James Kon

Member of global sensation Korea girl band Blackpink Jennie Kim, known simply as Jennie, has her very own personal Porsche Taycan, built based on the Taycan 4S Cross Turismo.

Jennie’s latest luxury car from Porsche is part of the Sonderwunsch programme in collaboration with Porsche Korea. The programme, from the late 70s, makes it possible to design individualised one-off cars in future that are co-created by the customer and realised professionally by Porsche.

The Blackpink member when sharing the experience of designing her own car said, “Being able to collaborate so intensively on my own very personal Porsche was an amazing experience.

“I’m especially proud of having designed the visualisation of the clouds,” she continued.

“I spend a lot of time travelling around the world – the sky and the clouds are my travelling companions and a beautiful symbol of these unique experiences.

“This is why I feel a special connection to them and am so passionate about photographing these nature motifs.”

According to Vice President, Individualisation and Classic at Porsche Alexander Fabig, “Jennie had very specific images of her dream Porsche.

“Working together with international customers on these special projects is particularly exciting and enriching. In this case we were also faced with interesting challenges that motivated us as a team to be able to make even the most creative wishes come true.”

He recalled, “In a digital workshop that ran for several hours, the experts on the Sonderwunsch team at Porsche Exclusive Manufaktur and the Style Porsche design department worked together with the artiste to work out all the details of the Taycan 4S Cross Turismo.

The car was customised in the Sonderwunsch department of the Porsche Exclusive Manufaktur workshop in Stuttgart-Zuffenhausen.

Grant Larson has been with Style Porsche since 1989, and as project manager for special projects. He is responsible for Sonderwunsch work within the design department. Larson said, “As an artiste, Jennie is used to creative collaborations. She brought a mood board to our meeting that visualised the initial ideas and reflected their reception.”

Meanwhile, Chief Executive Officer of Porsche Korea Holger Gerrmann said, “It was an exciting experience working with Jennie on Porsche Korea’s first Sonderwunsch project. She is an influential global icon that represents a generation of young and creative opinion leaders and the ‘Generation Z’ in Korea.

“I was impressed by her commitment and ideas, which went into her very personal Porsche,” he added. “With the new Sonderwunsch programme, we are pursuing the goal of enabling people with very different lifestyles to make their dream of the perfect sports car come true.”

In 2021, Porsche delivered 8,425 cars in South Korea – up seven per cent on the previous year.

The Taycan, launched there at the end of 2020, was one of the success factors. With 1,288 units in 2021, the electric sports car had already jumped to second place behind the Cayenne (3,480 units).

While the mid-engine 718 series was comparatively slow with 632 deliveries, this was still an increase of 30 per cent for South Korea.

Among the personal features of Jennie’s Taycan are discreet highlights in ‘Paint to Sample’ Meissenblue in the exterior and the interior, as well as a ‘Jennie Ruby Jane’ logo that Jennie created herself.

Painted in a metallic black, the car is named ‘Taycan 4S Cross Turismo for Jennie Ruby Jane’.

The Sonderwunsch model will be presented at the Sonderwunsch Haus with the start of Blackpink’s world tour in Seoul.

Understatement was deliberately chosen for the exterior of the Taycan. Contrasting with the metallic black finish, the 21-inch exclusive design rims are painted in Meissenblue.

The ‘Electric’ lettering on the driver’s door, the model name on the rear and the cloud logos on the B-pillars are all in this special blue from the ‘Paint to Sample’ programme.

The front door entry guards carry illuminated ‘Jennie Ruby Jane’ lettering, with her nickname ‘NiNi’ seen in the rear doors.

In accordance with Jennie’s wishes, the Porsche typography of the current 911 generation (Type 992) was used. The logo projector in the front doors projects the clouds onto the ground beside the car.

The name of the artist and ‘Sonderwunsch’ appear on the wheel hub covers.

In the interior, the combination of Black, Crayon and Meissenblue creates an elegant ambience. Only the seats and the top part of the dashboard are in Crayon.

Meissenblue accents the door panel trim, the borders of the air vents, the cup holders and the top centre marking of the steering wheel rim. The headrests are adorned with the clouds designed by Jennie. A special indoor car cover was also created with this personal touch.

NEW YORK (AP) – A new study suggests Neanderthals formed small, tightknit communities where females may have travelled to move in with their mates.

The research used genetic sleuthing to offer a rare snapshot of Neanderthal family dynamics – including a father and his teenage daughter who lived together in Siberia more than 50,000 years ago.

Researchers were able to pull DNA out of tiny bone fragments found in two Russian caves.

In their study, published on Wednesday in the journal Nature, they used the genetic data to map out relationships between 13 different Neanderthals and get clues to how they lived.

“When I work on a bone or two, it’s very easy to forget that these are actually people with their own lives and stories,” said University of Toronto anthropologist and study’s author Bence Viola.

“Figuring out how they’re related to each other really makes them much more human.”

Our ancient cousins, the Neanderthals, lived across Europe and Asia for hundreds of thousands of years.

They died out around 40,000 years ago, shortly after our species, the Homo sapiens, arrived in Europe from Africa.

Scientists have only recently been able to dig around in these early humans’ DNA. New Nobel laureate Svante Paabo – who is an author on this latest study – published the first draft of a Neanderthal genome a little over a decade ago.

Since then, scientists have sequenced 18 Neanderthal genomes, said Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology geneticist and lead author Laurits Skov. But it’s rare to find bones from multiple Neanderthals from the same time and place, he said – which is why these cave discoveries were so special.

“If there was ever a chance to find a Neanderthal community, this would be it,” Skov said.

The caves, located in remote foothills above a river valley, have been a rich source of materials from stone tools to fossil fragments, Viola said. With their prime view of migrating herds in the valley below, researchers think the caves might have served as a short-term hunting stop for Neanderthals.

Archaeologists excavating the caves have found remains from at least a dozen different Neanderthals, Viola said. These remains usually come in small bits and pieces – “a finger bone here, a tooth there” – but they’re enough for scientists to extract valuable DNA details.

The researchers were able to identify a couple of relatives among the group. Along with the father and daughter, there was a pair of other relatives – maybe a boy and his aunt, or a couple of cousins.

Overall, the analysis found that everyone in the group had a lot of DNA in common.

That suggests that at least in this area, Neanderthals lived in very small communities of 10 to 20 individuals, the authors concluded.

But not everyone in these groups stayed put, according to the study.

Researchers looked at other genetic clues from mitochondrial DNA, which is passed down on the mother’s side, and the Y chromosome, which is passed down on the father’s side.

The female side showed more genetic differences than the male side – which means females may have moved around more, Skov said. It’s possible that when a female Neanderthal found a mate, she would leave home to live with his family.

University of Wisconsin anthropologist John Hawks, who was not involved in the study, said the research was an exciting application of ancient DNA evidence, even as many questions remain about Neanderthal social structures and lifestyles.

Figuring out how early humans lived is like “putting together a puzzle where we have many, many missing pieces”, Hawks said. But this study means “somebody’s dumped a bunch more pieces on the table”.