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Posted
Jul 13 2009, 04:00 PM
by
Dino Dalle Carbonare
with 21 comment(s)
Luxury and Exotic month maybe be over but I just needed to share some pictures of this slammed Crown Athlete I spotted last month at Okayama Circuit. This is actually a demo car for the VIP/luxury shop AimGain and was dropped to the ground thanks to their air-suspension kit. The 20-inch Club Linea L566 suit the style very well, and I love how they disappear into the wheel arches! You can't get more JDM than this! The Crown Athlete is offered with either a 2.5 L or 3.5 L V6, the same 2GR and 4GR...
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Posted
Jun 30 2009, 10:39 PM
by
Linhbergh Nguyen
with 12 comment(s)
As we bring Exotics and Luxury month to a close, I bring you this shot of the Auto Fashion Lexus LS430 rolling down a street in San Diego. This is what luxury motoring is all about, looking so cool in your extremely hard looking car. Just imagine rolling around this laid out car around town. Heads will turn, necks will snap, and maybe, just maybe, a lucky lady will step into such your machine to accompany you to get a few cocktails......
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Posted
Jun 30 2009, 06:15 PM
by
Mike Garrett
with 11 comment(s)
As a final bit of luxury material for this month, here's a car that combines the traditional Japanese luxury flagship with some of the kustom style that I showcased yesterday. I never knew the Toyota Century would look so natural in flat black slammed (with hydraulics) on some white walls with sidepipes. Who said VIP cars need wheels poking out from the fenders to be cool?
-Mike Garrett...
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Posted
Jun 30 2009, 02:40 PM
by
Jeroen Willemsen
with 15 comment(s)
Before every new Speedhunters theme starts at the beginning of the month, I always try to find some exclusives cars to feature. One of the cars I wanted to do was the Mercedes CLS owned and driven by RJ De Vera. I remember reading about RJ in a Belgium magazine called Opgezet, which featured his deep candy apple red NSX. The next month, the same magazine featured his mother's car, a turbocharged Honda Odyssey. So for this Luxury and Exotic month, I knew I had to feature his latest design, this...
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Posted
Jun 30 2009, 08:00 AM
by
Linhbergh Nguyen
with 42 comment(s)
Many of us dream (with me pleading guilty on all counts) of one day owning a Bentley, Rolls Royce, Ferrari, Pagani, Lamborghini, or Bugatti. But, if you think realistically, a whole many of us, will never own a real luxury car or a real exotic, supercar or hypercar. All that exquisite luxury, with a seemingly infinite amount of power, soul, and passion comes at a terrible price --quite literally, at that. Enter Ernie. Like many of us, Ernie would love to own a super car, hyper car, mid-life crisis...
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Posted
Jun 29 2009, 06:06 PM
by
Mike Garrett
with 11 comment(s)
Here's another bit of printed treasure that I picked up during my recent stay in Japan, and another magazine title that fits well with this month's theme - Style Wagon. Since I bought my own van earlier this spring, I've been keeping an extra close eye on this magazine along with some of the other wagon and van publications available in Japan. Van dress-up and customization continues to be extremely popular in Japan, so naturally Style Wagon has a large following there....
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Posted
Jun 29 2009, 04:35 PM
by
Mike Garrett
with 9 comment(s)
Right now we are hard at work on preparing features for next month, but there's still a few last bits of luxury and exotic material that I'd like to post. As a way if looking back at the roots of luxury customization, I've put together a gallery of vintage kustoms that could be considered luxury cars. Sure they might not have really been considered "luxury" back then, but its not hard to draw comparisons between these classics and today's customized lux cars....
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Posted
Jun 29 2009, 03:22 PM
by
Andy Blackmore
with 27 comment(s)
When this dropped into my inbox this morning, I thought it was a hoax.. Aston Martin have developed a 'luxury commuter concept', the Cygnet, which is based on the Toyota iQ. According to AM, the concept represents a creative, environmentally conscious solution, being small, yet with presence, fuel efficient with the prestige of Aston Martin's luxury brand ownership. Surprisingly, the clay shows how well the front end has been integrated into the main iQ body using the existing Toyota...
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Posted
Jun 29 2009, 10:50 AM
by
Rod Chong
with 20 comment(s)
Well Exotics and Luxury month is about to end and we're about to usher in a month devoted to AWD cars in all shapes and sizes ( although you can expect to see a lot of Imprezas, Evos and GT-Rs )... I wanted to end my own writing on the subject of supercars with a good look at two legendary machines Dino and I encountered right at the end of our Ferrari Museum tour. I don't know what the Galleria Ferrari museum director was thinking when they put these two cars in a separate room from the...
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Posted
Jun 29 2009, 08:06 AM
by
Patrick McGrath
with 10 comment(s)
I spent a while this month trying to come with an Exotics and Luxury feature . I'd know where I could find some well prepared JZX100's but I wanted to find something different, something a little bit more off the wall than the usual. Of course when Ffrench rang me to tell me what he was going to be finishing off the Irish Prodrift series in, 'Four door', 'Brown', 'Nissan' and 'Dished Chromes' were the exact words he used to describe it, I knew my luck had just...
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Posted
Jun 29 2009, 01:43 AM
by
Rod Chong
with 22 comment(s)
Ok let's get straight in to part two of our visit to the Galleria Ferrari , with a tour of the next display area. So we start our tour with the Enzo, Ferrari's current top level supercar. What do you think of this car? Is it ultimate Ferrari supercar ever?...
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Posted
Jun 28 2009, 06:45 PM
by
Mike Garrett
with 5 comment(s)
Since it's luxury and exotic month (for another day or two at least), I thought it'd be a good time to take a look at one of the top magazines covering the VIP scene in Japan - VIP Style. Unlike here in the USA where the internet is where most automotive trends are born, print is still very influential Japan. After seeing so many US magazines shrink and disappear, one of things I love about Japan is going to the bookstore and getting lost in all the glossy pages of up to date automotive goodness....
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Posted
Jun 26 2009, 01:30 PM
by
Rod Chong
with 9 comment(s)
I'm sitting here working on these Ferrari Museum photos, but am finding I'm suffering from a bit of writers' block. Perhaps it's the distraction from the media wave surrounding the death of Michael Jackson, or perhaps it's the fact that by time Dino and I arrived at the Galleria Ferrari, we were both pretty frazzled by a long day of Speedhunting in the Modena area. Check the day's agenda: 07:00 breakfast in the lobby of our Bologna hotel. 08:00 depart for the Modena area....
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Posted
Jun 25 2009, 11:20 AM
by
Rod Chong
with 20 comment(s)
Forging a career as a Professional Creative-Person is not an easy manuever. You need to have several things working for you to achieve this. Firstly, you need to be able to excite people about what you do. They need to believe in your creativity so you better have some kind of skill in presenting yourself and your creative work. Secondly, you have to have a strong belief in yourself as an artist and your art, whatever that may be. You will inevitably face barren periods in your career, so you better...
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Posted
Jun 25 2009, 08:30 AM
by
Dino Dalle Carbonare
with 16 comment(s)
Monday morning, 10 am, I'm sitting in the foyer at the head-office of Audi Japan waiting to pick up my ride for the week. With this being Exotics and Luxury month I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to get behind the wheel of something special, a car that defines the modern day exotic, yet manages to impress on many levels. I chose the R8 you see here, and used it all week to get a real sense of what it's like to drive around in a true supercar. Where to start? The engine? The semi...
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Posted
Jun 24 2009, 09:40 AM
by
Rod Chong
with 18 comment(s)
The more I look at these photos, the more I'm convinced that I've never been to Italy in my life, let alone had the run of a supercar factory. It's just too good to be true isn't it? I'm sure that Dino found these photos on the internet somewhere and posted them to his FTP site for me to edit. Then I had a dream that I actually was inside these photos... but I'm sure it didn't happen in real life... So perhaps what I'll do for this story is describe the contents of...
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Posted
Jun 23 2009, 02:00 PM
by
Rod Chong
with 38 comment(s)
It's just over a month ago now that Dino and I parted ways in Italy to return to our respective countries. In relative terms, it wasn't that long ago, but for me it seems like a lifetime away. A lot has happened since then... So it's a bit strange now to be staring at these photos of the Pagani factory, trying to bring myself back to the immediate experience of the place....Hmmm... perhaps I didn't get enough sleep last night... blech... Anyway... let's get this story going.....
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Posted
Jun 22 2009, 10:00 PM
by
Dino Dalle Carbonare
with 19 comment(s)
Back at the Tokyo Special Import Car Show it was the sportier side of the show that I felt more in tune with. Big SUVs with massive wheels are amusing to look at and all, but I'm sure you will agree with me that this selection is definitely something we can all appreciate more here at Speedhunters. I think the Scirocco I found at the Quantum booth starts things off very well. Despite Quantum being a specialist in car audio and entertainment I was more interested in the sleek body kit and dropped...
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Posted
Jun 22 2009, 11:26 AM
by
Rod Chong
with 31 comment(s)
Speedhunting for me is as much a hobby as it is a profession. I’m lucky enough to work at Pininfarina here in Cambiano near Turin as a senior designer…just being here and part of this immense history is great, but to contribute to the design of some of the most iconic brands in the world of automotive is a fantastic opportunity. I’ve worked on everything from city electric cars to supercars and everything in between with a very talented team; some of these guys here are legends...
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Posted
Jun 19 2009, 06:30 PM
by
Dino Dalle Carbonare
with 41 comment(s)
I spent the whole day at the Tokyo Big Sight Exhibition center yesterday walking the halls of the biggest exotic and luxury oriented event of the year, the Tokyo Special Import Car Show. Being a high-end Japanese show I was sure I was going to see my fair share of tuned supercars and pimped out rides, modified in countless different styles. Needless to say, I wasn't disappointed. Audi R8's were a bit scarce but I found this example by Body Shop Hamana, sporting a front end resembling that...
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