Gear Patrol

The BMW 3-Series stands as one of the all-time greats. At the top of every automobile magazine’s list of best cars for the past three decades and the performance benchmark by which all other sport sedans are measured, the 3-Series is a modern icon of automobilia. Outdoing the last one is tantamount to making the…

Every car guy’s dream is to find a dusty vintage classic in a barn somewhere. And it does happen. The 1969 Maserati we featured here a few weeks ago was actually found, covered in an inch of bird guano, in a barn on the eastern end of Long Island. Well, today we’re featuring another “barn…

Part Iceman and all Maverick, the IWC Pilot’s Watch Double Chronograph Edition Top Gun ($12,000) pays homage to the fearless pilots at the United States Navy Fighter Weapons School, who epitomize courage and skill. IWC has emblazoned the Top Gun emblem (and thankfully not Tom Cruise’s mug) on the back of the titanium and black…

Bike rack maker Kuat (Koo-at) has released a convenient and clever contraption for keeping your wheels safe. What looks like a typical bike water bottle from the outside actually contains a five foot internally coiled 8mm cable thats designed to lock back into itself. The bottle also sports a lower storage compartment for stashing keys…

Typography mishaps, philanthropy and Frankenstein. If it sounds like a genius mashup, then you’d be correct. The Frankenfont project takes Shelley’s classic and incorporates incomplete font sets that commonly plague half-baked PDFs to create a progressively devolving book. The layout begins with the most commonly used characters and worsens into obscure typography — making the…

We can all agree that the Maserati GranTurismo is one gorgeous automobile. Then there’s its angry brother, the MC Stradale (strah-dahl-ee) with 444 horsepower and a beefed up suspension and chassis. Well, Novitec, the tuner that regularly modifies already blazingly quick Ferraris and Alfa Romeos, has churned out the Novitec Maserati GranTurismo MC Stradale through…

Maserati is a legendary carmaker resurrected. After decades of false starts and forgettable collaborations (the 1980s Chrysler TC comes to mind), the Italian marque that made its name in racing between the World Wars is now firmly back in the hearts and minds of motoring fans. Despite the company’s seductive new releases, there is one…

Last year, the Gerber Crucial Multi-tool was so popular amongst our readers that we featured it not once, but twice. Revamped and updated, Gerber introduces the new and improved Crucial F.A.S.T. ($59) for 2011. The F.A.S.T. (Forward Action Spring Technology) blade features a combo edge blade and fires open with a snap like your standard…

Question: How can technology change our lives in the future? In this follow up to the Smart Lives of Smart Men Part 1, our guests Michael Williams of A Continuous Lean, Evan Orensten of Cool Hunting, Anthony Sperduti of Partners & Spade, Ben Pieratt of Svpply, and Richard Blakeley of Thrillist concluded the evening in…

The follow-up to our last Timekeeping feature (The Dive Watch, Deconstructed), Jason Heaton delves into the hallowed world of the Chronograph. There is no other type of watch that requires as much interaction from its wearer as the chronograph. Even at rest a chronograph dutifully waits, its sweep hand standing still, alert and vertical, inviting…

“Open Road” is an ongoing series of dispatches written and photographed by guest correspondent, Foster Huntington, during his epic cross-country adventure for his upcoming book by Harper Collins. Foster is the creator of Arestlesstransplant and The Burning House. Check out previous parts of the series here. My alarm went off at 2:15am on Thursday, the…

Volvo has long been seen as the safe car. But no one wants to date the “safe” guy. And only billion dollar corporations afraid of lawsuits give out awards for completing something safely. Needless to say, “safe” isn’t a buzz word that lights up headlines. Armed with this cultural realization Volvo’s designers and engineers decided…

A couple of hundred miles south of its source in Northern Minnesota, the Mississippi River, after passing through Minneapolis and St. Paul, flows past an achingly charming town called Red Wing. Nestled below towering limestone bluffs patrolled by bald eagles, Red Wing sits like an oversized model railroad set. Its downtown Main Street is lined…

Clearly, we’re fond of books that teach us more about the things we love. The subject matter alone of The Oxford Companion to Beer ($38) is enough to tempt most men to flip through its pages, but when you factor in that it’s been edited by Brooklyn Brewery brewmaster Garrett Oliver, it becomes a must…

Conventional wisdom erroneously perceives that most Harley riders are over 40, beefy, peppered with tattoos and leather, with a preponderance of facial hair. Though a fair share of riders fall into that category, it’s also absolutely true that the pre-WWI motorcycle manufacturer has made serious inroads to the younger, hipper crowd. In case you didn’t…

Add one more to the great hall of mirrorless cameras with Nikon’s new Nikon 1 System. Using an all new “CX” 10 megapixel CMOS sensor, the flagship camera, the Nikon V1 ($899) will include a 10-30mm lens (27-81mm equivalent), an electronic viewfinder, 1080i 60 fps and an accessory port for add-ons including a mini-speedlight, GPS…

Question: How is technology changing the lives of men and the world we live in? Rather than look to the usual pundits for the same canned responses, we decided to hunt down answers by inviting a group of friends and colleagues to the Royalton Hotel penthouse for an off the cuff conversation over dinner and…

At the 1975 Paris Auto Show, Ferrari released a new model that would set a new direction for the company and reinvent the design language for all exotic supercars thereafter. The 308 GTB replaced Ferrari’s Dino 246 and quickly became the most recognized of the Modena-based manufacturer’s cars, even to this day. Decidedly modern in…

If you’re a runner, cyclist, hiker or skier, you (hopefully) know how important it is to carry emergency contact and medical information. It’s also a good idea to carry some money in case you bank far from home or just if you want to get a mid-ride ice cream. The problem is, where do you…

England may have its Doc Martens and Australia has its Blundstones, but America’s boot is the Red Wing 877. Worn by countless workers, farmers, hunters and hipsters since its introduction in 1953, the 877 is revered for its comfort, durability and timeless styling. Still made in Red Wing, Minnesota with little changed for 60 years,…

Editor’s Note: Foster Huntington is the talented force behind A Restless Transplant and the hugely popular tumblr The Burning House. Recently, Huntington embarked on an epic cross-country adventure to document unique individuals and the things they care about for his upcoming book to be released by Harper Collins. After sharing his plans with us first…

Camera gear is a slippery slope. Between bodies, lenses, cases, flashes, and mounts you’re lucky to get an ideal outfit without losing your shirt. However, once you’ve been bitten with the bug for fast glass (lenses) the rabbit hole truly widens. One lens we’ve been itching to get our hands on with is the impossibly…

I fondly remember my father’s 1988 Audi 5000, both of them. After the first one he owned had run its course, he went about purchasing the exact same one again. Same color, same interior, same everything. It was then, despite its infamous foibles, that I was introduced to German engineering, a course on how to…

When you think of the classic British sports cars of the 1950s and ‘60s, MG, Jaguar, Aston Martin and Triumph tend to come to mind first. But arguably the most beautiful of the genre was the series of roadsters made by Austin Healey during the company’s short run, with their long sweeping haunches, short rear…

Don’t feel like shelling out for a Pioneer DJM Nexus, but still want proper Pioneer DJ gear? Vault the Pioneer DDJ-T1 ($899) to the top of your list. A lower price doesn’t mean a half-baked controller though. Pioneer has infused the DDJ-T1 with pro performance jog wheels that are both ruggedized and responsive, touch search…

We don’t envy Land Rover. Upgrading, modifying, or simply touching their icon, the Defender is about as much of a Pandora’s Box as they come. But such is the way of progress, and in just a month, Land Rover will be unveiling their first concept, the DC100 at the Frankfurt Auto Show. Like any concept,…

After the stealing the hearts of photography world with the launch of the X100, FujiFlim is hoping lightening strikes twice with the official announcement of the X10. Designed with the same retrotastic aesthetic as its bigger brother, the X10 features a black magnesium alloy housing and knurled aluminum controls, for a weighty, rich feel in…

Lotus has always built cars that are meant to be driven hard and not coddled. Small and lightweight, with surprisingly modest engines, the guiding principle of company founder, Colin Chapman, was to remove extraneous bits and bobs to tip the power to weight ratio in favor of the former. This principle was most evident in…

The International Watch Company has always done things a little differently. First of all, the firm wasn’t founded by a venerable Swiss family in the remote mountains of the Jura or in the Vallée de Joux. Rather, it was an American entrepreneur from Boston, F.A. Jones, who set up shop on the banks of the…