Bikes, you might say, have gone bespoke.
The German auto maker Audi has presented its newest bicycle (link in Japanese), and it’s preposterously lightweight. The Audi Sport Racing Bike’s carbon fiber frame (made by the Japanese company Toray) weighs only 790 grams (1.74 pounds)—less than a Macbook Air. In total, with wheels, the whole bike weighs just 5.8 kilograms (12.78 pounds).
There is, of course, a catch. Audi is selling the bike at €17,500 ($19,450), which is roughly the price of a new low-cost automobile (Audi doesn’t sell a car that cheap, though). Even if you could fork over the cash, good luck finding one. The luxury car brand is producing just 50 of them, available by request only.
Audi first unveiled the bicycle at the Geneva Motor Show in March, before putting it on display in its showroom in Tokyo last week. The Wall Street Journal reports that at least one will go on sale in Japan soon (paywall).
Audi’s bike is the latest product in the trend of luxury carmakers offering made-to-order goods at extreme price tags. Rolls Royce has an entire line of bespoke models, including the Phantom Coupe, which fetches nearly $500,000. And in December, Aston Martin unveiled its latest car for the upcoming James Bond film Spectre, called the DB10. The company fittingly only manufactured 10 of them, and they have yet to be made to the public. But if and when they do, we can imagine they’ll cost a pretty penny.
Quartz reached out to Audi for comment, and we’ll update this story with any response.
Here are a few closeups of details of Audi’s new bike:
