Premium speaker designer Bowers & Wilkins has released many iterations of its sleek, somewhat airship-shaped (or even football-shaped, depending who you ask) Zeppelin speaker over the years. If you want to know just how long-running this speaker series goes, Yanko Design reviewed an early version of the infamous Zeppelin speaker designed as a dock for the very first iPod Touch. Now, Bowers & Wilkins has teamed up with the world-famous British luxury auto maker McLaren to design a special wireless Zeppelin speaker commemorating years of creating high-quality products together.
Donning a Galvanic Grey and Papaya Orange color scheme and McLaren branding, all meant as a throwback to the McLaren signature color, Papaya Orange – which was designated by McLaren designer Anna-Louise Clough in 1967 – this new Zeppelin speaker is actually one in a long series of collaborations between the two premium brands. Just in 2022, we took a look at the mouthwateringly cool B&W Px8 McLaren Edition headphones, which made us long for more joint product designs, especially considering the fact that McLaren has leaned on Bowers & Wilkins to design stock audio systems in newly manufactured McLaren supercars since 2015.
Designer: Bowers & Wilkins and McLaren
The aptly-titled Zeppelin McLaren Edition is a gorgeous collector’s item, priced at $899 and – unfortunately for most collectors – it sounds like only 60 units will ever get manufactured and sold. That’s because the speaker design is meant to commemorate the 60 year anniversary of McLaren itself. Technically it’s been on store shelves since yesterday, and though it’s still “available” for purchase from the official B&W website, it may be too late for most.
Fortunately, you can still buy a regular Zeppelin wireless smart speaker from the official website for $799, and it contains all of the same internals; its “Double Dome tweeters, FST midrange drivers, and powerful subwoofer” are advertised to produce a 24-bit audio resolution, meaning it can reproduce audio with incredible crispness and clearness, especially when you play analog or lossless audio through it. It also features support for AirPlay 2 and Bluetooth aptX Adaptive, and includes onboard apps for Spotify Connect, Deezer, Last.FM, and many other popular streaming services.
The Zeppelin McLaren Edition is available today, for however long that lasts. It’s not exactly clear if they’re going to draw randomly from the total list of customers who purchased through the online store. Though it’s worth estimating that, unless you were one of the lucky few to already get yours, you may be looking for yours on Ebay or Craigslist at a much, much higher price.
