ramp #60 Too Cool to Handle.

A magazine about coolness? Among other things. But one thing at a time. First of all, it’s off to the movies. There’s this businessman from Boston who helps relieve a bank of a substantial amount of money. The insurance companies are on to him, but they can’t prove a thing. That, in a nutshell, is the plot of the film classic in which Steve McQueen plays Thomas Crown, who remains a mystery to the viewer throughout the entire film and who the actor plays with incredible composure, exuding absolute coolness at every moment. The German title of the film – Thomas Crown ist nicht zu fassen – hides a wonderful play on words, by the way. It could mean: Thomas Crown is unbelievable. Or it could mean: Thomas Crown cannot be caught. Cannot be seized. Cannot be grasped hold of. He’s just too cool to handle. Much in the same way, coolness also eludes our attempts to grasp it. A fundamental vagueness shrouds this fascinating phenomenon of longing and desire.

We’re fascinated by the irrational, the incomprehensible, the unbelievable. That’s why we also enjoy breaking the rules. We are living contradictions, as neuroscientists and psychologists so dryly explain. Our irrationality, innovation research tells us, is the secret to our creativity. It is our irrationality which insists that it is not we who must adapt to the world, but that it is the world that must adapt to us. This is another reason why any kind of progress depends to a large extent on our irrationality.

“If people never did silly things, nothing intelligent would ever get done,” the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein once so aptly said. The physicist Richard Feynman opens our eyes to another aspect in this regard: “Physics is like sex,” he explains. “Sure, it may give some practical results, but that’s not why we do it.” And that’s just about how it was with this issue of ramp. Sort of.

Wladimir Kaminer’s Search for Happiness: a Test Drive with Four Cars

A Porsche 911 Turbo, a Lamborghini Huracán EVO Spyder, a Bentley Continental GT V8 and a Ford Mondeo took to the starting line for our super super super test. Meanwhile, our author mused about the quest for happiness.

A Land Rover Series I 86 and a Defender Heritage Meet in London

No, this isn’t the start of a bad British joke; it’s the beginning of a very readable story about a car with a moving history and its last legitimate offshoot.

Michael Mauer and Coolness

If you were to rank car brands in terms of their coolness factor, Porsche is miles ahead of the pack. This seemed like a good topic of discussion with the company’s head of design – though we also asked him if he has the coolest job in the world.

A Lamborghini Countach on Fire

Our author drove a Lamborghini Countach LPI 800-4, the only one of just 112 units in the color Arancio Bruciato. If you’re asking yourself how he, of all people, got the chance to do that – we’ll tell you all about it.

Raymond Chandler and the McLaren 720S Spider

Production of the McLaren 720S, first unveiled in 2017, has come to an end. So this story about a 720S Spider might just as well have been titled “Farewell, My Lovely”, like the novel by the above-mentioned writer of hardboiled detective fiction. That gave us an idea.

A Living Legend: the Ferrari 288 GTO

The Ferrari 288 GTO was introduced in 1984. The fastest production car to have ever come out of Maranello until then was immediately hailed as an icon. A great reason to take a closer look.

An Interview with Jo Stenuit, Design Director at Mazda Motor Europe

We spoke with Jo Stenuit about the Mazda CX-60 – and about coolness, which is an inherent quality of the brand’s Japanese roots, as he says. So it’s not something he has to specifically strive for.

BMW Motorrad Turns 100. Cool!

One hundred years ago, the world got its first BMW-badged motorcycle. A perfect occasion to reflect on the past. On this journey of reflection, one thing becomes crystal clear: to be authentically cool, you just have to do your own thing.