Originally posted by NeoNSX:
u r right... i can't read the article...
love ur name NSXaholic... haven't we met in an AA class? (Acura Anonymous)
Touche. I like that. And thanks for the compliment. All right, here goes...hope it comes out well (but be forewarned: you guys are missing out on the sexy pictures and a summary table).
World's Most Expensive Cars To Hit the Market All at Once
By JONATHAN WELSH
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Ans Weber has had a few headaches with his lastest car. When the sun visor broke, it took four months to get a new one. He had to send the car back to the shop to replace a recalled fuel line. And don't even ask the aviation consultant about the clutch and steering.
Is it a cheap subcompact? Nope, a $230,000 Ferrari.
Never mind the stalling economy -- here comes the quarter-million-dollar car. While the market has always had a couple of super-pricey racers at its top end, now an entire fleet's coming at once: In the past year, Aston Martin, Lamborghini and Ferrari released models costing more than $200,000. And during the next year or so, car makers such as Mercedes-Benz, Porsche and even Ford will roll out outlandishly powerful two-seaters, including a few that will make this year's crop look like economy models (estimated price of Bugatti's Veyron: $750,000). In all, a dozen of these are expected to enter the market by 2004.
We wondered how much car you actually get for the money. So we took five of them out for test spins, including a Lamborghini, a Porsche and an outrageous-looking hotrod called a Saleen S7.
Naturally, racetrack performance was a given: We could push them to 60 mph in four seconds, and they all clung to curves like a Versace dress. So we went looking for the less obvious: Can they haul groceries? Do the windows roll all the way down? Ferrari's Maranello, for example, lacked a hook for hanging dry-cleaned Italian suits. One car had a piece of suede peeling off the trim, while another actually scraped the driveway apron when we swooped in to show it off. How cool is that?
Granted, these cars come out in quantities of only a few hundred apiece, and in the roughly $370 billion U.S. automotive business, they're a drop in the bucket. But for auto makers, their importance is outsized: One of the reasons big auto companies build them is to cast a "halo" over the whole production line, attracting consumers to high-volume models, as well as providing a testing ground for new technologies.
Yet they're also an outsized risk. With a typical production cost of about $150,000, makers have to sell most of the cars to break even, says Art Spinella, an analyst with CNW Marketing/Research. That was less of a problem when only a few companies were vying for buyers. (Of course, manufacturers do also make custom cars that can be even more expensive than these production models.) But now, with an unprecedented number of outfits making these cars and the economy hitting low gear, the stakes are high. "The business plans for these cars were developed in the late 1990s," says Domenic Martilotti, an analyst with Bear, Stearns. "Clearly, the environment has changed."
Automotive history, in fact, is full of defunct high-end makers such as Vector, Bitter and DeLorean. The 1980s spawned speedsters such as the $250,000 Porsche 959 and $600,000 Jaguar XJ220, which arrived in the early '90s just as the economy cooled. Porsche lost thousands on each 959 it sold and some XJ220s sat unsold for years. (They now go for about $125,000 used.) Jaguar says it has no plans to build another car of this type, and recently pulled the plug on a less-expensive but much-talked-about prototype, the F-Type.
Still, car makers argue that there's enough customers for these cars -- 8,000 or so recession-proof buyers world-wide, according to Bear, Stearns. Ferrari, for one, says it already has deposits for a year's worth of its Maranello model, while Aston Martin says it's confident it can sell the 150 it's planning to send to the U.S. "Even billionaires are given to an occasional Bond fantasy," says Simon Sproule, Aston's marketing vice president.
Some folks, in fact, are even picking up more than one. Take Jerry Ritzow of Franklin, Wis., who recently paid $400,000 for Saleen's S7, a super-fast number that loaded with scoops and vents. If he tires of that car -- it has a stiff ride and takes muscle to work the stick and brakes -- there's always his Mercedes sedan. Or his Ferrari 575. "If I want to drive in comfort all day, I can take my Ferrari," says Mr. Ritzow, the president of an aquarium manufacturer.
To gauge the winners and losers of the new generation of supercars, we took them out for a few quick spins. Here's our rundown:
Aston Martin Vanquish, $234,260
WHAT'S COOL: Bond drives one in the new 007 flick.
WHAT'S NOT: Suede cover peeled off coat hook.
WHAT HAPPENED: The new Vanquish is being heralded as proof that Aston is back to full power, thanks to a financial and creative turnaround under Ford's ownership. When we pulled out of Aston's national headquarters in California, we felt pretty cool hitting 100 mph. (Granted, we were in an industrial park.) First stop: Irvine's Spectrum mall, where we tipped the valet $5 to park us in front of a P.F. Chang's restaurant, then waited for gawkers. Sadly, it just wasn't flashy enough to draw stares -- except our own, as we neurotically watched to make sure no one dinged it. (Cost to replace a cracked headlight: $1,341). From there, we headed down the Pacific Coast Highway, where, unlike in most of our other supercars, we could actually hear ourselves on our cellphone. Another bonus: A computerized system shifted gears for us, freeing one hand to smoke a cigar.
BOTTOM LINE: One of the most comfortable of the bunch, but the least flashy. Just doesn't scream "quarter million dollars."
Porsche GT2, $180,000
WHAT'S COOL: Our only model with cupholders.
WHAT'S NOT: It's so low we kept bottoming out on driveways. (A Porsche exec had also scraped the "air dam" on our test car.)
WHAT HAPPENED: After a 10-year hiatus, Porsche is back in the supercar business in a big way -- rolling out 200 of these GT2s by the end of 2003, with plans to add an even faster and pricier model ($375,000) next year as well. By supercar standards, this is something of a budget drive: The maker used the body from its lower-end Carrera, souping it up with a turbo engine, race-car brakes and a big wing on the back. It even got twice the mileage of our other cars. But we hardly noticed all that: We had a blast barreling out of Atlanta, and appreciated that this car had all the comforts the others didn't (lighted vanity mirrors, cupholders and windows that actually rolled all the way down).
BOTTOM LINE: It's the "bargain" of the bunch -- but it looks a lot like the $70,000 Porsche 911 your dentist drives.
Ferrari Maranello, $231,525
WHAT'S COOL: It's a Ferrari.
WHAT'S NOT: It wasn't red.
WHAT HAPPENED: Of course you can get this in red, but our tester was titanium gray. ("A more mature color," a spokesman says.) Appearance-wise, the Maranello is a throwback to the '60s, when a sports car was judged by the length of the hood and size of the engine. (This one has 12 cylinders, 515 HP.) But tooling around in our quarter-million-dollar car, we wondered: Would anyone recognize this thing? So we parked out front of a New Jersey luncheonette and started tallying. "From a block away, I knew it was a Ferrari," one passerby said, his dog sniffing our tires. "Looks like a Celica to me," said restaurant owner Raymond Baduch, guessing it would run us, oh, 80 large. Ouch. But the real question we had: Where's the stick shift? Turns out you change gears with two little paddles on the steering column. It may look cool, but we got bored even though race-car drivers swear by it. Our only other complaint: No coat hooks. "If you own this car, you're having your dry cleaning delivered," a spokesman said.
BOTTOM LINE: Comfortable, easy to drive and -- for this crowd, anyway -- conservative, it could be the Toyota Camry of supercars.
Saleen S7, $395,000
WHAT'S COOL: Carbon-fiber body alone costs $100,000.
WHAT'S NOT: The rear trunk is behind the engine: Bad for hauling groceries, good for roasting them.
WHAT HAPPENED: The S7 is a study-hall doodle come to life -- impossibly low-slung, with 64 air vents and scoops. ("Every one serves a purpose," the company says.) It's the work of Steve Saleen, a former race-car driver who got his start tuning Ford Mustangs -- and who's now been brought in to help Ford make its own supercar, the GT. Even among the cars we drove, it's an overachiever, with 550 horsepower pushing a tiny car, barely heavier than a Mini Cooper. It stuck to a winding canyon road at 60 mph; with most cars, we lose our nerve at half that speed. But working the stiff steering and unassisted brakes made us sweat, and the S7's air conditioning, coming though two small vents, was too weak to cool us. Comfortable? With rock-hard suspension, narrow bucket seats and a crowded passenger area, we don't recommend driving it on a first date.
BOTTOM LINE: The Aston and Ferrari are luxury cruisers by comparison.
Lamborghini Murcielago, $273,000
WHAT'S COOL: Front end lifts to avoid driveway scrapes.
WHAT'S NOT: Trying to get in the driver's seat.
WHAT HAPPENED: We were dubious after one famous Lamborghini owner, Atlanta Braves' right fielder Gary Sheffield, once called his car "one big headache." But the company says this new model is dramatically improved, and we were impressed from the start. Flamboyant as any Lamborghini, our tester looked like a bright yellow, sharp-edged piece of origami. Certainly, it passed our "wow" test, with onlookers swarming to watch us work the bat-wing doors on Rodeo Drive. And on the open road it was the most muscular drive of all -- not the smoothest or quietest but definitely the most fun. (With 571 HP, it has the most power of those we drove.) But we do have one suggestion: Do something about the door, which requires an awkward ingress. After all, it's hard to look suave when you have to squat tail-first into the hand-stitched leather seats.
BOTTOM LINE: The Alpha car of the crowd, with the most horsepower, an outrageous shape and impressive-looking engine
