Let me preface this by saying that I love cars. I'm a fan, as in fanatic. I'm obsessed. I would sooner spend a wild night with a good car than Kate Beckinsale. This will be relevant a few paragraphs down.
Automotive shouty man Jeremy Clarkson recently blogged on supercars. You can read his thoughts here.
For the most part, I agree with Clarkson on this front. I'm glad supercars exist. They are an assault to the ears, a feast for the eyes, and a riot to drive. I must be clear: they're rarely good cars, but the greatest of them maintain a level of stupidity and ridiculousness that make them legendary. I found further common ground with J.C. when he says that the Audi R8 is probably the lone vehicle sitting at the intersection of good car and supercar. It's the only one that does damn near everything you could ask of a road car...and does it well.
So I'm glad we have supercars to ogle at, to fondle, to lust over, but I really can't see the point of owning one. In fact, I'll take a more aggressive position and admit I'll judge any supercar owner...and not favorably. What owners of these cars have done is spend generally in wild excess of a hundred thousand dollars on a car. Lamborghini Reventon owners have spent $1.6 million for their exotic blend of carbon fiber, aluminum, and gasoline. Aston Martin One-77 owners have spent at least $1.7 million on each example of that piece. It's worse than stupid. It's approaching shameful.
Starting with stupid: men who buy supercars are generally thinking with their penis instead of their brains. A Ferrari Enzo cannot perform better on a public road than a $30 thousand Golf R32. In fact, it'll probably do worse. Show an Enzo a speed bump and you'll see that zero-to-sixty times are irrelevant in the real world. Same is true of potholes. Roll a Lamborghini down tenth street here in Atlanta. You'd dislocate every joint in your body and every body panel on the car. And don't bitch to me about fun-to-drive factor. I'd have at least as much fun in a Focus RS because I'm happy with the size of my manhood and don't need to compensate by having people worship my car. Also, at $30k I could replace my whole car for cheaper than it'd cost Lamborghini man to replace those missing body panels. The Focus RS is a good car...a total package. It's a quarter the price of an R8 and just about as good.
Now it gets intense:
Your stereotypical Republican will forever say that people with money should be able to spend their hard-earned greenbacks however they like. From a governmental standpoint, I more or less agree; I don't think Uncle Sam should get too involved on that front. In every other respect though, a man's attitude toward money speaks volumes about his character. What he spends his money on - or more inclusively, puts his money toward - is enormously important. A $150,000 R8? A $1.2 million Bugatti Veyron? This is clearly the property of an individual purposefully ignorant of reality - intentionally blind to the human condition and by extension, willfully disrespectful toward the Divine. The Las Vegas Strip, Buckhead, Monaco...these little dream worlds with their ritzy venues and endless exotic cars...the rest of planet Earth doesn't look, sound, or feel like these. The people that put their money towards keeping their personal fantasy lands rolling? Helluva shame.
Automotive shouty man Jeremy Clarkson recently blogged on supercars. You can read his thoughts here.
For the most part, I agree with Clarkson on this front. I'm glad supercars exist. They are an assault to the ears, a feast for the eyes, and a riot to drive. I must be clear: they're rarely good cars, but the greatest of them maintain a level of stupidity and ridiculousness that make them legendary. I found further common ground with J.C. when he says that the Audi R8 is probably the lone vehicle sitting at the intersection of good car and supercar. It's the only one that does damn near everything you could ask of a road car...and does it well.
So I'm glad we have supercars to ogle at, to fondle, to lust over, but I really can't see the point of owning one. In fact, I'll take a more aggressive position and admit I'll judge any supercar owner...and not favorably. What owners of these cars have done is spend generally in wild excess of a hundred thousand dollars on a car. Lamborghini Reventon owners have spent $1.6 million for their exotic blend of carbon fiber, aluminum, and gasoline. Aston Martin One-77 owners have spent at least $1.7 million on each example of that piece. It's worse than stupid. It's approaching shameful.
Starting with stupid: men who buy supercars are generally thinking with their penis instead of their brains. A Ferrari Enzo cannot perform better on a public road than a $30 thousand Golf R32. In fact, it'll probably do worse. Show an Enzo a speed bump and you'll see that zero-to-sixty times are irrelevant in the real world. Same is true of potholes. Roll a Lamborghini down tenth street here in Atlanta. You'd dislocate every joint in your body and every body panel on the car. And don't bitch to me about fun-to-drive factor. I'd have at least as much fun in a Focus RS because I'm happy with the size of my manhood and don't need to compensate by having people worship my car. Also, at $30k I could replace my whole car for cheaper than it'd cost Lamborghini man to replace those missing body panels. The Focus RS is a good car...a total package. It's a quarter the price of an R8 and just about as good.
Now it gets intense:
Your stereotypical Republican will forever say that people with money should be able to spend their hard-earned greenbacks however they like. From a governmental standpoint, I more or less agree; I don't think Uncle Sam should get too involved on that front. In every other respect though, a man's attitude toward money speaks volumes about his character. What he spends his money on - or more inclusively, puts his money toward - is enormously important. A $150,000 R8? A $1.2 million Bugatti Veyron? This is clearly the property of an individual purposefully ignorant of reality - intentionally blind to the human condition and by extension, willfully disrespectful toward the Divine. The Las Vegas Strip, Buckhead, Monaco...these little dream worlds with their ritzy venues and endless exotic cars...the rest of planet Earth doesn't look, sound, or feel like these. The people that put their money towards keeping their personal fantasy lands rolling? Helluva shame.
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