Somebody had to say it.

Actually, loads of people have probably said it.

But we’re saying it again.

Because that’s sort of our thing.

A Ferrari 250 GTO is art.

A Jaguar E-Type is art.

A Porsche 911 is art.

A Ford Escort RS Cosworth with that ridiculous whale-tail spoiler is definitely art.

And before anybody starts banging on about emissions, practicality or how many bags of shopping you can get in the boot, that’s not the point.

Nobody looks at a Picasso and asks what its MPG is.

SOMEBODY DREW IT FIRST.

That’s the bit we love.

Before the metal.

Before the engine.

Before the smell of petrol, hot brakes and whatever questionable aftershave you were wearing in 1996.

There was a drawing.

A line on a piece of paper.

An engineer hunched over a drawing board trying to work out where everything went.

Wheelbase.

Track width.

Suspension geometry.

Engine position.

Body profile.

Thousands of measurements.

Thousands of decisions.

And somewhere amongst all that engineering, something else happened.

It became beautiful.

Not because somebody stuck it in a gallery and told us it was.

Because somebody got the proportions absolutely bloody right.

LOOK AT AN E-TYPE.

Seriously.

Look at one.

That bonnet goes on for approximately three postcodes.

The cabin sits miles back.

Tiny chrome bumpers.

Wire wheels.

Everything about it looks slightly unreasonable.

Which is precisely why it’s magnificent.

Enzo Ferrari is famously reported to have described the E-Type as the most beautiful car ever made.

Whether he said those exact words has been debated over the years.

Doesn’t really matter.

Look at the thing.

Case closed.

THEN THERE’S THE OTHER KIND OF BEAUTIFUL.

Because we’re not only interested in exotic cars.

Far from it.

Give us an old Ford.

A Mini.

An original Land Rover.

A battered Volkswagen.

A Peugeot 205 GTI.

Something your dad had.

Something your mate’s older brother had.

Something you saw tearing down Deansgate when you were seventeen and thought:

One day.

That’s different.

That’s memory.

And memory has a funny way of turning machines into something much bigger than steel, rubber and glass.

You remember the dashboard.

The seats.

The noise.

The registration plate.

The cassette that was playing.

Where you were going.

Who was sitting next to you.

Sometimes even the smell.

Try getting that from a bowl of fruit painted in 1873.

MANCHESTER UNDERSTANDS MACHINES.

We should.

We’ve been surrounded by the things long enough.

This city was built on machinery.

Cotton mills.

Steam engines.

Factories.

Warehouses.

Engineering.

Things designed to work hard rather than look pretty.

But there’s beauty in that.

Gears.

Bolts.

Technical drawings.

Measurements.

Handwritten annotations.

Cutaway diagrams showing you bits you were never supposed to see.

That’s the stuff we love.

Because the drawing underneath a machine can sometimes be every bit as interesting as the finished thing.

Maybe more interesting.

It shows you the thinking.

AND THAT’S WHERE ORIGINALAGAIN COMES IN.

We’re taking those lines, drawings, specifications, machines and memories and turning them into something else.

Not because we think a car belongs on a wall instead of a road.

It belongs on both.

We’re interested in the engineering drawing as much as the finished machine.

The imperfections.

The details.

The numbers.

The shape.

The story.

Take something familiar.

Strip it back.

Mess with it.

Put something of ourselves into it.

Make it original.

Again.

ART DOESN’T HAVE TO BE SERIOUS.

This might be the important bit.

Somewhere along the way, art became something you’re apparently supposed to understand.

We disagree.

You don’t need a degree.

You don’t need somebody standing next to you explaining what the artist was feeling when they painted it.

Sometimes you just look at something and think:

That’s fucking brilliant.

Good enough for us.

And if the thing that makes you feel that way happens to have four wheels, a ridiculous spoiler and an engine designed by someone who probably smoked forty cigarettes a day over a drawing board…

Even better.

Cars are art.

We won’t be taking questions.

OriginalAgain

Artwork With Attitude.

Manchester, England.