Help me calibrate my dreams

How do I know when I have enough money to buy and daily drive each of the following cars ?

Dino 246
400i
Mondial Cabriolet
456
F40 (!)

Or, put another way...how much is each of those cars going to hurt financially ?

 

Great formula ! Thank you. You can simplify it to "Purchase price = 5% of your net worth."

 

Oh brilliant, thanks for clarifying—helpful to think of that, and it makes sense when I go back and look at the various cars and bikes I've owned.

 

Born in the 80's. I've spent the last decade and a bit cultivating a profound gypsy mentality (Read : $300 30-year old Volvo, $1550 Ducati 900 SS, $120 moped...and I loved them all) but now have some extra money floating around and would like to know what other people think is reasonable for a discretionary car purchase. My normal formula is to buy derelict motorbikes and ride them every day, but I've just moved to Germany. It's freezing and autobahny; you can see why a big missile starts to appeal for a german recon mission.

Was thinking of rolling my own 456 out of an W124 black on caramel S600 with a manual from Amon Oliver and pipes from Japan. 15k Euro total and sleepier than any of the other options.

 

I've never stretched for any vehicle...ever, and have no desire to. I've made money on 90% of the vehicles I've owned, but it's always vehicles in a certain loved condition that catch my eye ($300 -> $800. $1600-> $2800 $380 -> painting appraised at $7800, $1600-> $3900, $100 -> $500). I can remember only one where I lost money ($800-> $100, transmission broke). New, perfect cars do nothing for me. I need a story. I like the cars you see in Jordan, Morocco, and Burma. I also like strange ducks like AZ-1's. That's why I'm writing. I need a boost, because I'm just as happy trying to learn how to kickflip a skateboard or riding a bike through the mountains as I am drifting a car or racing an enduro. Probably happier. I saw a silver 412 running around Paris one rainy night years ago; it had a smash in the fender and it looked so comfortable in its environs. It was glorious. A 456 prowled past the Grand Palais more recently and gave me the same feeling.

However, I've spent so much time on two wheels in winters—winters so cold that I feel my fingerbones warming up long after I'm back inside—that a car is starting to look good. Even though they're all basically big, heavy, boring heated boxes on wheels, I finally have the means to get something rorty enough to justify buying one. However, I can't work out how to juxtapose my preference for slightly smashed up cars with ferrari-owners' (read : eventual buyers of my car) borderline OCD. The thing is, the old motorcycles I roll around on are so full of character and charm that modern luxury / exotic cars are soul-crushingly dull and over-developed. I could care less about being seen in one. My self-image and my vehicles are entirely divorced.

I don't like traction control. If you leave it on you don't know where the limit is, and if you turn it off you might feel foolish if you later stuff it. I want an old car that's not been conceived by a bunch of people in a boardroom and optimized on workstations, but one dreamt up by a visionary, made by people who were turned on by making something exquisite, caressable.

Modern cars...an Aventador doesn't even have scissor doors ! Aren’t “Lambo doors” that swing out the mark of an imposter? Remember Bam Margera and his Gallardo, to which he famously added “Lambo doors,” or the magnificent candy-painted that graced the pages of Donk, Box, & Bubble? The mark of an retrofitted scissor door is that it swings up at an angle. I dig wacky door swings as much as the next guy, but you don’t have to be Ken Jennings to know that scissor doors ought to flip straight up.

There’s also the association with the VAG behemoth—which owns Porsche, Audi, VW, Bugatti, Skoda, Lamborghini, Seat, Ducati and a couple of truck brands—including Bentley. You can imagine a boardroom meeting where German boffins divide a worldwide customer base into tranches of age, income, hexagon-affinity, family size, and flashiness—then use strangely specific words to delineate suspension, body style, comfort and transmission characteristics that will please a given group of buyer. It’s makes any VAG-group product buyer feel like a statistic. If the normal Huracán costs $65k more than the Audi R8 V10 Plus that offers identical performance, what do they say about Huracán buyers in the board room. Do they consider them connoisseurs or vulgarians? When you find yourself eyeing a Huracán that is only available with 4wd and paddle shifters, and has a fenestrated red plastic cover over a matching red starter button, your first impression might be that the car has been tailored for YouTubers or rich chavs who can’t drive. A second later, you visualize the group of hand-rubbing executives in Wolfsburg and realize that they may know you better than you do. Be satisfied with the paddle shifters and enjoy the starter button. No clutch-kicks for you, clumsy arriviste!

Maybe I want an LCC Rocket... but they aren't social. I want an four-wheeled, air-cooled Ducati where I can talk to the passenger (and yes, I have bluetooth headsets), look at a map, eat, and talk on the phone like a car-driving slob. My best guess for that is an F40, but I'm curious to know what the rest of the F40-buying herd have in their bank accounts before clicking "Wire Transfer"

The tires, at least, should be more economical, since the power goes through two rather than one.

 

Good to hear ! Me too. I'd like a silver droptop mondial; I love the idea of a dumpy mid-engined bus (the only mid-engined four-seat cabriolet, actually) or a brown manual 412. However, I think slingshotting yourself through a forest at night behind the bobbing fenders of a dark blue 246, howling up the gears and reducing the universe to a blur of trees, a puddle of light, and that mellifluous le mans pastiche would be the best sensation any of those cars could deliver.

I'm 190cm, does that eliminate any of these choices ?

 

Great stuff. Exactly what I'm looking for, paulchua.