Maximの September/October 2021 の目次

The best kind of collaborations are those where passion is shared, and values are perpetuated.” Julien Tornare, CEO of storied Swiss luxury watchmaker Zenith, is speaking about the brand’s collaboration with Cohiba, the iconic Cuban cigar his company’s that is widely considered one of the finest in the world, and which celebrates its 55th anniversary this year. To honor the occasion and the partnership, Zenith is releasing a special timepiece, the Chronomaster Open 55th Anniversary Cohiba chronograph, limited to just 55 examples, which beautifully showcases the manufacturer’s 155-year-old watchmaking expertise. “The pursuit of excellence through precision, authenticity, and tradition are just some of the things that Zenith and Cohiba have in common,” Tornare notes. “But beyond that, it is a partnership that speaks to those who seek out precious moments…

When I speak to Josephine Skriver over the phone, she has just returned from vacationing in Iceland with her fiancé, the musician Alexander DeLeon, also known as Bohnes. “Oh my God! It was so fun!” the 28-year-old Danish supermodel, who has modeled for the likes of Victoria’s Secret, Maybelline, and Versace, gushes. “I don’t know if there’s another place quite like it. We were able to see lava, glaciers, and so many things in one day. It really is the land of fire and ice.” Visiting Iceland seems like the sort of trip most people would anticipate all year, perhaps their entire life, but Josephine is noticeably more excited for the fall—not for the return of Fashion Week but instead football season. She is the first supermodel I have ever…

Most people would say a 4.5 billion-year-old meteorite that fell to Earth in prehistoric times belongs in a museum. Robert Bianchin decided to use it to make the world’s most expensive and exclusive set of pistols. Bianchin, a Canadian by birth, moved to the U.S. in 2002 to pursue a career in economics and finance, and quickly devoted himself to obtaining citizenship after becoming enthralled with the American Constitution. A recreational shooter, the Second Amendment in particular called to him, and a decade ago he decided to start creating American-made pistols of incomparable quality and craftsmanship. He based them on the Colt 1911, the iconic .45 caliber automatic that served as the standard-issue sidearm for the United States Armed Forces from 1911 to 1985 in its original form. When he…

Ripping around the narrow roadways that crawl like capillaries across the Hollywood Hills in the Ferrari SF90 Stradale, the thrills are gloriously visceral. Thank the supercar’s futuristic plug-in hybrid (PHEV) powertrain—the first-ever from Ferrari—featuring a re-engineered and enlarged version of the marque’s twinturbo V8 (swollen from 3.9 to 4.0 liters), augmented with a trio of electric motors. With a motor affixed to each front wheel, the SF90’s all-world AWD keeps the supercar seemingly magnetically attached to the pockmarked asphalt of these ancient roads, and the torque vectoring—when one front wheel moves faster than the other to hasten turning radius—makes cornering feel… perverse. But when rare straights appear on Mulholland, and the totality of the quad-motor powertrain’s 986 horses hit, the breath leaves your chest: blistering acceleration (0-60 mph in under…

A wave of calm descended as my first round of hyperfresh briny oysters slid down. I was sitting at the Saltwater Oyster Bar in Inverness, a white clapboard ode to local ingredients with gastro-nautical chops, on a stretch of sleepy road in Marin County, California. Across the mists of Tomales Bay, past the siren curves of the McLaren GT calling me from the carpark, were my next pit stops, the more famous Hog Island Oysters and The Marshall Store. My Mission Impossible for the weekend: escape from New York to indulge in an oenological expedition to Sonoma County, seeking out the finest wines known to humanity. All while piloting a grand tourer of the first order on the incomparable roads of the raggedy Marin coast, laying down a roadmap for…

There has been much speculation of late that Bugatti will finally return to racing after a 25-year absence with the Bolide, its new track-focused, W16-powered hypercar reportedly packing 1,825 horsepower, and capable of blasting past 300 mph. So, this seems like a fitting moment to take a look at the famed French marque’s last two race cars, the EB 110 LM (Le Mans) and SC (Sport Competizione), which competed in 1994 and 1996, marking the end of an era for Bugatti. It was an all-too-brief racing revival for the marque, which competed at Le Mans from 1923 until 1939, the year Pierre Veyron triumphed over the competition in a Bugatti Type 57 C. Fast forward to September 15, 1991, which would have been marque founder Ettore Bugatti’s 110th birthday, when…

It’s barely past nine a.m. and the temperatures at the Radford Racing school outside Phoenix are already eclipsing triple digits. The smooth blacktop appears to be cracking before our eyes, but it’s all good—it’s a dry heat. Veteran automotive T.V. hosts Chris Jacobs (Discovery) and Cristy Lee (ESPN, SPEED, MotorTrend, etc.) have just spent the last half-hour lighting up the skid pad in a most curious vehicle: the WhistlePig Dodge Hellcat. Onlookers whoop it up as their twirling donut dance gushes volumes of white smoke into the morning air. The shenanigans, and torque, are dialed up to eleven. This is no ordinary Hellcat mind you, it’s the WhistlePig edition—modified to run not on pure petroleum, but fuel of another sort altogether: premium rye whiskey. Vinyl-wrapped with bowtied pigs, barrels, wood,…

Christie’s auction house is now offering the chance to boldly go where no oenophile has gone before—in the form of a bottle of Petrus from outer space. The bottle of Petrus 2000 spent 14 months in orbit as part of a privately-funded research study on food and agriculture. The expected cost to own it, per Christie’s private sales division: a cool $1 million. Which is of course down to its extreme rarity, but also its bespoke presentation trunk, made by Les Ateliers Victor in collaboration with Cyril Kongo in Paris, complete with a corkscrew made from a meteorite that fell to Earth—as well as a bottle of Petrus 2000 which wasn’t aged in space, for the sake of comparison. “ONLY A HANDFUL OF PEOPLE HAVE EVER TASTED SPACE-AGED BORDEAUX, AND…

Growing up in the small town in Minas, Brazil, Camila Coelho moved to Scranton, Pennsylvania with her family at the age of 14. Her early days as a non-English speaking immigrant cut her teeth for the challenges that lay ahead, built up her indomitable determination, and set the stage for the powerhouse she was soon to become. Working as a Dior makeup artist behind a Macy’s department store counter, Coelho quickly displayed an aptitude in the world of beauty, and for kicks started filming a series of YouTube makeup tutorials—way before that was actually a thing. Unsurprisingly the young star showed prodigious skill and charisma and quickly garnered a worldwide following (over 15 million and counting) as a beauty and fashion influencer, collaborating along the way with iconic brands like…

In the world of extreme sports, there are few things as formidable, and hazardous, as big wave surfing. By big we’re talking 20 feet high or more, something nearly impossible for outsiders and casual riders to comprehend. American legend Shane Dorian, who quit championship competition surfing in 2003 to go all in on big waves, calls them “the ultimate challenge,” noting, “They can also present the ultimate life-or-death situation.” He makes the remark in the foreword to one of the most impressive photographic tributes to the sport ever published, Big Wave Surfer: The Greatest Rides of Our Lives, new from Rizzoli and authored by another surfing legend, Kai Lenny. The book profiles the world’s top competitors on the big wave scene, accompanied by jaw-dropping imagery. “It is hard to define…