemical industries and the Emirates have just welcomed
the city-state's first resident ambassador.
Thanks also to a growing number of
headline cultural events such as the Dubai
International Film Festival, Art Dubai,
Design Days Dubai, and the nearby Sharjah
Biennale, Dubai is cementing its position
as an international cultural hub. A vibrant
local arts scene has also developed around
the Dubai International Financial Centre,
Tashkeel, and in the industrial district of
Al Quoz, where galleries have replaced
garages along Alserkal Avenue.
Stay the night
A Deluxe Room at the Armani Hotel Dubai
costs from Dh4,000 per night, including
taxes, Wi-Fi and in-room non-alcoholic
beverages. Breakfast is included in the cost
of suites, which start at Dh4,500 per night,
and tickets to ‘At The Top’, the Burj Khalifa’s observation deck on the 124th floor,
are included in the price of the Signature
and Dubai Suites. The Armani Dubai Suite
costs from Dh40,000 per night.
To book, visit: www.armanihotels.com
or call 00 971 4 888 3888.
SUBSCRIPTION
Singapore
Indicium (Singapore) Pte Ltd
Level 30, 6 Battery Road
Singapore 049909
[email protected]
EDITORIAL
ART & DESIGN
BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT
PRINTING & PUBLISHING
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
ART DIRECTOR
VICE PRESIDENT,
PRINTER
Kevin Hackett
[email protected]
Angus Hyland, Pentagram
BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT
Dereume Printing, Belgium
www.dereume.com
DESIGNERS
Alan Tan
[email protected]
Rhian Edwards, Pentagram
Alex Johns, Pentagram
MARKETING DIRECTOR
PROJECT MANAGER
Connie Yeung
[email protected]
EDITORIAL ASSISTANT
Irene Thepper
[email protected]
SENIOR EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT
Tori Phillips, Pentagram
Jaruphan Malisri
[email protected]
FINALISER
PRINTING & DISTRIBUTION
FASHION DIRECTOR
Bunto Thirasak
[email protected]
CIRCULATION MANAGER
Esther Quek
[email protected]
PHOTOGRAPHY
Tresa Ong
[email protected]
FASHION ASSISTANTS
Chua Chin Chin
Yorklyn Yeo
CONTRIBUTORS
Jeff Reed, Dejan Jovanovich,
François Oosthuizen, Richard
Meaden, Simon de Burton,
Richard Whitehead, James
McCarthy, William Chung,
Ben Samuelson, Jonathan de
Nardis, Nick Leech
Matt Howell
Holly Falconer
Karn Samanvorawong
Max Earey
Getty Images
Newspress
RM Auctions (Classic car
investment images)
South Florida Dive Journal
(Triton Submarine images)
David Pearlman
PUBLISHER
Indicium (Singapore) Pte Ltd
Level 30, 6 Battery Road
Singapore 049909
All rights reserved
SPECIAL THANKS TO
Patrick Bikka, Jeremy Hackett,
Neil Bugler, Erwin Creed,
Hotel Muse (Bangkok)
www.baselworld.com
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