The $1.6 Million Australian Coupe Built for the Driven
Hand-built in Melbourne and limited to just 10 cars a year, the Zeigler/Bailey Z/B 4.4 is reshaping what a modern collector car can be.
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In a quiet workshop in inner city Melbourne, one of the most ambitious performance cars in Australia is being built by hand.
Limited to just 10 cars a year and priced at $1.6 million, the Zeigler/Bailey Z/B 4.4 is not designed to chase mass appeal.
It is built for a very specific kind of driver. One who wants feel over flash, engineering over hype, and a car with soul as well as speed.
The Z/B 4.4 takes visual cues from the classic air-cooled Porsche era of the late 1970s and 80s, but beneath the familiar silhouette sits an entirely new platform.
Rather than restoring or lightly modifying an old chassis, the team has replaced the floor and structure with a clean-sheet, motorsport-bred tub, engineered to modern Australian safety standards and designed to work in both right- and left-hand drive.
The result is a car that looks nostalgic, but behaves like a thoroughly modern performance machine.
Power comes from a bespoke 4.4-litre air-cooled flat-six engine, designed and assembled in-house and machined from solid aluminium billet.
With 300 kilowatts of power and 500 Newton-metres of torque, its output slightly surpasses that of today’s Porsche 911 Carrera, while retaining the raw sound and character of classic air-cooled engineering.
Much of the car’s suspension architecture is inspired by Le Mans prototype racing, with push-rod actuated dampers and a multi-link rear system designed to deliver both comfort and precision.
The electronics have also been built from scratch, using a solid-state CAN-bus architecture that allows for digital instrumentation, remote diagnostics and ongoing software updates.
Every Z/B 4.4 begins life as a donor Porsche 911 from the 1975 to 1989 G-series era. From there, almost everything mechanical, structural and electronic is reimagined. More than 3,500 bespoke parts go into each finished car.
Despite the engineering depth, this is not a track-only machine.
Owners are involved in the personalisation of colour, trim and finishes, with many choosing to take part in selected phases of the build itself. Seating, ride settings, digital displays and even engine tuning can all be adjusted to suit the driver.
Behind the project are entrepreneur and Porsche collector John Zeigler Jr and automotive engineer Greg Bailey.
Together, they have created not just a car, but a global low-volume manufacturing model, using advanced CNC machining and 3D printing to produce parts that would once have been impossible to fabricate locally.
The business now employs a specialised team of designers, engineers and assemblers, and has plans to scale internationally through engines, components and licensed assembly.
For collectors, the appeal is as much about rarity as performance. Only 10 cars a year will be built for the Australian market. Six are already sold. Delivery from order is about 12 months.
In a world where hypercars increasingly blur into one another, the Z/B 4.4 stands apart as something deeply personal and proudly Australian. It is not designed to dominate social media feeds or sit under velvet ropes. It is designed to be driven.
As the creators like to say, you do not buy cool. You build it.
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For affluent homeowners, the laundry is no longer a utility space. It’s becoming a performance-driven investment in hygiene, longevity and seamless living.
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In high-end homes, the most telling upgrades are no longer the obvious ones.
It’s not just the marble in the kitchen or the view from the terrace. Increasingly, it’s the rooms you don’t see, and how well they actually work.
The laundry is a perfect example.
Once treated as a purely functional space, it is now being reconsidered by architects and homeowners alike as a zone where performance, hygiene and design need to align.
And for buyers operating at the top end of the market, that shift is less about aesthetics and more about control.
Because in a home where everything is curated, inefficiency stands out.
ASKO’s latest “Laundry Care 2.0” range leans directly into that mindset, positioning the laundry as a long-term investment rather than a basic appliance purchase.
Built on more than 75 years of engineering, the Scandinavian brand’s latest systems focus on durability, precision and what is becoming a defining luxury in modern homes: quiet.
One of the more telling innovations is something most buyers would never think to question until it fails.
Traditional washing machines rely on rubber seals that trap dirt and bacteria over time. ASKO replaces that entirely with a steel solution designed to maintain a cleaner, more hygienic drum.
It’s not a headline feature. But it is exactly the kind of detail buyers tend to notice.
Then there is the issue of noise.
As open-plan living has become standard in prestige homes, the background hum of appliances has gone from unnoticed to intrusive.
ASKO’s suspension system is engineered to minimise vibration almost entirely, allowing machines to run without disrupting the wider home environment.
In practical terms, that means a load can run late at night without carrying through the house. In lifestyle terms, it means the home functions as intended.
The same thinking extends to the drying process. Uneven loads, tangled fabrics and repeat cycles are treated as inefficiencies rather than inconveniences, with technology designed to keep garments moving evenly and reduce wear over time.
For buyers, this is where the value proposition sharpens.
It is not about having more features. It is about removing friction.
Less maintenance. Less noise. Less time spent correcting what should have worked the first time.
In that sense, modern laundry is no longer just a utility. It is a reflection of how a home performs behind the scenes, and whether it lives up to the expectations set by everything else.
Because at this level, luxury is not just what you see.
It is what you don’t have to think about.
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