T-h Marine Be-co-52925-dp Boat Dock Line on 2040-parts.com

Aston Martin Rapide – First official image – again!

As we’ve said before, the Aston Martin Rapide has been so long coming it feels like it’s already here. But it’s not, despite the spy pictures of the Rapide we’ve seen, and now comes the first official picture – apparently. We’ve seen an ‘official’ Aston Martin Rapide image before, but this looks more convincing, even though it is obviously a rendering.

Mandela BMW for sale

A BMW 3 Series signed by Nelson Mandela as one of 10 ‘Democracy Cars’ is up for sale in the UK and expected to fetch £5000 at auction. The unique piece of South African history is for sale on 28 April at the RAF Museum in Hendon, London. Built in 2004, the silver BMW saloon was donated by employees at BMW’s factory in South Africa to mark the election of Mandela as President of the country and his earlier release from prison.

Video: Chris Bangle delivers “Empowerment: Design without Designers” talk at Creative Mornings/London

Chris Bangle – the undisputed front man of car design – needs little introduction, so the prospect of the former BMW Design Director and now founder of Chris Bangle Associates giving a talk in our home town of London was too good to pass up. His presentation (which you can watch in full in the video to the left) touched on his time at BMW, but was more focused on the idea of empowering others to create: "design without you in the middle", as Bangle says. From the story of the co-creation of the staircase in his Italian studio to the idea of encouraging people to think about their culture when designing, his philosophies transcend disciplines.