Isbark.com

A few weeks ago, Aston Martin revealed the AMR-C01-R, a racing simulator developed in tandem with UK specialist Curv Racing. And while copious amounts of carbon fiber accenting, the focus on performance, and the ruinous $75,000 price tag is all very ‘Aston Martin,’ a sim rig nevertheless felt a bit left-field from the luxury British marque. And yes, we’re aware that the AMR-C01-R isn’t even the first simulator from Aston-Curv in the last five years…

Naturally, a rogue hour spent idly searching Google whilst we were supposed to be working [I knew it! – Ed.] unearthed some incredibly random automaker projects. We’d forgotten, for example, that Tesla used to sell surfboards, that Citroën launched an eyeglass range designed to alleviate motion sickness, and that Volkswagen’s ‘currywurst’ line of sausages has been sold in Germany since 1973. But just how far down this vast chasm of randomness could we go? Quite a way, as it turns out…

To make things interesting – and while we’ve limited our choices to products that could either be bought by members of the public or could be bought at auction.

10

Bentley

Surfboard

Save perhaps a Walmart ‘Great Value’ t-shirt or an MMA octagon, we can’t think of many products as ‘un-Bentley’ as the recent Koa veneer surfboard. Unsurprisingly, Bentley had very little involvement with the actual construction, save the embossed logo. And yet, somehow, the project still feels very ‘Bentley.’ The sustainably-sourced Koa wood for example, an homage to surfer’s paradise Hawaii, comes from the same woodshop in Crewe that supplies the British marque with the dashboard inlays for its Continental, the Flying Spur and the Bentayga. It’s even treated by Bentley’s in-house craftspeople before being handed over to collaborative partner, Otter Surfboards, for the build itself. It would boast a very ‘Bentley’ price tag too had this one-of-one item not been auctioned by the Surfability UK charity.

9

McLaren

Nutribullet

While we almost opted for the recently launched Pi8 McLaren Edition earbuds, we felt this, if anything, made a little too much sense. The Pi8s after all – available for a hefty €499 (around $565) – are the third such collaboration between Woking and audio giants Bowers & Wilkins, the latter of which has helped developed every in-car audio system for McLaren, including the new W1, since 2015. But a McLaren-developed… food blender? That stumped us entirely.

Yes, each model in the series features brand-relevant papaya accenting and the McLaren ‘tick,’ and the top tier £150 ($200) ‘Ultra 1200’ is even said to be 50 percent faster than the standard Nutribullet. Sleek and performance-focused. Very ‘McLaren.’ But how exactly is a portable, battery-powered food blender “inspired by the engineering excellence” of Woking’s Formula 1 team? Unless it’s regularly pushed off the kitchen counter by a can of Red Bull, or radios to see if the blades on next door’s identical Nutribullet are wearing out any faster, you can color us skeptical.

8

Lamborghini

Pickleball Paddles

Lamborghini, that most characterful and mental of Italian supercar manufacturers, took this collaborative project with French raquet brand Babolat far more seriously than we expected. The ‘BL002’ pickleball paddles, for example, are 100 percent designed and manufactured at Babolat’s studio in Barcelona, but with direct assistance from Lamborghini engineers.

Related

10 Times Automakers Built Things Not Even Remotely Car-Related

Car brands sometimes make products that aren’t in any way related to cars – and some of them are awesome.

Lavish use of “3K carbon” for the frame means each paddle is not only rigid but lightweight (both combined weigh just over 1.5 pounds), while Koridion foam, also used for production of Lamborghini’s Huracán, is said to improve both the power and accuracy of each shot. The Raging Bull has even gone mass-market – gasp! – with this Babolat project, as 5,000 of the BL002 – available in “Lamborghini-inspired” green or black – will be made priced at $645 apiece, compared with the $5,400, limited edition ‘BL001’that landed in 2024.

7

Aston Martin

Whiskey Decanters

$80,000. That was the price for the ARC-54 single-malt whiskey that had been matured for more than half a century by Scottish distillery Bowmore across two ex-sherry and ex-bourbon casks. Naturally, a literal once-in-a-lifetime blend such as this, available to only 130 customers, requires an equally luxuriant decanter, and Aston Martin duly delivered with a hand-blown decanter inspired by the Valkyrie hypercar’s “fluid aerodynamics.” And bear in-mind, an awkward drink-driving connection aside, the Aston-Bowmore connection gets stranger yet. ARC-54 is the third special edition ‘Aston’ whiskey so far – a single malt Black Bowmore DB5 1964, inspired by the legendary sports car, landed in 2020 – and the 130 customers who has since stashed ARC-54 in their no-doubt heaving, oak-lined cellarettes, were invited to tour the Scottish distillery and take a drive in the Aston Martin DBX Bowmore Edition. Yes, Aston really did make one!

6

Audi

AudiOpoly Board Game

Celebrating the “fearless legacy” of both Audi and Audi Sport, ‘AudiOpoly’ scraps everything on a traditional Monopoly board – other than the rules and the hotels, strangely – and replaces them with in-house brand names. Gone for instance are Pennsylvania Railroad and, somewhat bizarrely for a motoring-themed board game, Free Parking, all replaced by the likes of the A3 Cabriolet (formerly Baltic Avenue), the TT Roadster (St. James Place), and the R8 Spyder (Boardwalk). The Race Car obviously survived the overhaul, but the thimble, the top hat and the Yorkshire Terrier have been displaced by a tire, a steering wheel and a spark plug. Roll three doubles, and you’re sent for a Pit Stop (‘Go To Jail’), and we imagine, when inevitably a player flips the board, a penalty must be paid to the Audi Fan Zone…

5

Ford

Mustang e-bike

“Well, what’s so random about this?” you’re probably asking. Given that the legendary Mustang was reimagined (urgh…) as the all-electric Mach-E in 2019, an e-bike capable of 60 miles of all-electric range is a perfect accompaniment, right? Wrong. This Ford / N+ Bikes collaboration, launched last year, actually celebrates 60 years of the “spirit and performance” of the original, quarter-mile tearing, first-generation Mustang.

Related

10 Facts You Should Know About Maserati

How well do you know the Italian marque?

A model as far removed from an e-bike boasting a 750-watt, hub-mounted motor and a hefty $4,000 price tag ($4,390 if you didn’t want one in Carbonized Gray Metallic) as one can possibly get. In a gloriously questionable piece of marketing fluff, Ford even claims the handling of the Mustang e-Bike “mimics the iconic sports car,” which presumably means the nose will rise when you near top speed and the front wheel will understeer through the slower corners.

4

Maserati

Saddle

No, not Ferrari. Because that would have made too much sense. No, this luxury polo saddle was actually a joint-venture between La Martina, specialists in attire and equipment required for ‘the sport of kings,’ and Maserati in 2014. Handmade by La Martina’s craftspeople in Argentina, the saddle was a one-off to celebrate both The Trident’s 100th birthday and the Italian brand’s Centenary Polo Tour, which was hosted that year in the USA, South America, the United Arab Emirates, China and Europe. The commemorative saddle, which was later auctioned off, was sculpted using traditional black full-grain leather – on which both the Maserati and La Martina logos were embossed in silver leaf – a black suede skirt, and a navy blue suede seat, the hue on which apparently matched the metallic colors available for both the Ghibli and the Quattroporte at the time.

3

Ferrari

Carbon Chess Set

Rather than equestrianism and ‘the sport of kings’, Ferrari was instead focusing on The King’s Game in 2014 when it introduced a bespoke, carbon fiber chess set. One that costs (deep breath…) just under $5,300. If you opted against buying a decent second-hand Honda Civic, that huge lump of money gets you a wooden chess board with a removable lid, finished in carbon fiber on the outside and featuring red leather and black Alcantara inlay on the inside. Naturally, the prancing horse, made from enameled metal, features prominently both inside and out, and each of the 32 chess pieces is made from either black or white “glossy” varnished wood (the white was previously also red before an updated model was introduced in 2020). Every set is hand-made in Italy, and you even get two sets of checkers, again made from enameled metal. Something to bear in-mind when AudiOpoly starts to drag..

2

Bugatti

Pool Table

Bugatti’s $100,000, titanium/carbon hookah pipe came close to making this list, as did the Grande Illusion Chiron safe, which can only be opened by biometric fingerprint scan. The un-originally named Bugatti Pool Table eventually got the nod though. For starters, it costs a quarter of a million euros (around $300,000), or roughly one Porsche 911 Turbo and 19 Ferrari carbon chess sets.

Related

Best Years For The Porsche Cayenne (And Ones To Avoid)

As long as you budget for high repair costs, the Porsche Cayenne has the potential to last for many years.

​​​​​​​Each of the 30 examples built by model specialists IXO are machined from aluminum and titanium, with a carbon finish on top and stainless-steel inlays for the pockets. And, more importantly, each one can be outfitted with “gyroscopic self-levelling technology” that adjusts each leg every five milliseconds to keep the playing area flat. Yes, this highly expensive, highly exclusive pool table was specifically developed so that its owners could play pool on a yacht!

1

Porsche

Hot Sauce

We’re cheating slightly with our final entry. This item was only available in Canada and was never technically available for sale: if you wanted a free bottle of Porsche’s Cayenne-inspired hot sauces, you had to book a test drive of Stuttgart’s flagship SUV first. Nevertheless, it was one of the most characterful marketing and successful campaigns we’ve seen yet from Stuttgart, with the Porsche Cayenne Taste Drive events (nope, that’s not a misspelling) inspiring further ‘experiential’ customer events in Ontario since then.

​​​​​​​The hot sauces themselves were available in three different strengths: ‘Original’ (sweet, with a “garlicky, yet spicy finish”), ‘Cayenne S’ (mangoes and pineapple with a “spicier cayenne pepper kick”), and ‘GTS’ and ‘Turbo GT,’ both of which brought red ghost peppers to the party. And yes, there were two ‘E-Hybrid’ options too, which combined apples with green cayenne peppers, and ginger with green jalapeño respectively.

Source: Porsche, Audi, Aston Martin, Bugatti, Ferrari, Ford, Lamborghini, McLaren, Bentley