Top Italian wine producer Sassicaia has resprayed the Mini Cooper S sportscar to produce 12 limited-edition 'Mini Sassicaias'.
Costing €40,500 (£27,400 / US$50,000) each, the cars have been customised to resemble a bottle of Sassicaia. The car is painted in the colours of the supertuscan – blue, gold and cream – with a reproduction of the wine's 1985 label on the roof.
'We chose the 1985 vintage for the roof label as that year Sassicaia won almost every national and international tasting competition,' said Sassicaia's Italian distributor Marcello Meregalli.
Meregalli, a car enthusiast, thought up the idea along with luxury car dealer Alessandro Brevegliari of Milan's UKGarage.
'The idea was born over dinner with Sassicaia's chairman Marchese Incisa della Rocchetta,' said Breveglieri. 'One of us had taken a Mini Cooper that night. After drinking Sassicaia, we jokingly made the proposal to design the Mini like a bottle of Sassicaia. A few days later, we sent computer generated images of what it would look like, and the Marchese loved it.'
Each Mini Sassicaia comes with a bottle of Sassicaia and two custom goblets in the trunk. No vintage has yet been decided on for the included bottle.
Launched just two weeks ago at Monte Carlo's Top Marques Luxury Fair, eight Mini Sassicaias have already been sold in France and Italy.
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