Few companies manage to walk the fine line between nostalgia and kitsch. Oilstainlab from Signal Hill, California, is one of them. This summer, their Half-11 returns to Europe, and this time it's heading to the continent. The already striking machine arrives in an entirely new guise for what the studio calls the "Euro-Vision" Summer Tour.
For the occasion, Oilstainlab has partnered with automotive supplier Delphi, a subbrand of PHINA Inc., to create a one-off art car that is bound to command a lot of attention at every stop on the tour. Described as a neo-digital remix, the livery draws inspiration from the iconic art cars of previous decades, paying tribute to the pioneers who shaped the intersection of art, design and motorsport.
The result is unmistakably psychedelic, and the historical reference practically suggests itself: the Porsche 917-043, whose legendary hippie livery at the 1970 24 Hours of Le Mans was the work of none other than Anatole Lapine, Porsche's chief designer at the time. The Half-11 also wears the distinctive Tutto Bene logo on its roof, a nod to the tour's closing event. It was at Tutto Bene last year that Delphi presented its first art car, an Alpine A110 Rally GT+ wearing a bespoke livery created especially for the hillclimb.
The Euro-Vision Tour kicks off at Ultrace, the custom car festival in Gdańsk, Poland, on June 27 and 28, before heading to the HEIZR Racing Dept track day at Hockenheimring on July 4. The tour concludes at the exclusive Tutto Bene event on the slopes of Mottarone in the Italian Piedmont on September 12 and 13, home to one of the most celebrated hillclimbs on the European calendar. Behind the wheel for the entire journey will be the car's creators themselves: twin brothers Nikita and Iliya Bridan will drive the Half-11 across Europe. Communications and brand activations for the tour are handled by "One Off House", a newly founded Polish agency specialising in bespoke projects at the intersection of automotive and luxury culture.
Oilstainlab was founded in 2018 by twins Nikita and Iliya Bridan, whose backstory is anything but conventional. Born in Ukraine and raised in Canada, the brothers moved to Europe at the age of 14 to study automotive design, eventually graduating from the prestigious ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena, California. After working for major automotive manufacturers, they founded their own studio.
The Half-11 was introduced to the world through what can only be described as historical vandalism. Oilstainlab seeded the internet with meticulously retouched, period-correct photographs placing the fictional race car in real motorsport scenes from the golden era, leaving the automotive community puzzled and intrigued. The car earns that confusion honestly. The open-cockpit prototype channels the spirit of 1960s racing machinery while remaining thoroughly state of the art, though Nikita and Iliya Bridan's definition of modern differs sharply from the industry mainstream. Rather than touchscreens and digital interfaces, the Half-11 is built around pure, timeless mechanical substance.
That philosophy runs through every technical detail. Power comes from a large-displacement LS V8 producing around 650 horsepower, driving the rear wheels through a short-throw six-speed manual gearbox and exhaling through a 3D-printed Inconel exhaust system. The bodywork is hand-beaten aluminium, carrying an authentic patina.
Visually, Oilstainlab pulls off the same balancing act. The soft curves and round headlights of the nose evoke the early Porsche 911, yet the car as a whole reads as unmistakably contemporary, without a single LED or daytime running light in sight. It resists easy classification, which in the world of showcars is a genuine distinction. As Nikita Bridan puts it: "With the Half-11, we set out to build a myth, alive simultaneously in the past, present and future."
Since its debut, the prototype has covered more than 19,000 kilometres across North America, drifting the FAT ICE Race in Aspen, winning an award at “The Quail, A Motorsports Gathering” during Monterey Car Week, and making its European debut at the 2024 Goodwood Festival of Speed.
The Euro-Vision Tour, however, is more than a victory lap. The mechanical and emotional data gathered from pushing the Half-11 across Europe's most demanding roads will feed directly into Oilstainlab's forthcoming production vehicle, the HF-11. Conceived as an ultra-lightweight machine tipping the scales at around 900 kilograms, the HF-11 is engineered to deliver a raw, analogue and uncompromising driving experience, true to the studio's motto: "Where the past overtakes the future."
Photos: Oilstainlab, One Off House, Remi Dargegen for Classic Driver
