EDITOR’S LETTER
Welcome to a very special issue, our annual celebration of all things automotive. I know this is one of the high points of our year for many of you, as it’s where we test-drive the finest vehicles that are released in the coming 12 months, for the title of Car of the Year.
It’s a unique event as, to the best of my knowledge, Robb Report remains the only publication that turns to its readers to be the judges for such a prestigious prize.
The reason we do this is testament to a wider ideal: Everything we do at Robb Report is aimed at giving you, our discerning audience, the definitive commentary on aspects of the luxury lifestyle that impact you. And we know that car connoisseurship is something that unites many of us.
We also know how much you respect the opinions of our chief automotive editors, Viju Mathew and Robert Ross, who between them have pulled together our 32-page narrative of the 2019 event, along with creative director Robb Rice, who shot the cars in Napa before the judging began. But inviting nearly 200 of you to drive and rate our featured vehicles means that this award has real resonance with the marques. It’s voted on by the people who buy their cars, cherish them, collect them—and drive them. So, it’s not just another media bauble to the manufacturers. This one matters.
And the people have spoken. We have an unprecedented hat trick of wins for the raging bull. The roll of honors reads: Huracán Spyder, 2017; Huracán Performante, 2018; and Urus,
2019. Yes, this year’s winner is the extraordinary part-saloon, part-monster that is the Urus. Congratulations, Lamborghini. As this was my first Car of the Year, I went to the exceptional resort of Meadowood in Napa Valley to attend the event and—oh, go on then—sample a few of the cars for myself. My personal top three? Since you ask, that would be the Bentley Continental GT, the Urus, and Rolls-Royce’s epic SUV, the Cullinan. I could happily spend the next year with the all-new, third-generation Continental, and not just because, like me, it’s British. There’s a refinement to its lines, a sophistication to its interiors, and a glorious growl to its twin-turbo W-12 engine that would make me smile on a daily basis. And that, in a nutshell, is much of what we demand from these things, after all.
But we don’t just want to introduce you to your next automotive obsession this issue. There are plenty of people we want you to discover, too. We sent our editor at large, Mark Ellwood, to meet a very English type of collector—of premium vintage spirits. His house in North London is filled with dusty bottles of gin, whiskey, and vodka, decades old and highly desirable; spirits’ flavor profiles change over time, much like wine, and these rare gems are coveted by mixologists who can charge hundreds of dollars for one cocktail. Meet the spirit detective on page 142. Someone else well worth knowing better is the Michelin-three-star chef Dominique Crenn, who takes us on a culinary nose around her adoptive home of San Francisco on page 49. And don’t miss Thomas Pink’s new creative director, John Ray (p. 58); the chairman of Sotheby’s Asia, Nicolas Chow (p. 74); or the oyster king of Denmark (p. 50).
Enjoy the issue.