Cars

These top-optional automobiles, from the last century to now, continue to wow at auction.

The fixed panels of laminated glass not only allow in light but increase roof stiffness and headroom.

Short of wearing a crown around town, few visual cues instantly communicate one’s affluence and influence like the Rolls-Royce Phantom – a model that, until last summer, had seen only seven iterations since 1925. The lag between releases reflects a philosophy of valuing painstaking improvements over incremental additions: “Take the best that exists and make […]

One year after setting new world auction records for not only Aston Martin but any British automobile, RM Sotheby’s could do it again. T he auction house will offer a 1963 Aston Martin DP215 Grand Touring Competition Prototype at its Monterey sale in California on August 24 and 25. The car carries an estimate of £15 million to £19 million, which overlaps […]

Audi’s all-new A8 flagship, which goes on sale today, continues a tradition that began in 1994, when Audi’s first full-sized limousine stepped into the arena with Mercedes-Benz’s S Class and the BMW 7 Series. That first-generation A8 went into battle with a suite of smarts that included an all-aluminium construction. Ever since, Audi’s flagship model […]

The Senna shares its core architecture with McLaren’s less exotic offerings, but it is born from a highly mutated strain of the brand’s core DNA. At its heart lies a development of the carbon-fibre structure of the 720S, plus a turned-up version of that car’s 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8, now delivering a peak of 800hp (588kW.) […]

Fiftieth anniversaries are typically marked with a cake and candles. Yet when Nissan wanted to mark 50 years of its legendary GT-R flagship, it turned to Italian coach-building powerhouse Italdesign—also celebrating its own 50th this year—to create a 720 hp rolling sculpture it is calling the GT-R50. This commemorative car is based on the most potent of GT-R models, […]

Look at the new Aston Martin DBS Superleggera, which has just been unveiled at an event in London, and what do you see? According to chief designer Myles Nurnberger you should be seeing rippling muscles under a tight-fitting suit. “The Vantage is our hunter, the DB11 is our gentleman and the DBS is our rogue,” […]

History is littered with unfortunate examples of revolutions gone awry—both from politics and within the four-wheel world. Perhaps that’s why English automakers are conservative in their approach when it comes to redesigning their most popular cars. Cue Bentley and its best-selling Continental GT coupe, a piece of automotive art that feels like it’s been with us forever. […]