Before starting Luzzo Bespoke, Alan Sawyer spent years working in the automobile industry, designing aftermarket wood components for luxury cars. Sawyer also worked producing interiors for concept cars and designing bespoke interior products for Rolls Royce. An avid motor sport enthusiast, Sawyer had the idea of using his interests in automobiles to create a new furnishings company, which is how Luzzo Bespoke was born. This also marked a return to Sawyer’s original profession of making furniture—essentially, Sawyer has come full circle, or gone around the track so to speak.

Bugatti-inspired Desk. Designed and manufactured by Luzzo Bespoke.

Classic Racecar Style

The company’s first project is a limited edition desk inspired by the Grand Prix cars of the 1930s, specifically those created by Ettore Bugatti, and more specifically, types 35 and 59. All the designers at Luzzo Bespoke spent countless hours researching these classic cars and their complex components, so that the resulting desk would retain some of the most unique details of the Bugatti vehicle—from cast aluminum components to louvers, from the honeycomb grille to the French racing blue color. The company did not seek to make a desk that resembled the racecar. Instead, they sought to capture the automobile’s essence: “We felt that by using mechanisms that are in the spirit of those used on the original cars we could design and produce a product that truly echoes the period.”

Only ten of these desks will be produced, each with an amazing amount of detail work and fidelity to its source. And this desk is like something out of Inspector Gadget. An incorporated Apple computer gets “deployed electronically through the desk top via a rack and pinion system.” When it is hidden, a group of louvers keeps the computer from overheating. Like a fine car, the desk is built using a chassis. But it’s the adjustable height desktop that steals the show. The mechanism that adjusts the height is a finely wrought system: “By magnifying the Type 59 Winfield carborattor synchronization quadrants, we have created the drive gears for the height adjustment, which are in turn driven by a worm gear activated by a crank handle.” How’s that for technology?

Via Just Luxe.

About the Manufacturer: Luzzo Bespoke manufactures furniture and lifestyle goods out of their facility in England. The company believes in “an exciting mix” of aesthetics and engineering. The design team, led by Alan Sawyer and Rakesh Chavda, creates pieces for clients throughout the globe. Besides furniture such as desks, chairs, and tables, Luzzo Bespoke also designs smaller objects such as writing boxes and game sets. They use a wide variety of materials, from traditional wood, glass, and leather to more innovative materials “from the motorsport and aerospace industries.”