Car of the Year 2003

Outside the audio industry, the name Niro Nakamichi may not be recognized, but within the business, he is held in the highest esteem. For nearly three decades his family’s company has been producing high-end electronics, including the first true hi-fi cassette deck in 1972. So when a relatively new company announced that it had created […]

If you wake up feeling tired and irritable, you are not alone. A National Sleep Foundation survey found that some 47 million Americans are not getting their necessary eight hours of sleep. You need the comfort and support of the perfect handcrafted mattress, but steer clear of anything labeled “firm.” Research shows that a firm, […]

The world’s oldest licensed distillery is about to introduce to the United States its oldest single malt: Bushmills 21 Year Old. U.S. drinkers already may be familiar with Bushmills 10 Year Old, a combination of single malts aged in bourbon and sherry barrels. Its success led Bushmills to bring out its even more highly acclaimed […]

Nothing makes a jewel more enticing than a compelling romantic history, says renowned Los Angeles vintage jewelry dealer Neil Lane. “Jewelry is typically given as a token of love,” he says, “and people love jewels with a romantic provenance.” After two decades in the business, Lane has a complete repertoire of entertaining tales of passion […]

During a weekend-long celebration at Atlanta Motor Speedway last summer, Journey, Blues Traveler, and Tim McGraw were the featured musical acts. However, the pop stars were soon relegated to the roles of backup singers for the event’s lead vocalists: thousands of roaring Harley-Davidson V-Twins, crooning in chorus and puffing exhaust into the already steamy air. […]

The presence of any Rolls-Royce is its past, for the marque’s provenance is a rich one. It has been in existence for more than a century, its cars owned by members of Wall Street’s old money and Silicon Valley’s new wealth and by England’s Queen Elizabeth, whose garage brims with Rolls-Royce saloons. Until recently, the […]

With each season, Robb Report’s Car of the Year contest seems to require more and more tortuous explanation. These literary exertions result in part from our own efforts to refine the process of selecting the year’s best luxury and sports cars. Traditionally, our own staff (Robert Ross, Paul Dean, Christian Gulliksen, and myself) has peopled […]

Brad Webb, a 29-year-old New Zealander, is perched on the bow of USA-76, barking into his headset. “Ten meters!” Webb shouts to helmsman Peter Holmberg. “Five, four, three . . .” As bowman, Webb serves as the eyes of the Oracle BMW boat, which is competing today against Alinghi, a Swiss syndicate that is closing […]

A few years ago, as Hermès watchmakers in Switzerland were hard at work developing the innovative Nomade travel timepiece, a call came from Jean-Louis Dumas-Hermès, the company’s chairman and CEO in Paris, who had conjured up a new idea for the watch. “Let’s take this concept of a traveler’s watch even further,” he said, “and […]

Pierre Seillan has spent his life discovering the truth about wine. This quest—begun at his family’s estate in Armagnac—led him eventually to Bordeaux in the southwest, where for two decades he served as technical director and winemaker for various châteaux in the Haut-Médoc, Saint Emilion, and Lalande de Pomerol. That undulating landscape, however, was far […]

Come winter, Venice’s raw winds and damp fog chase away the teeming tourists, transforming the city into a mysterious, labyrinthine wonderland. “I think it’s the best time of year,” says Francesca Bortolotto Possati, chairman and president of the Deco-era Bauer hotel and its neighboring baby sister, Il Palazzo, the traditional-Venetian boutique hotel on the Grand […]

Skip Braver, president and CEO of Cigarette Racing Team, has accumulated close to 4,000 flight hours, but not one was as significant as the hour he spent in a Boeing 747 simulator three years ago. When he entered the device at one of Northwest Airlines’ training centers in Minneapolis, he was stunned to find no […]

An impeccably preserved men’s evening suit is draped on a dress form in Alberto Grilletti’s cluttered office on the island of Sardinia. The outfit dates to the mid-19th century, roughly the same time Grilletti’s maternal great-great-grandfather, Giovanni Castangia, was laying down roots as Italy’s premier bespoke tailor. More than a relic, the suit is a […]

It was a drizzly morning in Kirkwall, a village in Scotland’s rugged Orkney Islands, but the villagers ignored the damp to gather on the dock and gaze agog at the mysterious craft floating serenely on the horizon. Gleaming white and more than two football fields in length, with private terraces honeycombing its flanks and stern, […]

We may have been guilty of hyperbole in January 1986, when our cover touted excerpts from the book Rolls-Royce/The Complete Works: The Best 599 Rolls-Royce Stories as the greatest stories ever told, but then, a tendency to overstate is a vice shared by most cover line writers. (Is actor Ben Affleck really the sexiest man […]

“They are young and fun,” says interior designer Susan Cohen. “They wanted a house with a sense of history, but nothing conventional or boring.” Thus began the transformation of a sprawling house in Beverly Hills for Mark and Ellen Bidner. It had once belonged to actress Constance Bennett but had since undergone many face-lifts. Fortunately, […]

It is natural to view Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso as artistic rivals. They were contemporaries who possessed rare and formidable artistic talent, yet differed in temperament, nationality, age, background, and creative approach. Matisse was French, 12 years Picasso’s senior, born to a father who sold grain, studied law before ultimately committing himself to painting, […]