In 2001, Paul Smith, the stunningly cool fashion designer put his name to a project with Jaguar to raise money for Macmillan cancer relief.
He ‘personalised’ an X-Type Jaguar which was subsequently sold for £40,000 to City banker Zoe Appleyard and her friend Maya Schonburg.
A huge cast of stars from Kylie to Sir Elton John were at the auction and they all got a jolly warm glow as well as raising over £200,000 in total for a brilliant cause. You can read the full story here.
And I saw the very car today, complete with lookalike Paul Smith (P5) numberplate.
The PS stripes look great on his Evian Water bottles, but automotive design changes faster than any other I know. What works know may look very dated in five years and awful a few years at the time. The Austin Metro even looked okay at one time and that time was it’s time. It looked even better with a bit of high class Burberry branding added. Hmmmmm.
I’m not sure how well the stripes look on the Jag now. In fact I think they look a bit horrid, so for the sake of ongoing brand values, it may have been a good idea to have a time limit on its branding, for say, five years, before any trace of it was removed and the car de-branded.
That time has now passed and so for me should the Paul Smith branding on this car, which only serves to look a bit garish and dated.
Updated
Simon Dare commented that the car is now owned by Paul Smith again and is driven by their Finance Director. Poor bugger. It’s going to be difficult to hide in that car isn’t it!
Rob Marshall also commented below that the Paul Smith Mini still looked good. I’m not so sure myself, but it takes all sorts. The link he put through is this car here.
Which is a very limited edition of around 2 cars according the Paul Smith Mini website.
This car had 84 stripes made up of 24 different colours and had to have been hand made.
There then followed a less limited edition Paul Smith car where 300 were made in a special blue colour and they were luxurious for a Mini! Madly british with gold plated UK bonnet badge and hidden lime green detailing, I would say this looks like a real classic if you can get your hands on one in good condition.
Here’s one of the 300, which I think is far more discreet and tasteful!
Anyway, if anyone knows of any other good designer branded cars, let me know. I don’t want to know about the car that Stephen Ireland ‘customised’ for his girlfriend. It’s a monstrosity of a Bentley!
Or even El Hadji Diouf and his chromed Mercedes SLR. William Gallas has one too by all accounts.
They’re not designer cars, they’re just vile.
Johnny Lyle's new brand thinking 