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BMW preparing two concepts for Villa d'Este

Every spring, the finest automobiles ever to grace tarmac gather on the shores of Lake Como for the Concorso d'Eleganza Villa d'Este. It's a chance for the most beautiful classics to compete for awards and for automakers and design studios to show off their concept cars under the soft light of the Italian sun. But while most of the vehicles old and new that show up for the concours are ones we've seen before, BMW takes things a step further.
As patron of the concorso d'eleganza for the past ten years, BMW regularly cooks up something new for the glamorous extravaganza. Last year it teamed up with Pininfarina for the Gran Lusso Coupé and revealed it alongside the Concept 90 motorcycle. The year before that came the BMW Zagato Coupe, preceded by the 328 Hommage and the M1 Hommage (pictured above) before it.
The theme for this year's event is the Roaring Twenties. BMW may not have been known back then on the same level as Bugatti or Duesenberg, but Rolls-Royce sure was.

The Silver Spectre is a custom shooting brake based on the Rolls Wraith

The Rolls-Royce Wraith coupe undergoes a long-roof transformation in this custom by Niels Van Roij Design, and the result takes the name Silver Spectre Shooting Brake. It turns out the Wraith looks particularly fetching as a shooting brake, as these pictures attest. The Dutch-based automotive designer's firm previously built a Tesla Model S shooting brake for a wealthy Dutch collector and also built a spate of two-door Range Rovers, the Adventum Coupe, after the factory canceled the project. Aristocratic long-roofs seem to be their speciality. The Silver Spectre is custom-bodied from the A-pillars rearward. The roof is constructed from a single piece of carbon-fiber composite. The elongated custom side glass is accentuated with silver trim. The bustle-back liftgate is claimed to take its inspiration from "Anglian limousines of the 1950s and 1960s" and features inset glass. The sculpted forms are set off by the deeply metallic brown paint, which has nearly the level of metal flake used in bass boats. Inside, there are individual rear seats, and the available fiber-optic starlight headliner extends fully rearward. The leather-lined rear compartment is the perfect perch for the most pampered pooch — purebred Corgis, perhaps? Under the hood, the 6.6-liter V12 is massaged to deliver 700 horsepower (up from 624) and 664 pound-feet of torque (compared to 605). Each Silver Spectre will be individually kitted out with a unique exterior paint treatment (single color or two-tone), leather or silk upholstery, and a special custom interior element specific to that vehicle (such as a matching picnic hamper). If you like what you see, best get your order in soon, since only seven will be built. Related Video:

Rolls-Royce gets Inspired by Film with latest Wraith special [w/video]

"You like me, you really like me!" If Rolls-Royce could tune its exhaust note to speak those words, (in Sally Field's voice, no less) we get the feeling it would. But since it can't it has done what it does best: launch a special edition. In this case, it's called the "Inspired by Film" edition, and it's based on the Wraith. Its creation was inspired by And the World Stood Still, a rather dramatic promotional video that accompanied the Wraith's launch two years ago. The film, which you can view below if you missed it the first time around, involved 100 DSLR cameras, 36 computers and nearly a mile of cabling, orchestrated in Barcelona to capture the spirit of the Rolls-Royce fastback. It was decorated with a Gold Award by the International Visual Communications Association and was recently admitted to the National Archive of the British Film Institute. So to mark the occasion, Rolls is rolling in to the New York Auto Show with this special edition. Taking the Silver Screen theme quite literally, it's decked out with two-tone silver paint, a solid silver Spirit of Ecstasy hood ornament and grey leather with ebony and aluminum trim. The special edition will be available to order right after its debut in Manhattan, and of course comes with the 6.6-liter twin-turbo V12 churning out 624 horsepower to make the Wraith the fastest, most powerful production model in the company's history. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. ROLLS-ROYCE WRAITH 'INSPIRED BY FILM' DEBUTS AS LAUNCH FILM IS ACCEPTED INTO BFI NATIONAL ARCHIVE 31 March 2015, Goodwood The groundbreaking Rolls-Royce Motor Cars Wraith launch film, 'And the World Stood Still', has been accepted into the BFI (British Film Institute) National Archive, the world's most significant collection of film and TV. To celebrate the event, Rolls-Royce Motor Cars has created Wraith 'Inspired by Film', which will debut at the 2015 New York Auto Show tomorrow, 1 April 2015. The film, which won a Gold Award at the 26th International Visual Communications Association (IVCA) Awards, caught the attention of the BFI's Senior Curator for Non-Fiction Films, Patrick Russell, who considered it a striking piece of contemporary cinematography and so decided to accept it into the archive. "We are delighted to see Rolls-Royce's Wraith launch film enter the BFI's collection," commented Russell.