The Very Big, Very Green Mercedes....

The 2010 S400 Hybrid is the world's first production car with lithium-ion battery technology and as you'd expect from the bright boys in Stuttgart, it's a marvel of creative engineering.
Once you admit that rich guys crave big, luxurious wheels no matter how much they profess to care about the ecological health of our planet, the smart move is to give them what they want. Design a land yacht with low emissions and reasonably good gas mileage that's wrapped in soft leather and kitted out with every imaginable high-tech gewgaw and you'll have a car that makes your customer feel good while he's flaunting it.
The trickiest bit on the S400 is the engine, which shuts itself off below 9 MPH and quietly revs itself up again when you step on the gas, thereby saving the fuel that would be wasted while standing at red lights and such. That makes for fuel economy of 20% plus lower emissions over the standard S550 which averages 15/23 MPG as opposed to the S400's 19/26 MPG.
There is of course, a trade-off: a loss of power from the revised V-6 engine that pushes out 295 HP as opposed to the 382 HP V-8 of the S550 but there's also a bonus that covers the loss. No gas-guzzler tax, an entry price of $87,950 rather than the usual S-Class $91,600 and a $1,150 tax credit for going green. Not a bad deal at all.

Collector's Diamonds

While much of the world is rushing around buying gold as a hedge against the end of the world as we know it, some very deep-pocketed guys are buying rare diamonds. No, we're not talking about your engagement ring, pretty as it may be, we're talking about diamonds that are exceptional because of their enormous size, color (pure clear red is the top of that food chain) or provenance. The Annenberg diamond, a 32.01 carat Asscher-cut, D-Flawless that just went at auction for $7.6 million is one and the Wittelsbach Blue, which I mentioned in an earlier post, which at $24.3 million broke the price record for diamonds sold at auction, is another. When the Wittelsbach Blue went on the block, I wrote about the upcoming event and the provenance of this rock is interesting enough I think, to repeat.
The extremely rare 35.56 carat stone hadn't been seen since 1964 when it vanished into a private collection, but it resurfaced in December 2008 at a Christies auction in London. What made the Wittelsbach Blue so very special was it's actual color, a fancy deep grayish-blue with VS2 clarity and it's size, because blue diamonds are usually only found in smaller carat weights and most of all, it's impeccable royal provenance. In 1664, King Philip IV of Spain selected the diamond as part of the lavish dowry he collected for his daughter the Infanta Margarita Teresa upon her engagement to Leopold I of Austria. Leopold I went on to become the Holy Roman Emperor and by March 1673, the dowry jewels, including the great blue stone were recorded in an inventory of the Austrian Crown Jewels. By 1705, poor Margarita Teresa was dead and Leopold(whose marital record seems as interesting as his jewels) had bequeathed the stone to his third wife the Empress Eleanore Magdalena, who then left the blue diamond to her granddaughter, the Archduchess Maria Amalia.
When Maria Amalia married the Bavarian Crown Prince, Charles Albert, in 1722, the diamond entered the House of Wittelsbach along with her and became known as "Der Blaue Wittelsbacher". It was mounted first within the Order of the Golden Fleece and many years later in 1806, when the first King of Bavaria, Maximilian IV, Joseph von Wittelsbach ascened to the throne, the stone was removed and prominently displayed in the royal crown. With the proclamation of the German Republic in 1918 after WWI and the abdication of King Ludwig III, the Wittelsbach Blue last appeared as a state jewel in 1921 and ten years later, in 1931 was one of the pieces offered for sale at Christies auction of the Bavarian Crown Jewels. In 1964, the stone was purchased by a private collector and disappeared until the 2008 sale was announced.
Now, that's what I call provenance...and so apparently does Lawrence Graff, the famous diamond dealer. He's the guy who shelled out the $24.3 million.

JAGUAR NAILS IT....

I recently worked on a co-op column with my good e-friend Brett Berk for his Vanity fair blog. It was a sort of hilarious "gay guy and the diva play cars" review of a couple of Jaguars; the supercharged XKR, which Brett covered and the XFR, which I test drove. I was a bit harsh about Jaguar's loss of their distinctive silhouette and I'm sorry but there's nothing as whiny as a disappointed Jaguar fanatic who fell in love with an E-Type years ago and has been driving Jags ever since.
Last week however, I laid eyes on the new XJ and fell in love all over again. I really think Ian Callum (Design Director,Jaguar Cars) has nailed it on this sleek and elegant cat. The model I crawled all over was the XJL (the long wheelbase) whose extra inches emphasize the short, clean-lined rear deck, the long sloping bonnet and those muscular twenty-inch wheels that make the car look like a piece of moving sculpture even when its parked.
There is a choice of models and horsepower, ranging from the not-so-plain vanilla XJ with its 5.0 liter v8 that churns out a respectable 385 HP up to the XJL Supersport packing 510 HP under it's hood (or bonnet if you prefer). Prices start at $72,500 and escalate to well over $100K but if you ache to own Jaguar's future iconic silhouette, any one of the models will do very nicely indeed.
Jaguar's range of color options is one of the most stylish in the industry; two solids and eleven stunning metallics for the exterior, eight interior combos and five veneers (including carbon fiber although it will cost you). Given my druthers, I'd opt for an exterior called "Caviar metallic" with cashew leather seats piped in truffle and stick with Jaguar's classic burled walnut veneer. Luscious!!!!
By the way, the only people who still think only men choose cars are the dinosaurs in the automobile industry. Wonder if they've heard bout Miami's own Ladies Lamborghini Club?