Walter de’Silva is best known for his work as head of the design team for Volkswagen Group – a.k.a. Audi, Bentley and Lamborghini. If you’re familiar with any of those brands which, by my guess you are, you can already appreciate Mr. de’Silva’s brilliance as a designer. The Italian visionary has produced some of the most creative and unique luxury designs the world has ever known. After teaming up with Leica, the world now has a new piece of de’Silva to enjoy – except it’s not a car, it’s a camera.
The limited-edition Leica M9 Titanium is quite simply the ‘baddest’ camera you can buy. Its faceplate, said to be where you will recognize the most of de’Silva’s influence, is covered in the same leather used in the Audi A8 and embossed with a diamond pattern to enhance grip. The outer casing is comprised of its namesake metal with a sapphire-crystal image display. Think Lamborghini suicide doors.
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One obvious difference between a standard M9 and the limited-edition is its special Titanium version of the Summilux- M 35mm f/1.4 ASPH lens. To make one-handed photo taking easier for you – which is how the cool kids do it – the Titanium M9 also includes side-mounted leather finger loops to keep your hand steady when snapping a one-handed shot. Other than that, this limited edition M9 has the full-frame image sensor, as does the flagship M9, capable of capturing images in as much as 18 megapixels of resolution.
How limited are these Titanium M9’s? There are only 500 across the globe –each individually numbered and will cost you about $26,000.
