Humanity has been obsessed with time since the dawn of history. The Egyptians, the Mayans, the Greeks, and thousands of other civilizations throughout human history have strived to measure and understand time. No mineral, artifact, or human creation, nothing is more precious than time. Time does not negotiate; it cannot be purchased, sold, or recovered once it’s lost. Mankind has accomplished impressive feats, but as each man lives his life, he does so under the looming shadow of passing time. No force is more fearsome than the passing of time itself. IND’s latest portfolio project makes this fact abundantly clear. This project was not a battle against limited resources, limited creativity, or limited ability, but rather a fight against time.
Nelson, our client for this Portfolio Project is an unsung hero in the car world. His collection of supercars has given magazine editors across the world the opportunity to test drive some of the rarest, most exotic vehicles on the planet, and has allowed regular car enthusiasts like us to read about machines we can only dream of having. His garage looks like every teen aged boy’s fantasy, with everything from Aston to Zonda contained within. Most important to IND’s mission in this project, Nelson is true car enthusiast, and is not content with acquiring cars simply to add to a stationary collection of exotics- the cars owned by Nelson are driven on the street and on the track, and driven to their limit.
Nelson has been a BMW owner since the 1970s, and has had a passion for the M division’s unique creations since the letter M began to quicken the heartbeats of performance enthusiasts worldwide, so was naturally felt inspired when he saw IND’s Atlantis E90 M3 portfolio project. The color was so striking to our client, that he knew he had to have it. The color itself comes with a price, however- a brand new M3, ordered through BMW’s Individual program can take nearly a year to obtain. As plans came together, our mission became very clear.
IND would create a car that would look at home next to Nelson’s two Bugatti Veyrons and Ferrari Enzo both because of its amazing performance and its exotic spec sheet. We also knew that Nelson wished to have the car in time for the summer’s track season, and could not think of a better venue to show the completed car to our client than BimmerFest in California- without question the biggest BMW gathering in the US. It is when we committed to these two simply-stated goals that the specter of time began to loom over IND.
We had to build a car that could fight against Enzo Ferarri’s personal legacy to capture Nelson’s attention, and we only had two months to envision and build such a machine.
