Dubai: Alexandre Danton of Danton Arts Kustoms has been modifying cars for nearly two decades at his chateau in France. He specialises in building hot rods, and his work includes a 1971 Porsche 911T with its original engine swapped for a 6.75-litre Bentley V8 engine, and a 1970 Lamborghini Espada powered by a new V12 engine from Sant’Agata Bolognese.
While Danton’s creations are all decidedly modern, he has relied on traditional platforms such as auto show floors and auction houses to get his ware out to his target audience. With the onset of the pandemic, these conventional avenues suddenly dried up, and that’s when Eric Favre, with whom he has partnered since 2014, stepped in.
Favre, who made his fortune in the food supplements business, set up EFAE, or Eric Favre Art Editions, which is a digital gallery of art that houses installations from artists and give them a platform to showcase and sell their work in the metaverse. He collaborated with Dubai-based entrepreneur Christopher Quet, co-founder and CEO at metaverse platform V-verse and partner at ericfavre.io.
While the original NFT of the Rolls-Royce will be reserved for the person that buys the real-world car, serving as a certificate of authenticity and ownership, there are 10,000 other NFTs of the car available for purchase on the NFT marketplace ericfavre.io.
Heavy on the customising
“It has always been my dream to customise a Rolls-Royce,” said Danton. “Thanks to Eric, I was able to realise that dream and also now I am able to show it to an unprecedented number of people around the world.” The custom-car Danton created, a heavily modified Rolls-Royce Phantom, was first displayed in Dubai at the Gulf News Web 3.0 Decode event last weekend.
“It has always been Alexandre’s dream to modify a Rolls-Royce, and mine was to enter the world of NFTs, so this helped both of us achieve our dreams,” said Favre. “You can’t have a better product that a Rolls-Royce Phantom to make your debut into NFTs.”
The Eric Favre Arts Editions is a collection of physical artworks, and the purpose of the incubator is to bring these and their creators to the digital era. Christopher Quet of V-verse explains how they plan to merge the old world and the new with their new venture, and how traditional artists could benefit from this platform.
“The whole purpose of this platform is to support traditional artists with great projects and to give them the platform they deserve and bring them to this era.”
The V-verse platform, which had its soft launch yesterday in Dubai, will be officially launched on September 29. A month-long ‘festival’ will be organised in the V-verse. The first week will be dedicated to the tourism and travel industries, the second will be on e-commerce, the third about social media, and the fourth week will focus on gaming.
