Bertelli Bicycles are custom track and fixed gear bikes hand-built by Francesco in New York City. Every bike is assembled and fine-tuned using combinations of new and vintage parts, rendering each unique. So, if you’re a fan of of logo and sticker-less bikes, lugged steel, skinny tubes, quill stems, vintage cranksets, leather and wood, unusual handlebars and chrome forks you better check these out.
Here’s International, a foldable (well, deconstructable in a really clever way) bicycle that won “Best Ride” in the 2010 Wallpaper Design Award, and man, does it look good or what? These one-off bikes are designed and hand-built by US/Japanese Kinfolk (actually by 71-year old master frame builder Shuichi Kusaka), painted by Coat and the custom bag is designed by Nivaldo de Lima. They don’t come cheap though, expect a price tag of about $3,800 to $3,900 depending on if you want the bag with it or not.
It’s been 25 years since the launch of the first Lexus and they celebrate that with the limited edition 2012 LFA. This beauty starts at $375,000 but then you get a 4.8L V10 engine with 552 horsepower and a top speed of 202 mph which will take you from 0-60mph in 3.6 seconds. Oh, and the chassi and bodywork features advanced Carbon Fiber Reinforced Plastic to help it become lightweight, powerful and balanced. Man, just look at the lines of this thing.
Beginning December 2010 Lexus will begin building these beauties by hand in Toyota City, Japan and they’ll build 20 cars each month until they reach a maximum of 500 vehicles.
Here’s the all-new Volvo V60, the sports wagon version of the new S60. Man, I really like the looks of that santing, coupé-like roofline and aggressive front. Puts a little bit of cool back in wagons.
Volvo will be offering the V60 with eight different engines, including a new 2.0L direct-injected with about 203HP and 221 lb-ft of torque and one with a turbo 3.0L T6 with 304 horsepower and 324 lb-ft of torque. Other than that there’s Advanced Stability Control, a 12-speaker Dolby Digital sound system (with a 7" display) and the new auto brake system that’ll help you avoid crashes in up to 20 mph.
Here’s the surprisingly rockin’ Volvo V60 introduction video (featuring the song “Double Nature” by the Swedish band Mustasch which might indicate the younger target audience):
Land Rover unveiled their newest model, the Range Rover Evoque at Kensington Palace in London. It’s based on the LRX concept shown in 2008 and it’s a luxury, two-doored SUV. It’ll be available as both two- and four wheel drive and according to Land Rover it’s designed to be light and fuel efficient. This coupe will be presented to the public at the Paris Motor Show (sep 30 2010) and will go on sale in the fall of 2011 (in the states).
The Sachs MadAss 125 is a 124 cc bike weighing just 219 lbs with a special frame design that allows shocks from the rear wheel to be sent up to the front suspension, giving the rider a smoother ride. The fuel is carried inside the frame, so no bulky gas tank. Other than that you get twin 55 watts H.I.D headlights, dual disc brakes, low profile tubeless tires on 16" alloy rims and 43 mm front forks.
Available in black, dark gray, silver and yellow from $2,695.00.
SwissBike has updated their line of foldable bikes, here’s the 2009 versions of the XO Competition, LX Mountain and TX Commuter. All three models switches from folded to unfolded in 30 seconds and are all available with 18" to 20" wheels.
Well well, we might not have commuter jet packs yet but the future does seem to close in; Nissan is developing a “paramagnetic iron oxide paint polymer” which can alter the color of the car paint by the press of a button by using an electrical charge (remember the receptionist’s nail polish in “Total Recall”?).
The downside to this is that because the magic paint needs electric current it’ll only be active when the car is running, meaning the car will turn white when you park it and turn off the engine.
Apparently Nissan expects models with this James Bond-ish feature to launch sometime during 2010.
This is the MS1 by Matra MS, a brand new electric bicycle hybrid capable of running on both electricity and regular 9-speed pedal power. It’s gifted with a 1kW motor wheel and while running on electricity it tops 45 km/h (about 28mph) and is capabale to take you up to 100 km / 62 miles on one charge.
There’s LED lights in the front and back to keep you safe and there’s an LCD display on the handlebars indicating speed and remaining battery power. Just plug it in and it’ll recharge in 3-6 hours depending on battery, and don’t worry if you need to leave it outside during the night – it sports an electric alarm and you need a magnetic card key to unlock it.
If you’re looking for a premium GPS navigator the Porsche Design P’9611 Navigator might just be worth checking out. Besides features like “Reality View” which tries to provide an authentic depiction of the route and alternative route offers to bypass jams and holdups it can automatically adjust the instruction voice volume depending on how fast you’re going and vehicle noise so you won’t have to when going off-road or in the fast lane.
Besides the GPS receiver it’s equipped with a “high-performance” Bluetooth hands-free device and digital maps of 38 European countries with over two million special destinations.