Automotive

Been really enjoying your Quick Drive impressions about the M5 (the E39 5 series is my personal favorite as well), the Maserati, and sadly have to concur with the Aston Martin - I've only experienced the V8 Vantage but your impressions are similar.  

Regarding the French-stiched Italian leather; technically Ferrari employs a double-French-stich as a style of seams they use in sewing, I don't know if it's pioneered by the French, but it's attributed to as the "French stitch" or "French seam."  Imagine you are sewing together two pieces of leather because it's going over a pivot or kink (like the edge of the instrument cluster cowl).  First you sew the two pieces of leather with a matching color thread, but underneath those two pieces of leather you have two little flaps of leather.  These flaps of the ends are known as "fray ends" because they're left fully exposed to fraying.  If the material were to fray all the way to the main seam joining the two pieces of textile (in this case leather) then the seam would be compromised.  Thus, the two fray ends are then folded flat and sewn to itself on each side, this sewing is done on both sides often in a contrasting color.  Total, there are actually three stitches.  

If you look at the picture below, this is an example of a traditional double French Seam.  Imagine how the leather looks like from underneath, you would have two pieces joined with a seam with two little flaps of leather on each side.  These two flaps are then stitched down using the highly visible red stitching you see on both sides of the joining stitch.  

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