Good to be King: Lewis Hamilton borrows TechArt Porsche for LA trip

Lewis Hamilton caught a plane headed west after dominating in Monaco, and when you're a rising F1 star in Los Angeles, you're certainly not going to hit up Avis to rent a Ford Focus – you want your vents to be functional. So Claus Ettensberger, owner of the So. Cal. tuning shop CEC, was kind enough to provide Hamilton with a fully-kitted Techart Porsche 997 911 during his stay in L.A. Granted, anything is kind of a demotion from his McLaren Formula One car, but we could think of worse ways for Hamilton to get around while mixing it up with L.A's elite.

New York 2008: Audi Forum hosts debut of Hunt Slomen custom-painted A5

Click above to view more high-res shots

This past Wedneday evening, the Audi Forum in New York City hosted a gala party attended by celebrities and the weary automotive press in town to cover the New York Auto Show. The beautiful people on hand included Tom Brady (celebrity status: A), Tyson Beckford (celebrity status: B), Will Arnett (celebrity status: A-), Denise Rich (celebrity status: ?) and members of the Gossip Girl cast (according to my fiance, celebrity status: better than Tom Brady). Though Autoblog was not in attendance (thus reducing the list of A list celebrities), Audi was kind enough to send us pics of the special A5 it revealed that night (and Tom Brady sitting in the R8 TDI Le Mans concept from the Geneva Motor Show). Custom-painted by New York artist Hunt Slomen, the coupe features a swath of art that flows from the car's hood and down across the driver-side door. The artwork is abstract, but we can make out white birds, which our single semester of Art History 101 tells us represents doves, which in turn represents peace. Or it could represent the jobless rate of carrier pigeons in this age of digital e-mail. The custom-painted A5 will be donated to Denise Rich's G&P Foundation for Cancer Research and auctioned after it tours the country for a bit.