About luxury cars and private jets: Embraer & Porsche team up
What could be even cooler than owning a business jet? Getting a matching Porsche sports car with it.
Embraer and Porsche have made headlines this week with the presentation of Duet.
That is, the Brazilian aircraft maker and the German car manufacturer have combined two of their most popular products, the Embraer Phenom 300E and the Porsche 911 Turbo S respectively, into a single limited edition product offering.
The executive jet and the sports car have both got a special and rather unique - only ten “Duet” pairs will be made - matching design.
Not only both machines will be hand painted in the same colour hues, but they will also feature Duet’s own exclusive logo in the outside and the inside. Elements in the cabin, such as the seats will also feature common elements, such as red pull straps and carbon fibre shrouds. Even the cockpit seats have been redesigned to match those in the car.
“To further solidify this symbiotic partnership, the aircraft registration number appears on both the car’s rear wing and the sides of its key”
The underlying idea is that the fortunate users of the Duet will enjoy a seamless transition from car to jet and the other way around. In fact, they are thought of as a unit and you won’t be able to purchase them separately (by the way, in case you were considering…here is the link to submit your expression of interest!)
You can really tell that Jay Beever, VP of Embraer Design Operations, the man behind some of the most outlandish executive jet cabin concepts designs out there, made a name for himself as a designer in the car industry before moving into executive jets! We had actually the chance to have him here on the Allplane Podcast, sharing his philosophy about executive jet design. You can listen to this episode of the podcast here.
Oh! and did I mention that you get also a matching baggage set and a watch as well?
Or you can check out this video produced by Embraer as well - yes, I know, a promotional video, but, still, pretty cool!
Cars and planes get along well
Collaboration between high end car makers and aerospace companies is something we have been tracking here. Although these tend to be very specific marketing initiatives of limited scope and reach, they help those brands involved get plenty of media coverage and PR (and this post is proof of it!) as well as cement their exclusivity credentials (and important factor in the market for ultra-luxury goods)
This year so far we have seen how British sports car maker Aston Martin has launched a limited car edition inspired in the Concorde, and, while the supersonic jetliner is no more, one of its two historical operators, British Airways, has also been involved in the design of this offering. Aston Martin has also got into helicopters, with a specially designed edition of the Airbus ACH-130, which it presented at the posh mountain resort of Courchevel.
You can read more about these two initiatives on this piece I published earlier this year.
In fact, I would go as far as saying this is part of a broader and further reaching rapprochement of the car and aerospace industries, that is bearing some fruits also in the UAM segment, what is popularly known as “flying cars”. We are entering transition times for both car and aircraft makers, with new, greener, propulsion technologies taking centre stage, and unmanned driving and flying also making inroads in, so far limited but likely expanding, segments of both industries.
And Porsche is also active in this field, as I showed in my latest CNN article about flying cars, the German luxury car maker has been working with Boeing subsidiaries Boeing NeXt and Aurora Flight Services in order to develop its own urban air mobility concept. The “Batmanesque” style and shape presented in renderings look quite exciting so far!