The Mysterious Spirit Of Design...

Jason Castriota is a relatively young man still. He was responsible for the design of the current Maserati Gran Turismo, under the Pininfarina Team name.

Jason Castriota

Understandably, I suppose, car design – even great car design – has a tradition of involving some fairly young people. One cannot but help think of Marcello Gandini at the top of a long list – virtually a raw youngster at the time - who penned the amazing Lamborghini Miura.

They say that underlying the technical aspects of architecture is just one single mathematical relationship – it is the one about mass and force.

Fortunately for all those who live intellectual lives in the world today, access to knowledge of the history of design and engineering has never been better! We all can read up on the lives of Juscelino Kubitschek, Paul Ritter, Marcello Gandini, Chelsia Lau, and now, of Jason Castriota as well. Not that one should expect Castriota's best design days to be behind him so that we must only look into, (albeit recent) history.

Expectation of the amazing is something that is not an unreasonable position to hold in the present era, even if it seems unfashionable at the moment. I make a clear separation in my own mind between the nature of the economic policies that we find enacted upon us in the wider sense of national and international or global economics and politics, and what a Da Vinci is doing in the dead of any given night with undertakers as his companions.

Ralfy Mitchell of 'Ralfystuff' on YouTube

Er, well, but then I can point to one certain Ralfy Mitchell – undertaker by profession or trade – who now is far and away the best whisky reviewer and whisky drinker's mentor or guru online and everywhere, really, who gives out his very very regular 'malt marks' on YouTube from inside his cold 'Manx bothy' (a casual temporary dwelling or shelter for farmers and shepherds and so on). What a wonderful fellow he is too. I come from a line of engineers (and warmongers), and I can attest that whisky has some mysterious connection to great engineering. Thought you might want to know or at least consider that, and even to give such a connection a go yourself. That is, after you sleep with your 'Up Bracelet' on all night, and run through the park (or virtual park) with your ReCon Jet augmented reality eyewear on in order to give the ethylene transport in your bloodstream a good clean out. I have absolutely no idea of the scientific basis for any of this, but I do know that I want any excuse, reason, or justification that is readily to hand to watch Ralfystuff on YouTube with a Glencairn glass next to me. You see I think I am still something of an athlete. And so I will require an excuse for all of this.

 

Thanks a lot Ralfy! No Maserati driving for me today. Or tomorrow. Mind you, never ever had a hangover from drinking Jameson's, or James Grant's strangely enough... Wonder why. Hmn, notes of plum pudding, vanilla, prunes and good quality motor oil, you say... Castrol motor oil, perhaps. Or old Burma Lubricating Oil from the Singer Sewing Machine. Know what you mean, Ralfy; I do know what you mean!

Calvin J. Bear