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The Ferrari Enzo's designer isn't worried about the future of supercars

Ken Okuyama is a talented designer with a prestigious portfolio. He spent 12 years at the famed Italian design house Pininfarina after a stint with GM's Advanced Design Studio, where he worked on the C5 Corvette. He also styled the Boxster and 996-generation 911 at Porsche. His first Ferrari design was the Rossa concept car, though his most famous creation is the Enzo. Now Okuyama runs a design studio that not only is responsible for the new Kode57 supercar that debuted in Monterey this past weekend, but also eye glasses, civic planning, and even Japanese bullet trains. We caught up with Okuyama at the Concorso Italiano car show, plopped down on a couple of plush leather chairs right in front of his brand new Kode57, and chatted about what the future holds for car design. Alex Kierstein: Lately there's been a lot of talk about autonomy and future mobility. What sort of challenges and opportunities do you think this autonomous future is going to provide for you as a car designer? Ken Okuyama: It is a really fantastic time for designers because of two reasons. One is that the public and private transport have been two separate, completely different industries up until now. Now, when you think about the future of autonomy, that really brings the automobiles into something more of a public transportation. You really have to think about the total experience of the customers from buying the ticket to the paying mechanism. That's just hardware, actually. It is a huge challenge for engineers and designers, and I really love that. That's one reason. Another reason is that just like horses were a means of transport 100 or so years ago, up until Henry Ford mass-produced the Model T. Now, maybe sports cars are becoming like horses. Now, horses are a great object for hobby, sports, and part of the Olympics and everything. Cars are going to be like that also. Dr. Porsche [was asked what type of] automobile is going to last for the longest time. He said, "the sports car." I really believe in that, because with sports cars, you never lose a sense of ownership. Autonomous vehicles are things you don't have to own. You have to design a total experience and the whole operation. A car, you want to own it. It's part of you. Your mechanical watches, do you borrow them from somebody? You want to own it. Your suits, your favorite shirts, you want to borrow them from somebody for your experience? No, you want to own it. Ownership is a core part of human beings.

Man orders LaFerrari for wife, dies before seeing gift delivered [w/video]

Ferrari has been profiling some of the 499 buyers of the LaFerrari in its official magazine, and the latest issue features Austrian-born Swiss artist Cornelia Hagmann. Her husband and Ferrari collector Walter Hagmann ordered a Rosso Corsa example of the supercar for Cornelia, but Walter passed away slightly more than a year ago, before it could be delivered. There's no reason to doubt that, as Ferrari says, her husband's gift is the car closest to her heart. The video above captures some behind-the-scenes moments during the photo shoot for the magazine, and there's a press release below with a few words about the article. We've also included a video below about another Swiss citizen, Ferrari collector, and LaFerrari buyer, Albert Obrist, whose love affair with the brand began when he went to the Grand Prix of Switzerland in 1951. An encounter with an artist and the car closest to her heart Maranello, 2th January 2015 – Cornelia Hagmann is an Austrian-born painter and sculptor that has made Switzerland her home for many years. Her wonderfully rich paintings are mostly of landscapes sumptuous with greenery and flowers. She does, however, have a second great passion: for Ferrari. This enduring fascination was sparked by her late husband, Walter Hagmann, a Swiss businessman and leading Ferrari collector, who unfortunately passed away a little over a year ago before the delivery of the magnificent Rosso Corsa LaFerrari he had ordered as a gift for his wife. In an interview with The Ferrari Official Magazine, Cornelia talks not just about her art but also her love of speed and the Prancing Horse. Plus, of course, her LaFerrari: "It's a real work of art: I could spend hours just staring at it...." This video features a few moments from the photo shoot that accompanies the interview.

F1 driver underestimates talent needed for wet-weather burnout

Whoops. That's a word nobody wants to hear in racing, and that's especially true in Formula 1, where the cars cost untold millions to design, develop, build and operate. In other words, just about any 'whoops' is an expensive 'whoops.'
Kamui Kobayashi, who made his F1 debut in 2009 driving for Toyota, has always been known as a bit of a wild card in the sport. He is notoriously difficult to pass, driving as he does with seemingly reckless abandon, and he's not afraid to get tangled up with the world's best drivers in the world's fastest race cars.
That brash attitude sometimes serves him well. Other times... well, not so much. See what happens with Kobayashi tries to show off in a Ferrari F1 car for fans on a wet track in Moscow in the twin videos below.