The avant-garde super-yacht designed by famed British architect Lord Norman Foster for UK fractional ownership firm YachtPlus is nearing completion and should be available next month. My colleague Deidre Woollard first reported on the luxurious project last year. The high-tech 132-ft. Foster-designed "Signature Series" craft is the first in YachtPlus' fleet, each of which will have eight owners at a share price of about $2 million each, bringing the total cost to about $16 million. Construction on the flagship steel-jacketed vessel is in its final phase at the state-of-the-art Rodriquez Cantieri Navali (RCN) shipyard in Italy. Aside from it's eye-popping design, the company claims Foster's yacht offers more deck space, interior comfort and glass surfaces than any equivalent craft of her size.

Forbes has just released its annual list of the world's highest-paid rappers, and Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson has catapulted to the #1 spot with $150 million in earnings over the past 12 months - more than double that of rival Jay-Z at No. 2.

When Forbes inaugurated the Hip-Hop's Cash Kings list last year, Jay-Z was firmly at the top. But 50 raked in over $100 million after taxes on a single deal earlier this year, the mag notes, when his stake in Glacéau (parent co. of VitaminWater) was bought by Coca-Cola as part of a $4.1 billion takeover.

This isn't to say that Jay-Z's doing badly; he recently signed a 10-year deal with concert promoter Live Nation worth $150 million. Meanwhile, Sean "Diddy" Combs and Kanye West clocked in at Nos. 3 and 4 with $35 million and $30 million respectively.

A rare 1937 Bugatti Type 57SC Atalante Coupe sold for $7.92 million at Gooding & Co.'s auto auction (that we recently reported on) during the annual Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance in California over the weekend - the highest price ever paid for an automobile at auction in the U.S.A. The car was part of the Dr. Peter and Susan Williamson Collection, billed as the world's finest assemblage of Bugattis, several of which fetched high prices at the sale. The next highest price at the Gooding & Co. event was a 1950 Ferrari 166 MM Berlinetta Le Mans, which fetched $2.2 million. Meanwhile, at RM Auctions' similar sale during the classic car event, which we told you about earlier this month, a 1961 Ferrari 250GT SWB Berlinetta brought in an impressive $4.5 million.

The folks at the beloved Bruichladdich Scotch distillery on Islay just powered a racecar from 0-60 in 3.5 seconds on a tank full of of its X4 Scotch, billed as the most alcoholic single malt ever made. The car, a British-made Radical SR4 (above), was driven by Top Gear's James May and wine expert Oz Clarke for a segment on their upcoming BBC series Oz and James' Great British Adventure. The clear 180-proof quadruple-distilled spirit, which required no engine modification, produced 200 bhp, only 5 less than ordinary gasoline - but at about $200 a gallon it's a pretty pricey biofuel. A lower proof version of the X4 will go on sale (for drinking, not driving) in the fall. You can see a video of the run here.

[via Men.Style]

Golf legend Tiger Woods is on track to become the world's first billionaire athlete, a goal he should reach in a few short years at his current rate of income. Woods' career earnings will hit the $1 billion mark by 2010, Forbes reports, but given the taxes and management fees he has to pay, it will take another year for his net worth to catch up.

In 2007 alone, the mag estimates Woods earned $115 million, $65 million more than the second highest paid athlete, David Beckham. While several billionaires over the years have been world-class athletes, none has ever earned their fortune solely from a career playing sports before Woods. Of course, most of his wealth comes from endorsement deals as prize money accounts for only one-tenth of his earnings.

This summer, luxury charter service V1 Jets opened up its seaplane service from Manhattan to the Hamptons (formerly reserved for members) to anyone with the price of a ticket, and it's proved to be very popular with the gliteratti. The 40 minute trip on an 8-passenger Cessna, which costs $495 one-way, has been taken by the likes of models Adriana Lima and Petra Nemcova, actors Pierce Brosnan and Jeremy Piven, and mogul Barry Diller. V1 Jets was founded in 2003 by hedge fund manager Andrew Zarrow who envisioned a way to utilize the excessive amount of "dead legs" created by private aircraft returning empty after delivering clients to their destinations, saving money and resources in the process.

Last month we reported that top fashion brands were once again bringing back the supermodels of the 1990s to star in new fall ad campaigns for the likes of Prada, Chanel, Yves Saint Laurent and Louis Vuitton.

Vanity Fair has now picked up on the trend, with an eight page story in the new September issue and a photo shoot by Mario Testino (right) featuring Cindy Crawford, Stephanie Seymour, Christy Turlington, Linda Evangelista, Claudia Schiffer and Naomi Campbell.

Though they're all obviously in great shape, Testino somehow makes Seymour look as if she's made entirely of plastic, while the gorgeous Schiffer looks more like a hausfrau than a supermodel. Perhaps the lighting and make-up is to blame. The shoot was originally rumored to be for the magazine's cover, but we can see why they went with Carla Bruni instead.

In our post on the new book Havana Before Castro the other day we reminisced about Cuba before the infamous dictator ruined everyone's fun. Among the many moronic moves Castro made was expelling Matusalem from the island in the '60s, a smooth, rich rum that had been distilled there by a family of Spanish settlers since 1872.

Following the expulsion the company languished for several decades, until it was finally re-established in the Dominican Republic (as were several Cuban cigar brands) using the original secret formula brought from Spain. Today, Matusalem is flourishing once again, with its delectable blend of smooth spirit matured in French oak casks bottled as Matusalem Gran Reserva.

The rum is made using the solera system, which was originally developed to produce Spain's famed wine, sherries, brandies, and cognacs, producing a blend that's somewhere between dark and amber.

A legendary prototype sportscar that helped shaped the future of Jaguar was auctioned off at Bonhams & Butterfields' Quail Lodge Sale in California on Friday for just under $5 million, setting a new world record. Bids for the 1960 E2A (above), often called the "missing link" between the marque's classic D-Type and E-Type models, had been expected to reach up to $7 million in what has lately been a heated market for multimillion dollar automotive classics.

Raced by some of the world's top drivers at Le Mans and elsewhere, the beautiful car had an historic win in August of 1960 at Bridgehampton, NY, beating out a Maserati Birdcage. James Knight, International Head of Bonhams' motoring department, called the E2A "one of the most charismatic and significant prototypes ever produced anywhere." And $5 million - now the highest price ever paid for a Jaguar at auction - isn't too shabby.

Leonardo DiCaprio's gorgeous Israeli model girlfriend Bar Refaeli appears in the ad campaign for Sean Combs' modestly-named new fragrance, "I Am King." The pix (above) portray Puffy (or Diddy or whatever he's calling himself this week) tooling around in Saint-Tropez and Monaco on helicopters, yachts and so forth with Refaeli (left) and another model in typical mega-mogul fashion. New York magazine reports the new cologne will launch exclusively at Macy's in December with a global launch set for February, and a women's fragrance ("I Am Queen") to follow in 2009; global sales are expected to total $100 million in the first year alone.

Drinking, if done well and stylishly, can lead to literary inspiration. Or at least not impede it too much. Take that great chronicler of wealth and society F. Scott Fitzgerald, for instance, whose 112th birthday is about to be celebrated; some of his best work was clearly done under the influence. Just look at Tender Is the Night (1934). Of course the intemperate author, left entirely to his own devices, might have been less poetical in his consumption of alcohol and thereby rendered a less perfect work of art. But his great friends, patrons and mentors Gerald and Sara Murphy, upon whom Tender Is the Night is based, showed him how to do the thing properly.

The beautiful, rich and clever Murphys, central figures of expatriate social and cultural life of the Jazz Age in France, held court at their villa on the French Riviera in Antibes - this was long before the Russian billionaires arrived, before there even was such a thing in fact - and dispensed cocktails at the dazzling dinner parties immortalized in the book. Gerald tried to limit his guests' consumption of same in order to prevent the gatherings from devolving into total inebriation, though Fitzgerald usually managed to down more than his fair share. This often led to breakages, shouting matches and even suicide attempts, proving Murphy right.

The Fitzgeralds of course, were legendary boozers. When they later lived in shabby gentility in Great Neck, Long Island, they would drive back and forth to Manhattan for binges in a second-hand Rolls-Royce. Their houseboy would frequently find them passed out on the lawn in the morning, the car more or less in the driveway. For Murphy, however, drink-making was a stylish ritual imparted by his father, owner of the Mark Cross luxury goods company.

Oleg Deripaska (right), 40, the richest man in Russia with a fortune of $28 billion and the 9th richest man in world (Luxist fave Roman Abramovich is #15), has reportedly held talks with General Motors about acquiring their beleaguered Hummer division.

As my colleague Deidre Woollard reported last month, Hummer is in financial trouble in the wake of the oil and gas price explosion, with sales of the SUV having tumbled some 40 percent through June. Ailing GM has announced plans to unload the brand, and Deripaska, whose company Russian Machines recently acquired a major stake in Canadian auto parts manufacturer Magna International, is a natural buyer.

In the wake of the reports, Russian Machines issued a statement saying it was "not strategically interested in such a deal", which sounds to us like a non-denial denial. We would hardly expect him to invite counter-offers by publicizing a planned acquisition before the deal is signed. This past New Year's Eve Deripaska paid Barbadian signer Rihanna $500,000 for a private 40 minute performance for his friends.

The mysterious billionaire who just bought the world's most expensive house - the $750 million Villa Leopolda (above) on the French Riviera - is none other than controversial Russian precious metals mogul Mikhail Prokhorov, the AFP reports. Luxist readers may remember Prokhorov as the over-the-top tycoon who announced plans in April to spend $150 million launching a magazine for snobs in Russia, called simply Snob. Prokhorov is ranked as the 24th richest man in the world with a $22 billion fortune. Some earlier reports had erroneously identified the villa's buyer as Roman Abramovich. Last year Prokhorov was briefly detained during an investigation into a suspected prostitution ring at the ritzy ski resort he frequents in the French Alps.

This weekend, Gooding & Company is staging a multimillion dollar auto auction during the 58th annual Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance in Carmel, CA. Among the stunning cars on offer is the world's finest collection of Bugattis, including a 1937 Type 57SC Atalante Coupe, which is expected to fetch over $4 million. Another star attraction is a 1959 Ferrari 250 GT California Spider, originally owned by H.R.H. Prince Vittorio Emanuele de Savoia, the last prince of Italy. Both that car and the beautiful model pictured above, a rare 1957 Ferrari 500 TRC, are expected to fetch in excess of $3 million. Also on offer is Steve McQueen's 1976 Porsche 930 Turbo Carrera, the actor's personal car for several years, a relative steal with an est. of only $125,000 - $175,000.

In November, London-based auction house Christie's will hold their first wine auction in Asia since 2001, featuring a landmark collection of 140 years worth of Latour sourced directly from the Château cellars.

The first Château-sourced collection of the fabled Bordeaux ever to be sold in Asia will go on the block Nov. 29 in Hong Kong; the 150 Latour lots, including magnums and large format bottles from a wide range of vintages dating from 1865 - 2005, are expected to fetch over $1.5 million total.

One of the top prizes is a 1900 magnum estimated at $18,000 - $24,000. Christie's already has a strong showing in Hong Kong with art and antique auctions bringing in over $300 million in Spring 2008, the highest total ever achieved for an Asian season.