I once owned a Rolex and a GTO, at the same time. I paid about $650 for the Rolex in Singapore. Don't remember what the GTO cost. Whatever it was, I got my monies worth when a gent in a Mustang chose me off at a traffic light in Northridge, CA. I dusted him and laughed for hours.
Since this article was written, we went from $15000 Hublots to $150000 (or $1.5M) Richard Milles.
As far as the Boxster goes, I remember this article specifically steering me away from one. How do Champcar teams and such run these cars considering what a pain it is to perform even basic service?
I don’t know (or care) about resale on a RM. Ok maybe I am curious. That watch is definitely for someone who wants to say they have a lot of money. I have been associated with someone who wears one and if I had to guess he is the richest person I know. Otherwise they seem to be worn by celebrities and influencers. I love mechanical watches for the engineering involved but the story on RM seems to be more about the people who wear them, not about the watches.
I owned a very clean, nicely optioned, low-mileage 993 Carrera 2. Owned it for a decade, loved every minute of it, and sold it last year. I sold it and, about six or eight months later, bought a 2020 Miata GT with the sport package.
Truth be told, I have more fun driving the Miata. It's a totally different experience, to be sure, and the 993 was amazing - but also, in many ways, an heirloom. I bought it before prices went stratospheric, and really had no idea what it was worth until Jack sold his. At that point, I realized it was no longer a car, but an heirloom. I couldn't drive it without worrying about doing something stupid or, worse, someone else doing something stupid, and facing a very expensive repair or totaling the car. It reached the point where driving the car was not as fun as it was when it was just a car.
There is absolutely no fear driving the Miata because they're stupidly cheap to repair and easily replaced if I total it. It's just a car. An absurdly fun car. No worries at all.
Parts are orders of magnitude cheaper. I upgraded the speakers, which required cutting some plastic inside the A-pillar trim. I figured I'd buy another set so I could return everything to stock if I wanted to. They cost me $37 each, new, from Mazda.
they're the lovable mutts of the the car world - no trouble at all, and they only want to make you happy. my neighbor has the rattiest, scruffiest NB you can imagine. yet it has never let her down, and every time she drives it - _always_ with the top down - she's smiling.
“It reached the point where driving the car was not as fun as it was when it was just a car”
That (and money tbh) is a big reason why my S2000 is still scruffy looking. Going to rain? Sketchy parking? Whatever. Take the car. Doesn’t matter. I never want it to be precious for me to drive it without a second thought.
When I was in college I bought a poorly treated Lotus Elan because I didn't know any better. My brother had a Mini Cooper. You could drive the Mini with abandon because it was just a Mini. I was much more careful when behind the wheel of the Elan, and this was long before they appreciated in value. A nice one today costs about 10X the MSRP.
Likewise, except mine's a '87 Carrera. I know what it's worth but I've driven it for decades and don't really want to save it for the next guy. It's well maintained, but gets used and gets dirty. If it gets destroyed, at least it was used as intended.
I was 57 when I bought my first watch in adulthood, a Seiko ssc721 speedtimer, in an almost black coating, it has an in-house caliber, current versions are almost three times the price, I have too many nh35 powered watches, inexpensive and durable, so inexpensive that no one cries when it fails, they are known to go twenty years, not super accurate, but manageable, there is a whole subculture of micro brands that use this movement, although I don’t think one should pay more than 350 for a watch with this movement, which actually I did, but it said Seiko on it and the movement was an 4r36…
They are the total opposite of a Porsche or Land Rover, or any other overly expensive car, as a mechanic, I hate a culture that values price over quality, they see it as prestige, I see waste. I also see inexpensive cars with cvt transmissions as disposable, maintain them and use them carefully, but not durable. The value of money continues to decline, but the value of good engineering and quality will endure, choose carefully.
Is there a car made today with good engineering. Im constantly offered for my 100K mile 2017 tundra that seems like good engineering and si irreplaceable based whats now available today.
I struggle to see car that's well engineered, maybe a honda CTR?
Recently had a camry rental. That hybrid accelerated like a big block which was neat, and the steering was not bad. but the suspension felt lime really crap shocks everything the car felt cheap, and the dash was like an annoying mother in law. Quite a contrast to the old avalon which was as the brits say a superb piece of kit.
That Tundra has another 200K in it if you keep up on the maintenance. I've driven a lot of trucks, and that one isn't my favorite performance-wise, but there's no truck built today that would be a better buy, unless you need towing capacity.
At the time I drove them all. The Gm stuff felt car like and would be loose and rattly by 30k miles, the Didge felt like a big tonka toy and the Ford was streets ahead but a bunch more $. The tundra felt like a generation behind cruder, but also strong like an anvil. Plus the tundra for various reasons was the least expensive for me and came from the factory rated to tow 10klbs.
Mostly i use it to put small boats in the water and tow the track car which weights 2200lbs on an open trailer which is another 900. There is much fun to be had on the last hour between Binghamton and corning Ny on the way tot he glenn. Its the opnly highway in and a multitude of tow vehicles filter in. There is an unofficial race so to speak of tow vehicles all doing in the 80-90 range while drafting each other.
id love something like ford or GMC 2500 and closed trailer, but that is a few $$ too far, and theere is always money to be spent on making the car faster more reliable tires pads etc. In that context tundra has served me really well and is by all accounts only 1/3 through its life plus being a 1500 can somewhat easily be used as the backup car or for taking a crowd out to dinner etc.
Given the screen driven status of new vehicles Im feeling great witht he tundra and no need for something new. I think a lot of older car truck and suv owners feel the same way, its not as though the new "replacement" is an upgrade, arguably its worse adding to which post covid qc is in the shitter.
Was in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, outside its famous mall one evening in 2011. A Ferrari or Lamborghini was parked at the main entrance unoccupied. Many young men were taking pictures of it, like you would at the auto show. They did not look like gearheads to me.
What changed, in the interim, is that the psychic benefits of owning a Rolex, or a 993, have gone beyond one's immediate circle into Instagram, where it is traded for the fleeting envy of strangers. We are poorer for it.
Agreed, most high end cars have become deeply deeply uncool due to both their a) ubiquity online, and b) being used as advertising platforms for "influencers"
I had some kids, probably college aged, give me the zoom zoom wrist motion when i was on the bike the other day. For about 2 seconds i was cool. They didnt know the middle aged man under the helmet.
honest question: when was Lamborghini ever cool? some of their cars have been downright gorgeous (Hello, Miura. Hello, Hurican) but the brand always seems to me to have the faint air of "drug dealer chic" about it.
If I had new Lambo money I would also have old Lambo money, and old Lambos are always cool.
“I saw three of these parked outside the local Starbucks this morning, which tells me only one thing. There's too many self-Indulgent wieners in this city with too much bloody money! Now, if I was driving a 1987 Countach LP5000 QV...
You would not be a self-indulgent wiener, sir... You'd be a connoisseur.”
I completely disagree. Look at DeMuro and Farah with their Countaches. The cars that once signified a bit of disreputable bad judgement are now bonafide investments.
One of my favorite moments in the past few years was pulling up to a grocery store and seeing a white Lambo, not the SUV, pull up and a mid-70s guy and his age appropriate wife get out to do a little shopping. The dude just liked a Lambo!
The one I saw the other day was atrocious. I don't know lambos well enough to know what it was but it looked riced out. We have Urus in our parking lot. I cringe every time I walk by it.
I'm hoping that tomorrow's article will bridge the gap between the 2012 definition of luxury (expensive, temporary) and the #CURRENT_BARUTH definition (austere and simple to the point that its inaccessible to the proles). I can sort of see the progression, but 13 years seems like a short timeline for such a marked change.
I read this upon initial publication (~13 years ago), and I broadly agreed at the time. Plus, I had just purchased a Porsche 993 with my first bonus.
What I failed to recognize at age 23 - but do now as I slide into middle age - is that the awful, terrible, evil, stupid, greedy, and, like, totally undeserving Lizard People with fake and gay “jobs” who can and do buy the new thing (so that the virtuous and admirable blue collar workers and sys admins and so on can one day appreciate the item post depreciation) have more money than time.
There is something new available. It could be fun. It could be titillating. It could lose all financial value the moment the wire leaves the buyer’s bank account. That’s fine, because they can afford it.
Exempli Gratia:
There’s a new Ferrari on the scene: The 849 Testarossa. I have no clue what the “849” moniker signifies.
One guy I know - who has 6-7 Ferraris, has a minority position in multiple Ferrari dealers, and has a GMA T.33 incoming - had a meltdown. He called the car an “abortion,” harangued the designer - Flavio Manzoni - on Instagram, and … threatened to sell his Ferraris and even his RACE shares. Even quit Ferrari Challenge! OMG!
He works for a living. He has done very well, but he’s cheap, and the primary appeal of a car to him is (0) how hard it is to get, (1) and how much it has appreciated.
The other guy is quiet, low-key and has 30 Ferraris. He could make a killing in data centers right now given his background, but he has enough and no heirs to worry about. He told me he thought the car was disappointing, but he plans to order a Tailor Made spec - which would be over $1MM in all likelihood - anyway, “just in case.” Just in case.
The latter’s net worth is probably 15x the net worth of the former. But the latter is nearly 70 years old, and the former is only 58. The latter has vastly more money but likely less time.
So he doesn’t need to care about the Protestant work ethic stuff.
Ferrari spokesperson Firouz Saghri told Car and Driver that the 8 stands for the car's V-8 engine, and the 49 is for the engine's 499 cc of displacement per cylinder."
Seems like a reach. I'm not even close to the target market, and I don't want either one, but I think they messed around and made the Testarossa more desirable than the F80 - it looks similar, is 1/5th the price, and, most importantly, has two extra cylinders. If they made a stripped RWD "Balboni" (is it wrong to bring up a Lambo when discussing Ferrari?) version without the hybrid nonsense, I think they'd really be on to something.
the method that lamborghini uses for hybridization is to place the motor on the end of the engines crankshaft which can be used as both a starter and alternator as well as a motor for propulsion
i think its pretty neat when used as such and far preferable to the additional motors the 849 uses
Get your reptiles in a row, Sherman! The Training Wheels Lizards buy the new thing that the Lizards transformed from a wondrously crafted, well-built object (560 SEC) into a piece of shit. Envy is not the root of the anger; You are making the mistake of thinking that because you worship Mammon, that everyone else worships Mammon. The root of the anger is that the once great object is now disposable trash, and some dickhead made that decision. Achtung Baby!
The best way to recapture the magic, though, would be to drop all China-compliant displacements - maybe even drop out of China altogether as the Prancing Horse doesn't need that market to have a wait list thousands deep and that would probably boost prestige everywhere else, too, like how I wanted a ZL1 1LE even more when it was announced that it was more or less too bad ass to be sold in Europe.
As much as we (rightfully?) hate on Lambo as a brand built for Instagram around here, I can't even explain how much more desire I'm filled with for the new 10,000 RPM V8 Temerario than I am for the 296, no matter how impressive the Ferrari's performance is.
I think people just need to be less indulgent and get the Audi Q8 or S/RS versions, instead of the Urus or Cayenne. Same underpinning, but without the aura of soccer mom Lambo/Porsche. An Audi SUV is normal.
They have used cylinder displacement as a naming convention the past.
I imagine naming this stuff is a very frustrating experience. In my brief flirtation with making a line of consumer goods I looked up a list of British battleship names, because they used a lot of cool names. It was the only one of my ideas everyone refused to go along with.
Man, how that culture has declined. Remember a few years ago when they held an open contest to name one of their new ships, and the public overwhelmingly voted for "Boaty McBoatface?"
A little after my naming convention was rejected, but a decade before the McBoatface incident one of our would have been competitors released an "Elizabeth" nd a "Sir Francis Drake". The key demographic for that brand was early 20s stoners, and most of them had no idea (I would ask) what the names were referencing.
"There is something new available. It could be fun. It could be titillating. It could lose all financial value the moment the wire leaves the buyer’s bank account. That’s fine, because they can afford it." great line, and this is why one should be buying any fun car, ie to enjoy.
The 849 is better than some of ferrais recent efforts. The interior returns knobs and switches
which is impressive response to customers unlike other manufactures who insist on selling shit as shinola.
the front end has fish lips which is probably fixable. But mostly this car has elements of 3 or 4 prior ferrais tied together with hard straight lines, it commits the cardinal sin of not being cohesive, I guess theyre learning from corvette.
Now it woudl or could be a great car with a few styling tweaks and a v12 in the engine bay. A twin turbo v8 hybrid,m thats gonna be just used tech, superseded by the next something faster. .
The GMD T50 T33, these are the ultimate cars today, a product of singular vision. They cost 3-4 million and in a decade or less you will be able to add a zero tot hat number. Sadly as a result few will get really driven. If you coudl have only 1 car, one of these woudl be it.
Rowan Atkinson aka Mr Bean had a Mclaren F1 for decades he drove the wheels off it.
Alas after 1 big shunt it was repaired but he realized hes not a 20 million dollar car person and sold.
The ones I know are too young for the ‘gram. All the gold chain wearing kids I know (10-12y/o boys) are heavy into baseball and football and are emulating their favorite players. Suburban white boys wearing Pit Vipers and gold chains, lol
That's exactly what it is. My 8-year-old has a ton of friends who wear them - the baseball kids are the worst, and the chain usually comes along with a mullett.
In my opinion an 8th grade graduation is so silly that mocking it almost required. I always tell my kids, don’t expect me to be impressed by you doing things you’re required by law to do.
i am fortunate (?) enough that i will never have to suffer with rare watch complications or german car mechanical maladies
still want one though
They call the bits and bobs and buttons on watches “complications” for a reason!! 😂😂
What about the Fiat x19?
i kinda like them but i wouldnt trade the miata for one
great platform for a restomod however
I am blessed
Really, Why?
I am poor
I once owned a Rolex and a GTO, at the same time. I paid about $650 for the Rolex in Singapore. Don't remember what the GTO cost. Whatever it was, I got my monies worth when a gent in a Mustang chose me off at a traffic light in Northridge, CA. I dusted him and laughed for hours.
Sic transit gloria!!
Since this article was written, we went from $15000 Hublots to $150000 (or $1.5M) Richard Milles.
As far as the Boxster goes, I remember this article specifically steering me away from one. How do Champcar teams and such run these cars considering what a pain it is to perform even basic service?
probably upgraded to the facelift model's EPS system
Is that a thing? How does that differ from swapping something like a Prius column or similar?
Hmm..is the rack entirely different, or would an EPS unit swap with a hydraulic unit and back, and bolt up the same?
Is there no removal of the PS and going unpowered? The NA and NB Miata guys “depower” their PS racks.
the trick with those is to gut the seals and weld the pinion onto the shaft to remove the friction and slack
the manual racks have a slower ratio which is why they arent swapped in
There are still $15k Hublots, and like an Aston Martin they lose 60% of their value once your CC payment clears the register.
I was more referring to those watches being the current hot watch brands for retards.
I don’t know (or care) about resale on a RM. Ok maybe I am curious. That watch is definitely for someone who wants to say they have a lot of money. I have been associated with someone who wears one and if I had to guess he is the richest person I know. Otherwise they seem to be worn by celebrities and influencers. I love mechanical watches for the engineering involved but the story on RM seems to be more about the people who wear them, not about the watches.
There was a Mille on Chrono24 a month or two ago. $92,000 and it looked like someone had tossed it into a running lawnmower.
As far as doing the job of telling time, RM seem to be unreadable.
It tells you that its time to just stop kidding yourself and pay for sex already.
when you have that kind of money, you don't worry about what time it is because you've probably got someone taking care of such things for you.
rm watches are ugly as sin and id pawn it if someone ever gave me one
Wouldn't they permanently remove half this stuff? The soft top, subwoofer, carpet. All gone in a race car.
I’d imagine you still have to get around the seats or remove the hard top. The bulkhead would need removed as well.
I don’t know anything about them past that. Maybe they’re actually reliable enduro cars and I’m an idiot.
They aren't. I have watched teams suffer with them for two decades.
That being said, a Cayman or Boxster race car omits the first 25 or so of those steps because all covers are gone.
* My name is Tom, not Sam. You can also thank Bill Paxton for ever popularizing the saying in ‘True Lies’.
R.I.P.
This post always makes me happy about my inexpensive, 20+ y/o Japanese car, and my expected long relationship with an inexpensive Japanese watch.
felt that
love my miata and its $7 brake rotors that last forever
I owned a very clean, nicely optioned, low-mileage 993 Carrera 2. Owned it for a decade, loved every minute of it, and sold it last year. I sold it and, about six or eight months later, bought a 2020 Miata GT with the sport package.
Truth be told, I have more fun driving the Miata. It's a totally different experience, to be sure, and the 993 was amazing - but also, in many ways, an heirloom. I bought it before prices went stratospheric, and really had no idea what it was worth until Jack sold his. At that point, I realized it was no longer a car, but an heirloom. I couldn't drive it without worrying about doing something stupid or, worse, someone else doing something stupid, and facing a very expensive repair or totaling the car. It reached the point where driving the car was not as fun as it was when it was just a car.
There is absolutely no fear driving the Miata because they're stupidly cheap to repair and easily replaced if I total it. It's just a car. An absurdly fun car. No worries at all.
Parts are orders of magnitude cheaper. I upgraded the speakers, which required cutting some plastic inside the A-pillar trim. I figured I'd buy another set so I could return everything to stock if I wanted to. They cost me $37 each, new, from Mazda.
Nothing on a 993 costs less than 5 times that.
incredible
the miata is the car that just keeps giving
they're the lovable mutts of the the car world - no trouble at all, and they only want to make you happy. my neighbor has the rattiest, scruffiest NB you can imagine. yet it has never let her down, and every time she drives it - _always_ with the top down - she's smiling.
Every time I see one top up on a nice day I want to throw a pie at them.
Throwing a pie is exactly the right response to this, as it is in keeping with the Miata being so absurdly fun.
“It reached the point where driving the car was not as fun as it was when it was just a car”
That (and money tbh) is a big reason why my S2000 is still scruffy looking. Going to rain? Sketchy parking? Whatever. Take the car. Doesn’t matter. I never want it to be precious for me to drive it without a second thought.
Who's scruffy looking?!
Well played.
The nerf herders, of course.
I agree entirely, which is why I sold the 993. I allowed it to become precious.
When I was in college I bought a poorly treated Lotus Elan because I didn't know any better. My brother had a Mini Cooper. You could drive the Mini with abandon because it was just a Mini. I was much more careful when behind the wheel of the Elan, and this was long before they appreciated in value. A nice one today costs about 10X the MSRP.
Miata is always the answer!
*weaponized* Miata
an s2k is like a miata if mazda could afford to put a decent engine in it
I thought the ND2 engine fixed that.
that does sound like a very good engine now that you mention it
i was considering the na and nb miatas saddled with an gutless 80s lump of iron called the bp
Likewise, except mine's a '87 Carrera. I know what it's worth but I've driven it for decades and don't really want to save it for the next guy. It's well maintained, but gets used and gets dirty. If it gets destroyed, at least it was used as intended.
I loved the S2000, but it was a bit tight for me.
It’s a bit tight for my fat ass too but I make do lol
I was 57 when I bought my first watch in adulthood, a Seiko ssc721 speedtimer, in an almost black coating, it has an in-house caliber, current versions are almost three times the price, I have too many nh35 powered watches, inexpensive and durable, so inexpensive that no one cries when it fails, they are known to go twenty years, not super accurate, but manageable, there is a whole subculture of micro brands that use this movement, although I don’t think one should pay more than 350 for a watch with this movement, which actually I did, but it said Seiko on it and the movement was an 4r36…
They are the total opposite of a Porsche or Land Rover, or any other overly expensive car, as a mechanic, I hate a culture that values price over quality, they see it as prestige, I see waste. I also see inexpensive cars with cvt transmissions as disposable, maintain them and use them carefully, but not durable. The value of money continues to decline, but the value of good engineering and quality will endure, choose carefully.
Is there a car made today with good engineering. Im constantly offered for my 100K mile 2017 tundra that seems like good engineering and si irreplaceable based whats now available today.
I struggle to see car that's well engineered, maybe a honda CTR?
Recently had a camry rental. That hybrid accelerated like a big block which was neat, and the steering was not bad. but the suspension felt lime really crap shocks everything the car felt cheap, and the dash was like an annoying mother in law. Quite a contrast to the old avalon which was as the brits say a superb piece of kit.
Maybe Mazda, but the new trucks are not great, keep the Tundra going, should have another 200 k left in it.
Agreed
Seems like most anything new is cheapened and enshitified.
I should have read the whole thread before commenting, you beat me to the punch.
That Tundra has another 200K in it if you keep up on the maintenance. I've driven a lot of trucks, and that one isn't my favorite performance-wise, but there's no truck built today that would be a better buy, unless you need towing capacity.
At the time I drove them all. The Gm stuff felt car like and would be loose and rattly by 30k miles, the Didge felt like a big tonka toy and the Ford was streets ahead but a bunch more $. The tundra felt like a generation behind cruder, but also strong like an anvil. Plus the tundra for various reasons was the least expensive for me and came from the factory rated to tow 10klbs.
Mostly i use it to put small boats in the water and tow the track car which weights 2200lbs on an open trailer which is another 900. There is much fun to be had on the last hour between Binghamton and corning Ny on the way tot he glenn. Its the opnly highway in and a multitude of tow vehicles filter in. There is an unofficial race so to speak of tow vehicles all doing in the 80-90 range while drafting each other.
id love something like ford or GMC 2500 and closed trailer, but that is a few $$ too far, and theere is always money to be spent on making the car faster more reliable tires pads etc. In that context tundra has served me really well and is by all accounts only 1/3 through its life plus being a 1500 can somewhat easily be used as the backup car or for taking a crowd out to dinner etc.
Given the screen driven status of new vehicles Im feeling great witht he tundra and no need for something new. I think a lot of older car truck and suv owners feel the same way, its not as though the new "replacement" is an upgrade, arguably its worse adding to which post covid qc is in the shitter.
Was in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, outside its famous mall one evening in 2011. A Ferrari or Lamborghini was parked at the main entrance unoccupied. Many young men were taking pictures of it, like you would at the auto show. They did not look like gearheads to me.
And swatch group, sistem 51, that is the equivalent to the cvt transmission, not repairable when it quits.
Yes. That is a deliberately ephemeral watch. Which, with Swatch, was always part of the deal.
What changed, in the interim, is that the psychic benefits of owning a Rolex, or a 993, have gone beyond one's immediate circle into Instagram, where it is traded for the fleeting envy of strangers. We are poorer for it.
Saw a lamborghini the other day and the white trash looking guy driving it. When did these become so uncool? It wasnt even a urus.
Agreed, most high end cars have become deeply deeply uncool due to both their a) ubiquity online, and b) being used as advertising platforms for "influencers"
I had some kids, probably college aged, give me the zoom zoom wrist motion when i was on the bike the other day. For about 2 seconds i was cool. They didnt know the middle aged man under the helmet.
honest question: when was Lamborghini ever cool? some of their cars have been downright gorgeous (Hello, Miura. Hello, Hurican) but the brand always seems to me to have the faint air of "drug dealer chic" about it.
I thought they were cool when I was in high school and sometimes I forget I'm an old person now.
age is a state of mind. and my post failed to note that the Miura will always be cool.
If I had new Lambo money I would also have old Lambo money, and old Lambos are always cool.
“I saw three of these parked outside the local Starbucks this morning, which tells me only one thing. There's too many self-Indulgent wieners in this city with too much bloody money! Now, if I was driving a 1987 Countach LP5000 QV...
You would not be a self-indulgent wiener, sir... You'd be a connoisseur.”
I completely disagree. Look at DeMuro and Farah with their Countaches. The cars that once signified a bit of disreputable bad judgement are now bonafide investments.
That's why you seek out a Jalpa. No one knows what it is, and even they asked you can tell them it's what Stallone drove in Rocky IV
Which begs a philosophical question, how many dweebs must do a cool thing before the thing is no longer cool? Asking for a Cars and Coffee attendee.
The Countach is like Elvis. Cool when it was the original LP400 of the early 70’s, a joke when it ended with the 25th anniversary edition.
Buying a car as an investment is so fucking dorky. Some things are supposed to lose value.
If you were driving an LP5000 Quattrovalvole, you'd need a matched pair. Because one of them would always be in the air with the engine cover up.
My ten year old self loves the 90s Diablo SV Roadster. With the decals. Absolutely vulgar.
I support this life choice
That was cool. Dealing drugs is cool. Being an IPO beneficiary is gayer than Harvey Fierstein singing Papa Can You Hear Me.
One of my favorite moments in the past few years was pulling up to a grocery store and seeing a white Lambo, not the SUV, pull up and a mid-70s guy and his age appropriate wife get out to do a little shopping. The dude just liked a Lambo!
The one I saw the other day was atrocious. I don't know lambos well enough to know what it was but it looked riced out. We have Urus in our parking lot. I cringe every time I walk by it.
Where in God’s name would they put anything more than maybe a single grocery bag?!
In my neck of the woods, Lambo means gangsta
These guys definitely wore track suits as their formal wear
Critical insight here. Social media has changed the attention economy.
And the 991 is creeping up as the most desirable wasserboxer
Insane. I would never take a 991 over a 997.
Chat roast me for buying a 991.2 instead of a 997 turbo
I'm hoping that tomorrow's article will bridge the gap between the 2012 definition of luxury (expensive, temporary) and the #CURRENT_BARUTH definition (austere and simple to the point that its inaccessible to the proles). I can sort of see the progression, but 13 years seems like a short timeline for such a marked change.
Well there is MY definition of luxury, in the sense of what I personally want, and the general definition of it.
I read this upon initial publication (~13 years ago), and I broadly agreed at the time. Plus, I had just purchased a Porsche 993 with my first bonus.
What I failed to recognize at age 23 - but do now as I slide into middle age - is that the awful, terrible, evil, stupid, greedy, and, like, totally undeserving Lizard People with fake and gay “jobs” who can and do buy the new thing (so that the virtuous and admirable blue collar workers and sys admins and so on can one day appreciate the item post depreciation) have more money than time.
There is something new available. It could be fun. It could be titillating. It could lose all financial value the moment the wire leaves the buyer’s bank account. That’s fine, because they can afford it.
Exempli Gratia:
There’s a new Ferrari on the scene: The 849 Testarossa. I have no clue what the “849” moniker signifies.
One guy I know - who has 6-7 Ferraris, has a minority position in multiple Ferrari dealers, and has a GMA T.33 incoming - had a meltdown. He called the car an “abortion,” harangued the designer - Flavio Manzoni - on Instagram, and … threatened to sell his Ferraris and even his RACE shares. Even quit Ferrari Challenge! OMG!
He works for a living. He has done very well, but he’s cheap, and the primary appeal of a car to him is (0) how hard it is to get, (1) and how much it has appreciated.
The other guy is quiet, low-key and has 30 Ferraris. He could make a killing in data centers right now given his background, but he has enough and no heirs to worry about. He told me he thought the car was disappointing, but he plans to order a Tailor Made spec - which would be over $1MM in all likelihood - anyway, “just in case.” Just in case.
The latter’s net worth is probably 15x the net worth of the former. But the latter is nearly 70 years old, and the former is only 58. The latter has vastly more money but likely less time.
So he doesn’t need to care about the Protestant work ethic stuff.
Ferrari spokesperson Firouz Saghri told Car and Driver that the 8 stands for the car's V-8 engine, and the 49 is for the engine's 499 cc of displacement per cylinder."
Seems like a reach. I'm not even close to the target market, and I don't want either one, but I think they messed around and made the Testarossa more desirable than the F80 - it looks similar, is 1/5th the price, and, most importantly, has two extra cylinders. If they made a stripped RWD "Balboni" (is it wrong to bring up a Lambo when discussing Ferrari?) version without the hybrid nonsense, I think they'd really be on to something.
Hybrid and electrification is really screwing with the desirability and value propositions of supercars.
the method that lamborghini uses for hybridization is to place the motor on the end of the engines crankshaft which can be used as both a starter and alternator as well as a motor for propulsion
i think its pretty neat when used as such and far preferable to the additional motors the 849 uses
They have something along the lines of what you described coming: the SP4 Daytona, which *might* have a manual.
But it will be $4MM or more.
After the $26MM SP3 sale, the formula people want seems pretty obvious.
I think this will be an F40 tribute.
Get your reptiles in a row, Sherman! The Training Wheels Lizards buy the new thing that the Lizards transformed from a wondrously crafted, well-built object (560 SEC) into a piece of shit. Envy is not the root of the anger; You are making the mistake of thinking that because you worship Mammon, that everyone else worships Mammon. The root of the anger is that the once great object is now disposable trash, and some dickhead made that decision. Achtung Baby!
The Balboni edition also comes with a six and a half liter engine.
It'd work wonders with the 4.0 V8, too.
The best way to recapture the magic, though, would be to drop all China-compliant displacements - maybe even drop out of China altogether as the Prancing Horse doesn't need that market to have a wait list thousands deep and that would probably boost prestige everywhere else, too, like how I wanted a ZL1 1LE even more when it was announced that it was more or less too bad ass to be sold in Europe.
As much as we (rightfully?) hate on Lambo as a brand built for Instagram around here, I can't even explain how much more desire I'm filled with for the new 10,000 RPM V8 Temerario than I am for the 296, no matter how impressive the Ferrari's performance is.
Every Lamborghini since the Gallardo has been unambiguously fantastic to drive. They are great cars, and worth every penny.
If I was going to drop 390k on a car, it'd be a Lambo over a porsche. Think I could make a Lambo my primary residence on the loan application?
I think we are more hating on the current owners of Lambos. Exception for urus of course. That thing sucks.
I think people just need to be less indulgent and get the Audi Q8 or S/RS versions, instead of the Urus or Cayenne. Same underpinning, but without the aura of soccer mom Lambo/Porsche. An Audi SUV is normal.
They have used cylinder displacement as a naming convention the past.
I imagine naming this stuff is a very frustrating experience. In my brief flirtation with making a line of consumer goods I looked up a list of British battleship names, because they used a lot of cool names. It was the only one of my ideas everyone refused to go along with.
Man, how that culture has declined. Remember a few years ago when they held an open contest to name one of their new ships, and the public overwhelmingly voted for "Boaty McBoatface?"
A little after my naming convention was rejected, but a decade before the McBoatface incident one of our would have been competitors released an "Elizabeth" nd a "Sir Francis Drake". The key demographic for that brand was early 20s stoners, and most of them had no idea (I would ask) what the names were referencing.
"There is something new available. It could be fun. It could be titillating. It could lose all financial value the moment the wire leaves the buyer’s bank account. That’s fine, because they can afford it." great line, and this is why one should be buying any fun car, ie to enjoy.
The 849 is better than some of ferrais recent efforts. The interior returns knobs and switches
which is impressive response to customers unlike other manufactures who insist on selling shit as shinola.
the front end has fish lips which is probably fixable. But mostly this car has elements of 3 or 4 prior ferrais tied together with hard straight lines, it commits the cardinal sin of not being cohesive, I guess theyre learning from corvette.
Now it woudl or could be a great car with a few styling tweaks and a v12 in the engine bay. A twin turbo v8 hybrid,m thats gonna be just used tech, superseded by the next something faster. .
The GMD T50 T33, these are the ultimate cars today, a product of singular vision. They cost 3-4 million and in a decade or less you will be able to add a zero tot hat number. Sadly as a result few will get really driven. If you coudl have only 1 car, one of these woudl be it.
Rowan Atkinson aka Mr Bean had a Mclaren F1 for decades he drove the wheels off it.
Alas after 1 big shunt it was repaired but he realized hes not a 20 million dollar car person and sold.
Zoomers have gone back to gold chains.
I blame Instagram for that.
The ones I know are too young for the ‘gram. All the gold chain wearing kids I know (10-12y/o boys) are heavy into baseball and football and are emulating their favorite players. Suburban white boys wearing Pit Vipers and gold chains, lol
That's exactly what it is. My 8-year-old has a ton of friends who wear them - the baseball kids are the worst, and the chain usually comes along with a mullett.
A mullett is better than that perm things the kids do.
Yeah, luckily the broccoli head look is mostly dying out. Super short shorts on dudes, sadly seems to only be picking up steam.
that and those ultrahomo mustaches
Man. I had 8 inch inseam swim trunkks on my tinder when i met the wife. Worked wonders. Old and fat and csnt pull that off anymore
Half the boys who walked at my daughter's middle school "graduation" wore pit vipers. I assume the other half were not being raised by wild animals.
In my opinion an 8th grade graduation is so silly that mocking it almost required. I always tell my kids, don’t expect me to be impressed by you doing things you’re required by law to do.
I dont disagree but i got like a grand out of it.
Speaking of going back why are Gen z and others rocking the Fresh Prince fade?
The steps to fill the power steering reservoir described in this article are a primary reason I own a new Miata as opposed to a used Boxster.
you're better off with the Miata :-)
Concrete Sam sounds like the subject of a Springsteen song circa 1978. Please track him (Sam, not Bruce) down and see what he's up to these days.
I intend to. We have one mutual friend who might still know.
insane driving for harambe story tho
Probably "Racing in the Streets"
Is it just me, or does that photo of battered Bernie look a lot like a Derek Riggs-era Eddie the Head?