I'm never gonna be rich, and thats fine, if I was though there is one thing I would be pretty ridiculously lavish about. Cars. I love them, I've been a car fanatic since the age of 10 or so when I first saw a Lamborghini Diablo with the scissor doors!!
If you could have any 5 cars for free, and by that I mean fuel, insurance, tax, purchase, all that, what 5 would you like? For the sake of a good thread lets say you have to choose
i) a luxury car
ii) a supercar
iii) a run around everyday practical car
iv) a convertible for the cruising around in
v) a track car
Luxury car
For me, the Mercedes CL65 AMG.
The most powerful car in the world, seriously!! The perfect thing about this too is that its a classic sleeper, will waft you along in complete luxury in classic merc fashion drawing no attention to yourself, but when you do fancy it you can overtake a whole line of traffic in a few seconds. On Top Gear in the UK, Jeremy Clarkson said this was one of the fastest cars he had ever driven and actually had more power than a Ferrari Enzo!! Looks cool, is very understated, nobody does luxury and gadgetry like Mercedes, crazy speed but also by the look of it, as relaxing as a massage to drive.
Perfect.
(I realise it only has 2 doors so for more than two people it isn't as good as the S-Class which is pretty much this but in 4 door with more gadgets, its the size of the S-Class might put me off, they are like a limousine!!)
Supercar
Its still the Lamborghini Diablo.
Specifically, the final 6.0 VT version they released before it went out of production. The early ones were apparently just too frightening to drive and it took serious concentration to not crash it as it was just too crazy, but when Audi took over they produced this to retire the old girl. What a send off, has everything a supercar should have, an engine note that can be heard from miles away, 5mpg, the best styling ever for a supercar, challenging but not suicidal to drive it hard, no practicality at all, just all round ridiculousness. The more modern supercars have gone very soft with back seats, automatic gearboxes, onboard computers with all sorts of stuff to make it more user friendly, softer controls and all manner of other stuff to take the fun out of it. This is still my favourite of all, has never changed, the Murcielago is a worthy replacement but its gone soft, and the Gallardo is pretty boring as Lamborghini's go.
Everyday car
As understated as the Mercedes is, its still a high end car and you wouldn't drive it everywhere. I think you'd still need a smaller, more practical car for everyday purposes that dont need a massive machine to accomplish.
Mine would be, the Audi RS4.
Smaller than the Mercedes and more useable in an every day scenario like I said, doesn't have the image problems associated its main rival, with the BMW M3, is total unnoticable and has everything you need for what its purpose is. Has gotten great reviews in every publication I've read, can't think of a better candidate.
Convertible
These aren't popular where I'm from but one of the greatest days of my life was when I, and 3 of my friends, drove from San Diego and LA and back in one day on a road trip to visit 6 Flags......in a drop top mustang. I was sold on convertibles there and then. For a convertible though, I was thinking along the lines of an Aston Martin DB9 convertible, but its too nice, I'd be too worried about something scratching the interior or someone getting their sandy feet on the seats or on the carpet. I think for this, it can be cool but not posh as you want to be able to pile your friends into it in the summer and go to the beach, have an icecream in it while driving and not be terrified of ruining something, you see what I mean.
Below is perfect, its the next model on from the one I did my road trip in, I don't care that it handles corners terribly and can only go in a straight line, who wants to go F1 racing in a posers car like this? This is for enjoying the drive, and enjoying the sun with your friends looking cool. The other ones I was thinking of are all too swanky, I wouldn't mind if this got battered around a bit in the process, great car.
Track car
I don't mean for entering competitions, but something you own almost solely for how much of a driver's car it is. Something you could spend hours driving around empty roads or if you did take it onto an empty track just to thrash it around and have fun in. Not for the looks, or usability, or practicality, just for how it goes and how much fun you can have with it.
For me, there is only one car brand that can do this. Ferrari. these are pretty much racing cars toned down for the road. Unfortunately they have a horrible image as every celeb on the planet seems to own one nowadays. Poor.
Anyway, Ive gone back and forth on which one. My favourite has always been the F355. It was from the golden age of these sorts of cars, before they were softened like has happened with supercars, this one came with a manual gearstick, full rear wheel drive and no on-board computer running things for you, no driver assisted anything, really fast, racecar handling and the noise that only ferraris can make. I thoughts its successor took all the fun out of it, but whats more, the F360 looked like a woman's car, all nice and curvy with an F1 auto transmission and all manner of other softies, this was the last true driver's ferrari made to be driven fast. Loved it. The more exotics like the F40 and F50 were too outrageous, I wouldn't be a good enough driver to enjoy trying to have fun in one of those, the F550 was for businessmen, the Enzo for people like Michael Schumacher. This was the one.
Lets hear your 5 and have some discussion. I'm hoping we dont get lists, take a couple of minutes and say which and why and we can go back and forth on them. Be prepared though, I love these things, Ive been in every one of these at some point and have a fair knowledge (like a know-it-all from my other thread!!) of what I'm talking about, no expert but a lost childhood of reading every fact and detail from every car magazine I could get my hands on right up to the present.
Looking forward to this one!!
