HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN’S DIAMOND JUBILEE TO BE CELEBRATED IN THE CARTIER ‘STYLE ET LUXE’ AT GOODWOOD FoS 2012

Now in its 18th consecutive year at the Goodwood Festival of Speed and Moving Motor Show (28 June – 1 July), the annual Cartier ‘Style et Luxe’ vehicle concours d’elegance promises to be truly exceptional this year. For the first time ever, Cartier will focus on just one set of vehicles, but what a collection of machines they will be!

As a mark of respect to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II for her Diamond Jubilee, Goodwood and Cartier will gather together an astonishing selection of vehicles all personally owned or used by Her Majesty. These vehicles have never been seen in public together as a collection, and the quality and variety of the vehicles promises to be simply staggering.

Many vehicles will come from the personal collections of Her Majesty, including Sandringham and the Royal Mews. Others will be sourced from overseas governments and private collections, and all will have a genuine use and connection with The Queen.

The unique Cartier ‘Style et Luxe’ Royal Vehicle concours will be divided into five special classes, including state limousines and carriages, official overseas state visit transport, working cars, personal family cars, plus toy cars owned by the Royal Household.

Formal state limousines and carriages will include Her Majesty’s 1961 Rolls-Royce Phantom V, modified specifically to fit on The Royal Yacht Britannia, a 1929 Daimler Double Six 30hp Brougham and a 1920 carriage from the Royal train. Foreign Travel will include cars used for overseas State visits, sent over to Goodwood specifically for the Cartier ‘Style et Luxe’ with official government permissions. These include the striking Chapron-bodied Citroen SM Decapotable used for The Queen’s State visit to France in 1972, with the release of this car being personally signed-off by the French President. Festival visitors will also see a special 1950 Lincoln Cosmopolitan ‘bubble top,’ plus a Humber Super Snipe used for Her Majesty’s first Commonwealth Tour.

Working cars are set to include a unique coachbuilt 1956 Ford Zephyr Estate, purpose built to carry luggage, plus a 1961 Vauxhall Cresta Friary Estate, used to transport Her Majesty’s corgi dogs. Personal ‘Regal Runabouts’ will include a Rover P5 and Daimler Double Six used extensively by The Queen, plus Prince Philip’s 1961 Alvis TD21.

An unusual vehicle class of Royal Household toy cars will include a 1928 Citroen C4 presented to The Queen, plus an Austin J40 pedal car and 1966 Aston Martin DB5 007-replica pedal car.

On the Saturday and Sunday of the Festival of Speed, a number of Her Majesty’s cars will briefly move from the Cartier Lawn and slowly parade along the Goodwood hillclimb for a special Diamond Jubilee tribute to Her Majesty The Queen.

Goodwood’s acclaimed Cartier ‘Style et Luxe’ concours d’elegance celebration of fine automotive design always attracts a distinguished panel of judges, and this year will be no exception. Judges will include Ashes To Ashes actor Philip Glenister, athlete Edwin Moses, supermodel Natalia Vodianova, musician Brian Johnson, TV presenter Kevin McCloud and The Queen’s nephew Lord Linley.

During the Festival weekend, a visit to the Cartier ‘Style et Luxe’ is made all the more enjoyable by a superb soundtrack of live jazz playing on the bandstand on Saturday and Sunday, making this is an unmissable occasion for anyone who appreciates the inherent creative magnificence of great automobiles.

Source: Goodwood

DIGITISED: THE WORK OF PHOTOGRAPHER ZOLTÁN GLASS

The National Media Museum in Bradford, UK, is currently in the process of raising a photographic treasure. The project, which aims to scan a large proportion of the photographs housed in the Zoltán Glass archive, will systematically catalogue the work of the artist, whose main creative periods came in the 1930s and 1950s, and to make them accessible in digital format. The Bradford collection numbers around 6,000 images in total; the work is scheduled for completion in April 2010.

Zoltán Glass was one of the great photographers of the 20th century – and automobiles were one his favourite subjects. During the 1920s and 1930s he was also commissioned by Daimler-Benz AG to take many photographs of Mercedes-Benz vehicles. Glass, for example, documented the period of the classic Silver Arrows, the cars that dominated international grand prix racing from 1934 onwards. But he also turned his masterful skills to photographing the brand’s production vehicles for publicity material. He could even turn ostensibly uninspiring subjects, such as Mercedes-Benz vehicle production, into aesthetically pleasing images. After the death of Zoltán Glass in 1981, his photographic legacy was acquired by the National Media Museum, which houses one of Europe’s most important photographic collections.


At the instigation of Daimler AG, his work is now being catalogued and digitised. The project also involves feeding the original photograph captions into the database and reproducing the images in their original sequence. The process makes use of state-of-the-art technology, which enables the negatives and their immense wealth of detail to be photographed in high resolution using a calibrated high-end medium-format camera in order to create a neutral copy of the original. The results are first saved as files of approximately 100 megabytes in TIFF format. Finally, special software is used to convert the negative images into positives.

Once the work is complete, the photographs will be available for further historical editorial work and other projects.



Source: Daimler/Mercedes-Benz

AUTO HEADLINES

Porsche moves to restart Volkswagen talks

The family owners of Porsche have pushed to restart stalled merger talks with Volkswagen.

The move came as thousands of workers at the debt-ridden sports car manufacturer gathered to protest against Ferdinand Piech, the Volkswagen chairman.

The feuding Porsche and Piech families are expected this week to discuss getting the derailed negotiations back on track, according to people familiar with the situation.

The move came after Volkswagen at the weekend suspended merger talks with Porsche. It said that Porsche’s management had hampered the talks by not being fully transparent about the sport carmaker’s financial situation. (Financial Times: May 19).

RAC takes the toll out of motoring this Bank Holiday

RAC says it is giving motorists something to smile about over the Bank Holiday weekend by paying for 3,000 cars to go through the M6 Toll.

Recent RAC research shows that more people are planning to stay in the UK this year, so the motoring organisation says it will bring some cheer and goodwill to the weekend by paying for 1,000 lucky motorists tolls every day throughout the Spring Bank Holiday.

The gesture will see RAC covering the cost of 3,000 motorists toll fees, from Saturday (May 23) to Monday, May 25 inclusive. The offer will be open to drivers heading both North and South on the main M6 Toll plaza over the weekend and lucky drivers will be selected at random by toll staff to have their toll paid as they go through the manned booths - £4.50 on Saturday and Sunday and £4.70 on Monday.

The initiative comes as RAC shares its Bank Holiday traffic and travel predictions. Set to be one of the busiest this year as school half term and the Bank Holiday coincide, RAC predicts that millions of motorists will hit the road and the traffic will build up on all major routes throughout the weekend. Traffic will be heavier still if the sun shines and families flock to the beaches.

Meanwhile, the AA says that drivers can expect a 50% increase in journey times on Friday (May 22) as commuters, holidaymakers and large numbers of caravans hit the road at the start of the Bank Holiday weekend.

As cars get stuck in tailbacks, the AA estimates that 80,000 breakdowns in the UK could be prevented this weekend if drivers check their cars beforehand.

Problems such as overheating are made worse as 80% of motorists do not even regularly check their car’s coolant level, according to an AA poll of more than 14,500 motorists. (RAC/AA: May 19).

Daimler buys stake in electric carmaker

Daimler has bought a near 10% stake in Tesla, the Silicon Valley-based maker of electric-powered sports cars, the two companies said in a statement.

The deal marks a further push by the maker of Mercedes-Benz luxury vehicles into battery-powered cars, and represents a vote of confidence in Tesla, a pioneer in electric cars that has struggled to raise funds during the credit crunch.

The companies, which already co-operate on electric versions of Daimler’s Smart car, will work together on batteries, electric drive systems, and vehicle projects. No price was given for the stake in privately held Tesla. (FT.com: May 19).

SMART CAR2GO

Daimler is launching a new mobility concept, providing a future-oriented answer to increasing traffic volume in urban areas. The scheme, known as car2go, will allow people to rent a smart anywhere and anytime, at a moment's notice, with all costs going to a pre-registered credit card or monthly bill. Users will be charged by the minute, and can leave their car anywhere within the city limits for the next customer.

On 24 October 2008 the first pilot phase will start in the southern German city of Ulm, where car2go will be tested in real-life conditions. “car2go is an intelligent and creative solution that provides a simple, flexible and value-for-money approach to mobility with environmentally-friendly vehicles” is how Dr Dieter Zetsche, CEO of Daimler AG and head of Mercedes-Benz Cars, describes the objective of the project. Although there are good intentions in car2go and it would provide a convenient solution for some, will motorists ever be able to sacrifice having their own personal vehicle?



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