Scarcity manufactured and sold at the margin it implies.
The Ferrari Roma is a front mid-engine, rear-wheel-drive grand touring coupé with a twin turbocharged V8 and 2+2 seating. It succeeds the Portofino and sits below the F8. Named after Rome, it launched online on 13 November 2019 and was unveiled in Rome the next day. Flavio Manzoni led its design, which won five major international design awards — including Most Beautiful Supercar of the Year in Paris.
The Lamborghini Urus is a high-performance luxury SUV. It is Lamborghini’s first SUV under Volkswagen ownership and its second ever, after the LM002. Introduced in December 2017 as a 2018 model, it is built on the Volkswagen Group MLB Evo platform and shares components with the Audi Q7, Bentley Bentayga, Porsche Cayenne, and Volkswagen Touareg. Its name derives from urus, the aurochs. The production model uses a modified 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8 — not the concept’s 5.2-litre V10 — and features a front-engine, all-wheel-drive layout. With a top speed of 312 km/h, the Urus SE is the fastest production SUV in the world. It is Lamborghini’s best-selling model, reaching 20,000 units by 2022.
The W116 is the first official S-Class: a flagship luxury sedan built on a larger, separate platform, with independent suspension and four-wheel disc brakes. Designed by Friedrich Geiger and finalised in December 1969, it launched in 1972 and introduced Mercedes-Benz’s enduring corporate styling theme. It pioneered safety features including crumple zones and optional four-wheel anti-lock brakes. It won European Car of the Year in 1974. It established the S-Class as a benchmark for engineering integrity, not just opulence.
The Toyota Century is not a luxury car designed for global appeal. It is a domestic instrument — engineered for quiet authority, rear-seat sovereignty, and continuity. Its 1967 debut marked a deliberate departure from export logic. Its design solves for discretion, not dynamism. Its powertrain — a V8 — was one of only three post-war Japanese-built sedans so equipped. Its users are institutions, not individuals. Its branding omits Toyota’s oval entirely. Its value lies in what it refuses.
The Volkswagen Phaeton was a full-size saloon and Volkswagen’s ‘premium class’ vehicle. Introduced at the 2002 Geneva Motor Show, it was conceived by Ferdinand Piëch to surpass Mercedes-Benz and BMW in comfort and engineering excellence—not performance. It used a bespoke all-steel D1 platform shared with Bentleys, diverging from Audi’s aluminium A8. It featured radar adaptive cruise control, the first V10 TDI in a production sedan, and hand assembly at Dresden’s Transparent Factory. Sales in North America ended in 2006; global sales ended in 2016 after 84,253 units. Production ceased in March 2016.
The Bentley Continental R is a luxury coupé built from 1991 to 2003 on the Rolls-Royce SZ platform, featuring a unique non-Rolls-Royce body, a 6.75 L turbocharged V8 engine, front-engine RWD layout, Cd=0.37 aerodynamics, roof-cut door frames, and a subtle rear spoiler. It was the fastest, most expensive, and most powerful Bentley of its day—and the most expensive production car in the world at launch.
The BMW 507 is a hand-formed aluminium luxury grand touring convertible designed by Albrecht von Goertz, developed from a shortened BMW 503 frame, powered by a 3.2 L V8 engine and mated to a four-speed manual transmission, produced from 1956 to 1959 in only 252 units due to high costs.
The 1963 Buick Riviera is the origin point of GM’s personal luxury car strategy. It is not a sports car. It is not a sedan. It is a two-door hardtop built on a new platform, named for a coastline, engineered for quiet authority.
The Duesenberg Model J is a luxury automobile made by Duesenberg, debuting in 1928 and offered for ten years. Gordon Buehrig, aged 25 and chief body designer for Duesenberg, designed it. Its 420 cu in straight-eight engine produced 265 horsepower in normally aspirated form, surpassing all larger-engined rivals. It achieved 116 mph top speed and 89 mph in second gear — making it both the fastest and most expensive American automobile on the market. It was intended to compete with the most luxurious and powerful cars in the world, launching the year before the 1929 stock market crash. Duesenberg Motors Company went bankrupt in 1937. Only the chassis and engine were factory-made; bodies were custom-built by third-party coachbuilders. Of 481 Model Js produced, about 378 survive.