British coachbuilder Ant-Kahn previews retro roadster and Flying Huntsman 4×4

By Andrew Hard Published July 11, 2014

Ant-Kahn may sound like a character from a Marvel flick, but it’s actually the name of a U.K.-based coachbuilder that launched this week.

On one side is Afzal Kahn, a British automotive fashion designer and businessman. Kahn founded Kahn Design, a customizing firm that specializes in enhancing vehicle aesthetics with custom interiors, aerodynamics, and alloys. His vehicles have appeared in Hollywood Blockbusters like Edge of Tomorrow and is known for his axiom, “The road is my catwalk.”

On the other side is Ant Anstead, Managing Director for Evanta Motor Co. Evanta builds bespoke clones of classic British sports cars, so these two minds together will surely create some collaborative genius.

“We are already working on exciting future plans that extend from coach-built special editions to series manufacture of motor vehicles, and you will see a number of models come to fruition in the coming weeks and months” explained Afzal Kahn.

“Together, we are dedicated to continuing and building upon the historical excellence of British vehicle manufacture and the traditions of hand finished coach building are at the heart of the company’s ethos,” continued Anstead.

Ant-Kahn’s first project will be the Land Rover-based Flying Huntsman. The longnose Huntsman features an additional 15 inches of bodywork, and Kahn is calling it “probably the fastest Land Rover on the planet.” It comes with 550-horsepower V8 engine, all-wheel drive, and an electronic six-speed gearbox, so he might be right.

Getting the biggest buzz, however, is the upcoming retro roadster from Ant-Kahn. Unlike Ant-Kahn’s other planned vehicles, the currently unnamed roadster will be not based on a production vehicle; Ant-Kahn plans to build the curvy drop-top from the ground up.

Despite its homegrown conception, the sporty roadster has elements of memorable oldies like the Jaguar D-Type, Aston Martin DBR1, and Ferrari 250 GT in its bodywork, so it will surely hit home with the classics crowd. Only 20 will be made, and power will come from a 450-hp LS3 V8.

Ant-Kahn is also planning a restyled version of the Aston Martin WB12, a tweaked version of the Vanquish, and it’s due later this year.

Topics

Photo Galleries

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Andrew first started writing in middle school and hasn't put the pen down since. Whether it's technology, music, sports, or…

Cars

Audi halts vehicle deliveries to the U.S. as it mulls impact of tariffs

2021 Audi Q5

If you’d been thinking of buying an Audi, now might be the time. The German brand, owned by the Volkswagen Group, has announced it would halt shipments to the U.S. in the wake of President Donald Trump’s 25% tariffs on all imported vehicles.
Audi is currently holding cars that arrived after the tariffs took effect, on April 3, in U.S. ports. But it still has around 37,000 vehicles in its U.S. inventory, which should be able to meet demand for about two months, according to Reuters.
Automakers on average hold enough cars to meet U.S. demand for about three months, according to Cox Automotive.
Audi should be particularly affected by the tariffs: The Q5, its best-selling model in the U.S., is produced in Mexico, while other models, such as the A3, A4, and A6 are produced in Germany.
Holding shipments is obviously a temporary measure to buy time for Audi and parent company Volkswagen. If tariffs stay in place, vehicle prices would likely have to go up accordingly, unless some production is shifted to the U.S. Volkswagen already has a plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and is planning a new plant in South Carolina. That latter plant, however, isn’t expected to be operational until 2027 and is currently dedicated to building electric vehicles for VW’s Scout Motors brand.
Other global automakers have also taken drastic measures in response to Trump’s tariffs. Jaguar Land Rover on April 5 said it is pausing shipments of its its UK-made cars to the United States this month. The British sports-luxury vehicle maker noted that the U.S. market accounts for nearly a quarter of its global sales, led by the likes of Range Rover Sports, Defenders, and Jaguar F-PACE.
And on April 3, Nissan, the biggest Japanese vehicle exporter to the United States, announced it will stop taking new U.S. orders for two Mexican-built Infiniti SUVs, the QX50 and QX55.

Cars

Waymo faces questions about its use of onboard cameras for AI training, ads targeting

Two people exit a Waymo taxi.

In an iconic scene from the 2002 sci-fi film Minority Report, on-the-run Agent John Anderton, played by Tom Cruise, struggles to walk through a mall as he’s targeted by a multitude of personalized ads from the likes of Lexus, Guinness and American Express, everytime hidden detectors identify his eyes.
It was clearly meant as a warning about a not-so-desirable dystopian future.
Yet, 23 years later that future is at least partlially here in the online world and threatens to spread to other areas of daily life which are increasingly ‘connected’, such as the inside of cars. And the new testing grounds, according to online security researcher Jane Manchun Wong, might very well be automated-driving vehicles, such as Waymo’s robotaxis.
On X, Wong unveiled an unreleased version of Waymo’s privacy policy that suggests the California-based company is preparing to use data from its robotaxis, including interior cameras, to train generative AI models and to offer targetted ads.
“Waymo may share data to improve and analyze its functionality and to tailor products, services, ads, and offers to your interests,” the Waymo’s unreleased privacy statement reads. “You can opt out of sharing your information with third parties, unless it’s necessary to the functioning of the service.”
Asked for comments about the unreleased app update, Waymo told The Verge that it contained “placeholder text that doesn’t accurately reflect the feature’s purpose”.
Waymo’s AI-models “are not designed to use this data to identify individual people, and there are no plans to use this data for targeted ads,” spokesperson Julia Ilina said.
Waymo’s robotaxis, which are operating on the streets of San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix and Austin, do contain onboard cameras that monitor riders. But Ilina says these are mainly used to train AI models for safety, finding lost items, check that in-car rules are followed, and to improve the service.
The new feature is still under development and offers riders an opportunity to opt out of data collection, Ilina says.
But as we all get used to ads targeting based on everything that’s somehow connected to the web, it seems a once-distant vision of the future may be just around the corner.

Cars

Waymo’s driverless cars are about to begin an overseas adventure

Waymo Jaguar I-Pace

Waymo’s autonomous cars are about to appear on streets outside of the U.S. for the first time.

The company on Wednesday announced on social media that its autonomous cars will be driving onto the streets of Tokyo, Japan, “soon,” with some reports suggesting the rollout will begin as early as next week.