Yesterday I took the Clubman into Wheelwerks located here in good ol’ SLC for a fitting. Yes, like a tailor-made suit, the Clubman got to try on its running shoes in preparation for spring! They are 18” Primax rims with a matte-black powder coat wrapped in some Nexen high-performance tires. And the good news is, they fit like a glove. In case you didn’t catch that, I just compared my new wheels to three different types of apparel—talk about mixing metaphors, sheesh.
Speaking of good old Valentine’s Day… I’m totally in love with Spacesick’s amazing line of “I Can Read Movies” retro-style book cover designs. These ultra-graphic novel covers are beautiful, high-concept compositions that are a blast to decipher. Here’s a glimpse of some of my faves. Click here to enlarge the image.
It was reported this week that Chris Bangle, the somewhat infamous head of design for the last 16 years at BMW, has resigned. This was a shocker since Bangle has been the primary visionary behind all of BMW’s major releases including the X5, Z4, the new MINI, and of course the 7 Series and its massive caboose, unaffectionately referred to as the Bangle Butt.
Love him or hate him, no one can dispute the mark he’s left on 21st century auto body design. You name the manufacturer and I’ll show you one or more of their models that bites off the Bangle. He says this was a planned exit and he wants to move on and solve bigger design issues both in and outside of the auto industry.
Bangle leaves his protégé, Adrian van Hooydonk (awesomest last name ever) as Design Director for the BMW Group. He’s best known for his work on the 6 Series, the Z9 Concept Car, the BMW Concept CS and the M1 Homage Study. I also discovered that he was the designer behind the 1997 ACV 30 Show Car for MINI… the unique predecessor to the current generations of new MINIs.
Kinda cool, kinda fugly, I know.
Okay, I admit it. I really like Leonardo DiCaprio. So back in 2000, when a film called The Beach came out—I saw it and I loved it. It had amazing cinematography, great editing and a stellar soundtrack. This led me to director Danny Boyle’s other great and explicit work—Trainspotting—again, sweet editing and an unreal soundtrack.
The Danny Boyle circle has been completed with Slumdog Millionaire. I’m sure you know the premise so I’ll just tell you why this is a must-see-in-the-theater movie. Once again, there’s a killer soundtrack that’s mixed by and features the insanely talented M.I.A. I seriously can’t get enough of the track Paper Planes, sheesh. The locations are unreal. Unreal in that you can’t believe that these places exist and unreal in that they are so rich despite being down right filthy. The casting is superb, especially the child actors. They’re completely and utterly believable. Finally, along that same casting note, Freida Pinto, the freshman actress who plays Latika, is a mega-hottie. So go see this flick.
It’s brutal, yet beautiful. It’s graphic, yet gracious. It’s haunting, yet humbling. And you’ll wanna root for something at the Oscars, right?
Struck recently won the much needed website redesign for the Miller Motorsports Park. As part of the Discovery Phase for the project (hehe) we went to their world-class track and did hot laps with some of their amazing drivers. I can honestly say there's nothing like it in the world, drifting at warp speed around Le Mans-style curves, hard stops and rocket-like acceleration. Unreal. I seriously could have stayed there all day long. The turns left me hooting and howling. 
I actually attempted to videotape a hot lap from the cockpit, but all I got was some bouncy footage of the dashboard thanks to the insane G-forces at play. I do have to give major props to B Money for some killer stills! The sky was awesome that day.
