The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen

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Nemomobile to samochód wykonany na potrzeby filmu Liga niezwykłych dżentelmenów. "Podwozie do pojazdu, którym bohaterowie pędzą po ulicach Wenecji zbudowano w Retromotoring w Londynie, wyposażono je zaś w silnik Range Rover LSE 4.2 V8, niezależne zawieszenie, hydrauliczne podnośniki i podwójne przednie koła. Karoserię wykonano ze specjalnego tworzywa w Pradze. Automobil mierzył 7 na 2,7 metra i rozwijał szybkość do 59 mil na godzinę."

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Spider Lights!

Spider Lights

Not the finest of photos but I just found this in the digital archives of my photos, taken a few years ago in Riga, Latvia and all the ladies have been discussing bits of furnishing and so forth, clearly I feel a subconscious need to polish my metrosexual ability to analyse interiors too!

In some ways it might feel a bit creepy to eat in a restaurant beneath this  contraption but I rather liked its spidery-feel created from a mass of anglepoise lamps.

There is something delightfully "Heath Robinson" about the concept while the lights themselves provide a brilliant opportunity to move the separate component lamps into shapes that can really help light a room such as this one which is in one of the delightful and rather idiosyncratic buildings which can be found throughout the engaging old town centre of Riga.

Interestingly the Anglepoise lamp was invented by the Englishman George Carwardine in 1932 whose speciality was designing car suspension systems...so he was a petrolhead after my own heart!

Sexy Centenarians & Super Polish Power

(wikipedia photo)

Petrolheads have probably by now gone weak at the knees at this piece of uber-torquey excellence, one of the finest engines ever to have graced the world and indeed perhaps the most famous to be designed by a Pole.

It was Tadek Marek who first created the Aston Martin alloy 6 cylinder engine for the DBR2 - a sumptuous sports racing car of 'swoopalicious' 1950's styling perfection. The engine was most famously used in the emphatically elegant grand touring series of DB4/DB5/DB6, the magnificent superleggera bodied Aston sports cars which of course became the favourite of legions of boys little and large when 007 drove one in Goldfinger and indeed in subsequent James Bond films too...

Marek's incredible engine designs demonstrated that the beauty of the iconic DB4/5/6 design wasn't just skin deep, it was firmly rooted within the magnificent engine which provided high performance and a magnificent sound! Marek's V8 engine was still in production in 1980 having been designed 12 years earlier.

Meanwhile, over at Aston Martin (remember there wasn't a Mr "Aston" the car got its name when Messr Lionel Martin and Robert Bamford teamed up in 1913 (yes, hold on, there is indeed an anniversary story coming...)...

...When Martin was a winner at the Aston Clinton hillclimb, his wife suggested appending the "Aston" name as it would place the marque at the top of the sales catalogues.

(So there you go, nothing new about search engine optimisation either, it's at least a century old).

Marek of course was not the only Pole to work with Aston Martin. the famous Count Louis Zbrowoski, the man who raced the real "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" helped revitalise the company post war in 1920 when Bamford left...

Now Aston Martin is celebrating its centenary and there will presumably be great celebrations and a plethora of limited editions and other methods to try to maximize the returns from a brand which has multiple owners, many sensational motor cars but has, at best, been patchily profitable during several bankruptcies and many owners!

On the other hand, the designs have frequently been sensational, inside and out. Iconic is a fair description, to put it mildly!

From all your fans at Vistula, Poland & doubtless throughout the world:

Happy Birthday Aston Martin - perhaps the sexiest centenarian on the road!

McLaren Symmetry

McLaren Symmetry copyright Patrick L Young, 2012.

As my inspiration in design matters came from the world of cars in my childhood, it seems only fair to include some posts with an automotive flavour.

During a visit to London this summer, there was an exhibition on British contemporary engineering at the Science Museum and McLaren had this arresting stand displaying a formula one car hanging from the ceiling and on the ground, their magnificent road car, the MP4-12C.

This elegant 'mirror image' is itself an interesting design concept, inferring the old adage that essentially formula one cars have so much downforce they could drive around upside down on your living room ceiling...

The MP4-12C was designed by Frank Stephenson, who has in the past noted that he can find inspiration everywhere, from: "things on the sidewalk, the type of tiles, the paintings on the signs, there's always something to inspire you." He has a deep passion for biology and evolution, looking to the animal kingdom for design, and seeking to deploy biomimicry...