Wealth on Display: Hong Kong Street Sightings

Hong Kong is a place with fabulous wealth concentrated in the hands of a select few. Thankfully, many of those select few have some pretty cool cars, and like to drive them around the city.

On a trip to Hong Kong last year, I snapped some car shots evocative of the city. I love how exotic cars offer a fantastic accent to the visual clutter of urban settings. You don't realize how special some cars are until you see them in a crowded urban context! Click the pics to see the entire gallery! Or click HERE.

Porsche 918 RSR: An Ass we can get behind

A lot of supercars lately, from the Bertone Mantide to the Lexus LFA, not to mention the Audi R8, have had rear ends I find rather vulgar and overdone.  Attempts at making them literally "badass" have resulted in a tall, ungainly appearance that I find offputting to say the least.  Not so in the case of Porsche's new 918 RSR coupe.  The rear air vents and aerodynamic undertray are neatly integrated into a voluptious rear treatment, and the Walter De Silva-style tail lights (so similar to those on the new Audi sedans) serve to emphasize the width of the car, giving it a low, mean stance I find lacking in a lot of new cars.  The result is truly sexy, and an effort worthy to replace the Carrera GT --itself already a modern classic.  The front end of the car, while very pleasing, is more akin to the new McLaren MP4-12C or even a Ferrari 430 than a Porsche 917 or any other classic sports prototype from Stuttgart.  But really, who cares?? This car's got LA face and Oakland booty. Sign me up.

-Photo via Autoblog, and retouched by Automobiliac to emphasize the lines.

Porsche in Formula One - What could have been?

Throughout its history, Porsche has flirted several times with single seater formula cars, but never more seriously than in the early 1960's when Dan Gurney, Jo Bonnier, and Wolfgang von Tripps campaigned their Formula One cars.  The best result acheived was Gurney's 1962 French GP victory at Rouen. Gurney is shown above, at rapt attention behind the wheel of the 804.

At the end of the 1962 season, Porsche withdrew from F1 citing costs, and there is also a belief that they felt F1 was too far divorced from their road cars. Perhaps they just didn't like to lose, and they had never been in a truly competitive position with their air-coooled flat 8 engine, in a time where V-configured engines were far more par for the course.  All this makes one wonder what might have been had Porsche decided to double down on F1, and put the sort of technical and financial resources behind it that saw them develop their world-beating Sports Car prototypes as the decade progressed.  It is also interesting to consider that Ferrari, a smaller volume carmaker (also probably more mismanaged at the time!), was able to carry on simultaneous F1 and Sports Car programs in the 1960s, yet Porsche was not seemingly willing to shoulder the expense. We'll never know what might have been had Porsche gone head to head with Ferrari and  Lotus in the mid 60s. They coulda been a contender. For additional historic photos, click HERE. 

All photos credit: Julius Weitmann

Automobiliac Archive: Speed, Style and Beauty Exhibition

Back in 2005, Ralph Lauren displayed his truly world class car collection at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. The exhibition was entitled "Speed, Style, and Beauty." The show was well worth the trip to go and see it. Here from deep within my hard drive are photos I took at that show. Some are a tad blurry because the light was low and I did not have a tripod. Click on the pic below to see the rest. If you want to see truly phenominal photos of these cars, I'd recommend you pick up the official book of the exhibition shot by celebrated photographer Michael Furman.