Of slick beauties and sharp angles

488 Spider: Ferrari’s New V8 Drop-top
Ferrari took the wraps off its latest open-top V8, the 488 Spider at Frankfurt late last year. Based on the 488 GTB, the Spider shares the 670 ps/760 nm 3.9-litre turbo V8 with its Variable Torque Management System. Ferrari claims it will do 0-100 kmph in three seconds and 0-200 kmph in 8.7 seconds, with a throttle response of 0.8 seconds! Built using 11 different 6000 series aluminium alloys, Ferrari says the new car’s chassis improves 23 percent over the 458 Spider. The car also gets a new SSC2 Side Slip Angle Control system that makes it easier for less skilled drivers to be heroes at the wheel. The retractable hardtop can be raised or lowered within 14 seconds even on the move. The exhaust note has been tuned to be “seductive but never invasive when the top is dropped.”

Helle Knives
The knifemakers at Helle are also their products’ end users: Outdoorsmen whose version of “the outdoors” means the unforgiving mountains and fjords of Norway. Their handworked knives are striking sculptural objects, but every blade is built to see duty in the hinterland—their steel is typically triple-layered, with hard carbon alloy sandwiched between two layers of rugged lower-carbon alloy to hold an edge. There are no slide-out tweezers or clever little corkscrews included with these knives—but if you want to gut a fish or cut a rope or skin a deer, Helle’s got your tool.
helle.no


Left to right: One of Helle’s larger knives, the BraKar’s ($164) blade is attached to a walnut and curly birch handle with leather spacers; the new Blåfjell ($219) is a traditional hunting knife with a darkened oak and brass handle; the versatile Algonquin ($99), introduced this fall, is a small knife that can be hung from a neck pouch; the Gaupe ($144), meaning “lynx”, is an all-purpose bushcraft knife with a curly birch handle



Playing the Angles
All watch designs come full circle—even the rectangle. The classic shape made famous nearly a century ago by the Cartier Tank gets a 90-degree twist with two new elegant timepieces. The Tiffany & Co East West watch ($3,500) was inspired by a travel clock it produced in the 1940s and reorients the Arabic numbers vertically. (Or horizontally, depending on how you see things.) Either way, the crown remains at the traditional 3 o’clock mark—where it now says 12. The steel case is 25 mm wide by 42 mm long and curved to rest comfortably on the wrist. And the dials are available in white, black and blue. Similarly, de Grisogono’s New Retro watch—available this fall with a white or black dial in white or pink gold ($31,100)—plays with geometry by orienting the 44 mm case horizontally while placing the crown at the 12 o’clock position, as on a traditional pocket watch. And the message they send? Time is on your side.