Va-va Vuitton
Louis Vuitton is best known today for its luggage and high fashion, but the brand also cultivated a relationship with excellence in car design from the very start, when its travel cases graced the baggage racks of early luxury automobiles as shown in new book Louis Vuitton The Art Of The Automobile Ready to go [...]
Louis Vuitton is best known today for its luggage and high fashion, but the brand also
cultivated a relationship with excellence in car design from the very start, when its travel
cases graced the baggage racks of early luxury automobiles as shown in new book Louis
Vuitton The Art Of The Automobile
Ready to go
Louis Vuitton introduced car trunks in 1897, intended primarily
for early touring cars. They could be placed either on top of the
vehicle or on the board at the rear, as is the case with this 1927
model. Covered in leather or the company’s own scratch-proof
fabric, Vuittonite, they were dyed to match the bodywork.
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Gorgeous curves
From 1989 on, the Louis Vuitton company associated its name
with the concours d’elegance held in the Paris area. The classic
elegance of famous French coachbuilder Henri Chapron’s
automobile designs can be seen in the outlines of this 1937
Delahaye 135 MS, during the 2003 Louis Vuitton Classic.
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Ferrari fever
Shown at Fertöd Castle in
Hungary as part of the Louis
Vuitton Classic Bohemia
Run, 1996, is a 1959 Ferrari
250 GT Berlinetta. |
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Flying machine
The French automobile
manufacturer Marcel Leyat
conceived this aeroplane-like
car, known as the Helica,
in 1922, photographed
here at the 1995 concours
d’elegance.
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Racing star
The relationship between
the aeronautics and
automobile industries was
much in evidence at the
1998 concours d’elegance.
Created for the 1935
Grand Prix races, the Trossi
Monaco was propelled
by an aeronautics-style,
star-shaped 16-cylinder
engine.
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Batmobile
This BAT 7 prototype by Italy’s Bertone won Best of Show at
the 2001 Louis Vuitton Classic. That year’s event posed the
question: can an automobile be considered a work of art?
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Toy town
A breathtaking array of vintage automobiles spreads out
beneath the dizzying heights of the Rockefeller Center’s
towers at the 1999 Louis Vuitton Classic in Manhattan.
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Louis Vuitton The Art Of The Automobile by Serge Bellu (£40, Abrams) is published this month;
href="http://www.louisvuitton.com">www.louisvuitton.com, www.abramsbooks.com
