Think back 70 or 75 years to a time when design began to break away from the traditional and elaborate rationalism that had ensued for hundreds of years. As the styles of Art Nouveau, Art Deco, Streamline and Zigzag Moderne emerged after the Industrial Revolution, designers as well as consumers fully embraced the Age of the Machine.   Shiny chrome surfaces lay across curving forms or over expansive horizontal planes and glorified a dynamic new world on the move.

And suddenly, design was muted as World War II approached. Inspiration was buried away, along with some innovative and visually stunning design work. Skip ahead to 2005 when some curious members of BMW Classic opened a box and found the R7 bike 75 assembled - although not in shining condition. The engine was corroded, the metalwork was in dire shape, the battery was unusable, but the opportunity for restoration could not be ignored.



Various specialists at the BMW workshop discovered the original design drawings in the archive collections and conjured up the ghosts from Streamline Moderne’s past. Missing parts were sourced, others were rebuilt, the chrome was polished and the frame was painted black. And the final test, retuning the 1934 BMW motorcycle to the street, proved to be worth the wait nearly three quarters of a century later. - Andrew J Wiener via Bike Exif

 

Mini goes Fluro with Neon wraps by TCH - Have you entered our Mini design contest? - do so here

Mini Neon by TCH Design

Pushing the bar higher, the luxury motorcycle manufacturing company Confederate is set up to unveil its latest machine at the Quail Motorsports Gathering in Carmel California this month: the P120 Fighter Combat.

The new bike is made of a lightweight aluminium frame that wraps around an obvious massive engine, yet manages to maintain a somewhat graceful silhouette.  Confederate, known for ‘celebrating the art of rebellion,’ has not released any additional specs or price on its newest design – but we’re guessing you’re not going to see too many of these on the streets of your cities. - Andrew J Wiener - via Bikeexif

Each year as the Tour de France presses on through the French countryside, our desire and envy for faster sleeker cooler bikes is reinvigorated. While the German Team Tentakulus is not preparing to train its riders to race against many of the world's best, their new Shocker bike could be highly competitive for cool.  Most Shocker riders will probably never need to worry about changing gears or overtaking fellow riders on steep climbs through the Alps.  Besides looking good, switching on the headlight for safe night cruising is just about the only true performance feature that comes standard on every bike. - Andrew J Wiener

How far will your need for speed take you?  If you’re like many of us, dreams of sitting in the cockpit of any kind of aircraft rolling through the clouds are unlikely to ever happen... until now.  The US Air Force has teamed up with Galpin Auto Sports and built the stealth-looking Dodge Challenger Vapor – part muscle car, part fighter jet – all military strategy.

The designers fitted the body of the car with jet enhancements that would even make Batman look twice.  Special radar-blocking black paint covers the car, while a stealth exhaust allows it to run virtually silent.  A roof-mounted camera detects any type of movement within a quarter mile.  Biometric verification via the driver’s thumbprint gives access to the vehicle through gull wing doors. 

All that’s left to do now is strap on one of the custom-designed helmets, climb inside the cockpit and take off.  Once seated behind the wheel (or wheels, as there is a passenger-side steering wheel as well), the pilot and co-pilot can use an advanced computer-system complete with internet access, a GPS tracking system, exterior proximity sensors, as well as switch on a thermal vision projection on the windshield to track enemy forces through the darkness.

Jumping back to reality, only briefly, the USAF designed the Challenger as a recruitment tool for future cadets.  The military planned a Super Car Tour and is visiting various high schools across the US, along with a handful of auto shows to entice young hopefuls into military service. - Andrew J Wiener

If square wheels were even slightly workable, Danish designer Michael Ubbesen Jakobsen would have used them in his Bauhaus-inspired BauBike. The pared-down bicycle is designed around the geometric shape of the square, and its main raw materials are minimal: some metal and leather. The bike has the same astonishingly classy vibe as Marcel Lajos Breuer’s Wassily chair, a Bauhaus design icon Ubbesen Jakobsen most likely studied during his education at Southern Denmark’s respected design school in Kolding. From the small touches, such as the BauBike-embossed leather strips that wrap around the handlebars, and the gorgeous springs under the austere saddle, it is easy to see that Ubbesen Jakobsen is a meticulous designer, a serious tinkerer and, at least in the case of BauBike, an elegant minimalist not afraid to have some fun. So far this year, BauBike has appeared at the Salone in Milan and at the DMY International Design Festival in Berlin  We are not yet clear when and how we can get our hands on one — equipped with the second saddle accessory — but we are hopeful it will be soon. - Tuija Seipell
 

Another iconic vehicle is about to be reborn and brought into the 21st century. This time it is the Mercedes-Benz 300SL that is getting the make-over treatment (that’s the car with the batman-esque doors to you and me, or Gull-wings as they are known in the car business).



This beautiful badboy, first introduced to the roads in 1954, is to be modified by Arturo Alonso and his company, Gullwing America. This time round it will be much more powerful, easier to handle and of course, it will feature all the mod-cons that one has come to expect from a vehicle of its caliber.



Alonso is perhaps the best man to complete this task, being no stranger to the exotic car sector. He raced for years in a Mercedes 300SE, and he is also the engineer behind the Bentley S3 E concept from last year.



With an aluminum body constructed with aircraft composite technology and chassis made of powder coated steel, the car will be powered by Mercedes’ M-133-55 engine, wired to raise the horsepower to 370. The new model will also feature striking red leather interior and an old-school instrument panel. The only hard thing left to do is to decide if you want the white one or the black one. - Brendan McKnight

Whether your cargo is kids, laundry, groceries or beach gear, the coolest way to haul it is the Madsen Cargo bike. These handy urban transporters from Salt Lake City, Utah, can carry 271 kg (nearly 600 pounds) either in a bucket or on a rack. The bikes and the buckets come in three colors: dramatic black, yummy cream and sweet baby blue. Accessories for the bucket include seat belts and a seat for your progeny, pet or bride. The creative heads at Madsen are constantly tinkering with the bike and accessories, and according to their blog, a lid for the bucket is in the works. With their long tails, these bikes command attention. - Tuija Seipell

Bespoke is the new black — we’re living in a world where we can design anything we could ever possibly want exactly how we want it. Here are TCH, we’ve become bespoke gurus — from supercars to track shoes to mobile devices, we’ve been talking about custom design for as long as we can remember. For this latest installment of custom-made products, we’ve found some pretty cool brands that let you build your own bike.

In Los Angeles, James Perse provides a platform to build a custom vintage-style beach cruiser (pictured above) — a quintessentially Californian bicycle typically seen meandering along the Venice boardwalk and down through Santa Monica. The James Perse Cruiser, available in a variety of colours, is instantly recognisable with its fat tyres, wide handlebars and soft, cushy saddle perfect for cruising along the beach with your surfboard in tow.



Republic Bike invites you to custom-build bicycles based on shared designs — choose from an array of colours for the frame, saddle, grips, chain, rims, tires and crank.  Who says your front tyre can’t be yellow, while your back tyre is pink? Ever dreamed of having a blue bike frame with red handle grips and a white saddle? Republic can make this dream a reality. The Aristotle is a singles peed bicycle with a fixed/free hub.  Typically a fixed gear bicycle does not allow a rider to coast as the rear cog continually spins. But Republic has made it possible to shift from fixed to free if coasting is your thing.



And finally, there’s a Japanese company called Pedalmafia, a place to build a 1/9 scale bicycle, the Pedal ID, not quite the bike to ride around town but cool nevertheless. The website allows you to choose practically every part of a fixed-gear bike in many different color combinations. Pedalmafia has also teamed up with Yamamoto, one of Japan’s largest toy/model makers, and provided the basic component set along with optional accessories to create the perfect bespoke bicycle. - Andrew J Wiener.

The art of the sports car takes centre stage at the new Porsche museum in Stuttgart.

Engines, interactive displays, Porsche memorabilia and 80 cars – including prototypes and icons like the 911, all polished to a mirror-sheen – are parked on two floors of pristine, white galleries.

The collection includes a 550 Spyder – the model James Dean was driving when he died in a collision with a Studebaker in 1955.

Other models, like the 917 type Hollywood star Steve McQueen made famous in "Le Mans" and the 928 version Tom Cruise's character in "Risky Business" used to elude trouble, are parked bumper-to-bumper under dazzling spotlights.

Three dramatic concrete pillars support the museum building, designed by the Viennese architecture firm Delugan Meissl, which seems to float above its industrial surroundings.

A handcrafted aluminum recreation of the very first Porsche, a Type 64 'VW Aerocoupe,' shines in the center of the first floor.

Prototypes on display include a 928 model almost long enough for four doors, a 1989 "Panamericana" with odd, frog-like curves and the darling of the museum staff: the 1992 Boxster prototype that won Best in Show at the 1993 Detroit Auto Show.

Porsche hopes to lure 200,000 visitors a year to the museum – competition for the rival Mercedes museum, located a half-hour away in Untertuerkheim, a Stuttgart suburb. (more visuals over at Autoblog )