Last year Australian born designer Marc Newson created 10 nickel plated surfboards as pieces of art and priced them at $100,000 each (so you're unlikely to see these things at your local surf shop!). You may think this is a little costly for a new stick, however nice and shiny it is, but get this, one of these boards came up for sale at Sotherby's in NYC on Feb 14th 2008 and sold for $220,000!! Is this the most expensive surfboard ever? and will the owner ever ride it?!
In fact these boards do work. They are five feet in length and designed as tow-in boards, polished to a mirror finish for minimal drag. In Autumn 2007 surfer Garrett McNamara rode one in Tahiti, only to wipe out and lost the board (oops); the next day he spotted someone carrying it down the beach 15 miles away. That board actually ended up being displayed hanging from the ceiling of Gagosian Gallery in New York, albeit a little dinged up!
Newson teamed up with the legendary Hawaii-based surfboard manufacturer Dick Brewer, who did the critical work of shaping the board then Newson covered it in nickel.
Surfers have always know that their boards are works of art and to have one that looks like a stealth weapon of some sort is pretty cool, but for nearly $1/4 million!? I think not
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