Hasta La Ideas

British manufacturer Aston Martin has released images of a new carbon-fibre racing car that the brand says offers hints of the design it will roll out for future road vehicles (+ slideshow).

The Vulcan racing car is styled entirely in-house by the Aston Martin design team led by chief creative officer, Marek Reichman.

It features a monocoque – or single-piece skin – with sweeping lines, a low-sitting cockpit, and exaggerated front and rear wings.

The interior of the vehicle is stripped down to an absolute minimum to reduce weight and features a racing steering wheel, digital display screen, bucket seats and an angled dashboard with integrated control settings.

Further details of the design will be released when it debuts at the Geneva Motor Show next week, alongside the brand’s Vantage GT3 special edition.

It will be the first entirely new design released by the brand under its current CEO Andy Plamer, who left Japanese manufacturer Nissan to join Aston Martin in September.

“With a design language hinting at the next generation of Aston Martin sports cars, this supercar is powered by the most potent iteration yet of the company’s 7.0-litre V12 petrol engine,” said Aston Martin.

Only 24 models of the car will be made, and owners will be offered extensive track training prior to delivery. Each car will also have its design tailored to its owner, with various colours available for trims and upholstery.

“Aston Martin Vulcan is, by its very nature, a rare and thrilling supercar,” said Palmer. “Designed and engineered to deliver a genuinely bespoke driving experience that draws on our rich heritage, this car tailors its power and handling to both the capabilities of the driver and the characteristics of the track.”

The Vulcan includes a number of technologies developed by Aston Martin for competitive motor sport, including a powerful petrol engine that generates over 800-brake horsepower (bph), and a suspension kit featuring an anti-dive mechanism.

Dive indicates the degree to which the vehicle’s front leans forward when braking. The less a vehicle ‘dives’ forward, the greater its stability.

Adjustable dampers – or shock absorbers – act to minimise reverberations and produce a smoother ride, while front and rear anti-roll bars work to reduce the amount the vehicle rocks from side-to-side during fast cornering.

The heaviest component, the engine, is placed between the driver and the front axle to improve weight distribution.

Power from the engine is delivered to the rear wheels only, keeping the front wheels dedicated to traction and steering.

The monocoque is made from carbon fibre to increase its strength and help protect the driver from impacts. Using a single piece, rather than multiple components, spreads any stress put on the vehicle during racing across the entire shell.

This technique was first used in car design by British supercar brand McLaren in 1981 and is now common in high-end motor sport.

Using lightweight carbon fibre also has the effect of significantly increasing the vehicle’s power-to-weight ratio – the actual performance of an engine, which is calculated by dividing the engine’s power output by its total weight.

Other brands showing in Geneva this year include Ford, which has developed its first supercar in 10 years.

McLaren will also exhibit two cars. Rober Melville, McLaren’s chief designer, spoke exclusively to Dezeen last month revealing the brand’s plans for a car that could change shape when switching from driverless to manual modes.

The post Vulcan carbon-fibre racing car signals
“next generation” for Aston Martin appeared first on Dezeen.

After you read the travel piece “My Saga, Part 1” in this weekend’s New York Times Magazine by Karl Ove Knausgaard, consider clicking over to Canadian daily newspaper the St. John’s Telegram.

Understandably, folks in that Canadian province are going to be less than thrilled with passages like this one (bolding is ours), involving the St. Anthony outpost of restaurant chain Jungle Jim’s:

Several TVs were on with the sound muted, showing a hockey game between Sweden and Russia, a semifinal for the World Junior Championship. Everyone in the place, except the waiter, was fat, some of them so fat that I kept having to look at them. I had never seen people that fat before. The strange thing was that none of them looked as if they were trying to hide their enormous girth; quite the opposite, several people were wearing tight T-shirts with their big bellies sticking out proudly.

So Who is this Knausgaard fellow, who presently calls Sweden home? Per the New York Times footnote, the title of the two-part series (concluding in the March 15 issue) echos this Norwegian-descended vagabond’s six-volume (!) autobiographical novel My Struggle. Volume Four is set to arrive in English this April.

This was definitely a killer assignment. As the article author, he was tasked by the magazine with starting in Newfoundland, where the Vikings once settled, and driving south into the U.S. and then westwards to Minnesota, the settling choice of a great many Norwegian-American immigrants.

While the Telegram piece is actually fairly civil, opting for itemization over outrage, the reader comments that have begun to come in are not.
 
[Article banner via: nytimes.com]

Today, news broke that Leonard Nimoy passed away at the age of 83. Bringing the half-human, half-Vulcan Mr. Spock to life in the Star Trek television and movie series, Nimoy has been “beamed up” one final time. Many Trekkies may not realize that beyond……

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In 1915, the Coca-Cola Company distributed a brief to bottle makers across the US. The request was to craft a bottle so distinct that it could be recognized by hand in the dark—that its essence would remain visible even when shattered. Root Glass Company……

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In light of everything being portable, it’s only fair that cooking stoves go that way too. The Clasp Range is a portable stove that is lightweight, easy to charge and totally ready for the go. Think camping, picnics and BBQ Parties and more, designed to fit both indoors and outdoors, I love the handgrip and collapsible elements to the design.

Designers: Kinam Hwang, Mina Kim, Jisoo Koh & Suim Chois

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(Clasp and Cook was originally posted on Yanko Design)

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