Chewsday Challenge

Drive Time

I’ll let Reader GT3Ted set the scene for this challenge:

Hypothetically speaking, if someone were to wake up tomorrow having somehow won the current Powerball or Mega Millions jackpot, there would suddenly be a very interesting problem to solve.
After taxes, there might still be something in the neighborhood of half a billion dollars sitting around, and leaving that much cash idle seems almost irresponsible. Naturally, the search would begin for additional places to park the money.
    • You already bought a 10,000 acre cattle ranch in Montana
    • 25 sections of Corn and Wheat land in Kansas and Nebraska
    • A Smaller 9,000 sq ft place in Telluride (Aspen is sooo last Year) 
But you are still missing a good car collection.
Not to worry,   Next month is Monterey Car week and Sotheby’s is selling some of the World’s best Car Collections  (including multiple Pebble Beach Best of Show Winners).

The challenge:  pick any three cars out of the offerings.  You can give as reasons any criteria you wish (longtime dream, a gift for a very good buddy / your heir, investment, whatever).

For the terminally picky and querulous, remember that your bank account can easily handle both the cost of purchase plus any maintenance charges — it’s a rounding error, in both cases — so go ahead and indulge yourself.  Still on that topic: assume that you’re already bought yourself your dream SUV / pickup / Toyota for an everyday driver;  these three would be pure indulgence.

That said (and Ted will agree with me here), the reason that I picked three cars and not one is that any any given time, at least one and quite possibly two of the cars will be in the shop for repairs, so three is a prudent number.

My three choices are below the fold, listed in no particular order because I drool over all of them equally:

1. 2001 Ferrari 575M

It’s not one of Ferrari’s gaudy colors, e.g. bright red or yellow (a.k.a. CMC — cop-magnet color), which makes it very attractive.  To me, 2001 (and this model) was “peak Ferrari” — before their cars were overwhelmed with electronic geegaws and unnecessary / costly options.

Also, no stupid sunroof.


(Note:  stick shift;  I think this was the last Ferrari to offer manual transmission, hence my interest.)

2. 1958 BMW 507

Still one of the most elegant and beautiful sports cars ever made (and certainly the most beautiful BMW ever made).  I’m even willing to forego my antipathy for cabriolets — Texas, remember? — and get this beauty.  It’s also the least likely of my three choices to break down irreparably, because German engineering.

I know, it’s stupid money.  But given that at the time, the 507 was way more expensive than its Mercedes and Ferrari counterparts anyway, one might as well stay with it.

3. 1976 Ferrari 308 GTB

…and the very first thing I’d do is take this little beauty off to a place that knows how to do such things, and have the fiberglass body replaced with carbon fiber — making it stronger and lighter.

And if that couldn’t be done, I’d just hold my nose and drive it around anyway.

There they are, then.  It may come as a surprise to some that I didn’t pick either of the two Dino 246 models, but I think the 308 has a better engine and probably drives better than its predecessor.

Also surprising is that I had quite a problem deciding on the third car, simply because I found very few of the cars that appealing.  I’m not interested in buying a car for its “investment value”, because at my age (and with that amount of money in the bank) I want to enjoy myself.

Don’t even ask me what guns I’d buy under the same circumstances…

2 comments

  1. The 328 was in every way better than the 308, just as the F50 was better than the F40, but one of each pair is an icon and the other’s not.

    The Vitroresina goes for a bit more than the steel-bodied 308s, but you can still get one for about $100k which isn’t much.

Leave a Reply