REC is a Danish watch company created by avid car enthusiasts whose motto is “Recover, Recycle, Reclaim.” To that end, their company makes beautiful watches from salvaged iconic cars, preserving as much of the character of the original vehicle as possible. No two watches are identical, making each one a unique collectible.
The company has previously released watch collections based on reclaimed Porsches and Mini Coopers, but the P-51 collection is sure to rev the engine of any gearhead who grew up watching the coolest movie star race over the hills of San Francisco in his ’68 Mustang GT Fastback.
“Most people would just see a pile of metal, a ghost of a Mustang,” co-founder Christian Mygh told the Detroit Free Press. “We see something completely different — the soul of a car and a story that needs to be told. I’m not cutting up Mustangs. I’m bringing Mustangs that are beyond repair back to life as a watch.”
The watchmaker uses the steel roofs, door panels, and hoods from ‘60s-era Mustangs to create each dial, which has been rhodium plated and finished. The designers went to extraordinary lengths to trace the history of each vehicle, all the way back to the original owner when possible.
Approximately 250 watches can be created from a single car, but each one comes with an individual Story Card, which contains an NFC chip and a QR code where you can watch a short video detailing the back story of that specific vehicle.
The P-51 collection, the result of a Kickstarter campaign, consists of three different watches, each retailing for about $1,500. The name “P-51” comes from the American WWII fighter plane, as the company explained in a press release announcing the new collection: “Ford Lead Designer John Najjar Ferzely proposed the Mustang name for the first concept vehicle back in the early ’60s. As an avid aviation enthusiast, he compared the diminutive but sleek profile of the new sports car with the North American P-51 Mustang fighter plane.”
Powered by a Miyota 9130, each watch is made from stainless steel, with sapphire crystal glass and a handcrafted metal dial that resembles the instrument panel on a muscle car. The power level on top is represented by a fuel gauge, with a speedometer-style dial below and a date window at the bottom. In addition, each watch face also has a small plate containing the vehicle identification number (VIN) of the car it was created from.
The company calls the new collection “recycling horsepower,” but the watch site Monochrome describes it as “a cool, car-inspired watch with an automatic movement and a properly cool story to tell.”
BYD has launched the third-generation Qin Plus DM-i in China, and the first thing that caught my eye is its price. According to CarNewsChina, the plug-in hybrid sedan starts at 79,900 yuan, which is about $11,980. That’s an incredibly low price for a brand-new car, especially by US standards.
What’s even more impressive is the range. The Qin Plus DM-i can drive up to 137 miles on electricity alone, which should cover most people’s daily commutes without using a drop of gas. Once the battery runs out, the 1.5-liter engine takes over. Thanks to its 17-gallon tank and roughly 91 mpg with a drained battery, the combined range reaches up to 1,423 miles.
Apple won the PC market’s worst quarter, but that’s not the entire story. It won the race by stumbling less than everyone else.
PC makers shipped just 57 million computers worldwide in Q3, which might look good, but it’s a 21% year-over-year plunge (via Counterpoint Research). And despite Apple’s Mac shipments falling by 11%, to 5.6 million, its market share rose from 8.7% to 9.8%. How did that happen?
Update (October 22 23:54 PT): In response to our query, GM clarified that offline recording support is already available on eligible vehicles. Like Tesla's Sentry Mode, it requires owners to connect a USB drive to save incident recordings, which can be viewed on the vehicle's infotainment screen. The upcoming Connected Cameras feature will build on this by giving owners remote access to these recordings via the revamped OnStar app, allowing them to check footage without walking out to their car.
General Motors has announced plans to add a new Connected Cameras feature to its OnStar service starting next year, giving drivers a way to monitor parked vehicles remotely and capture footage of certain incidents.