Congratulations, you just won 10 metric tons of money! Those late-night stops to the gas station for lottery tickets just paid off because you won enough money to buy the gas station you bought the ticket from. After Uncle Sam takes his requisite cut, you’re still left with way more money than you know what to do with. You’re an Autopian, of course, so your first thought is to restart production on the 2000 Ford Ranger. You still have lots and lots of money sitting around afterward, so you decide to treat yourself by having a luxury automaker build you something bespoke. How would you have your car outfitted?
As an aside, I did say you got exactly 10 metric tons of money. A banknote is roughly a gram in weight, so you have about 100,000,000 bills just lying around. Assuming all of those are 100s, that’s $10 billion to play with. Yeah, that’s right, 22,046 pounds of pure money is just $10 billion. A much smaller $10 million still weighs 220 pounds. That really puts those more bombastic heist movies into perspective, doesn’t it?
Anyway, let’s not distract ourselves with the weight of money. It’s time to have your dream ride coachbuilt! This morning, Lewin published an article about all of the opulent custom-tailored cars Rolls-Royce made for people this year. If you throw enough money at Rolls or really any high-end coachbuilder, you can turn whatever is rattling around in your head into a real live vehicle.
Even more astonishing than the resulting vehicles is the level of craftsmanship and detail that goes into these vehicles. As Lewin wrote, one of the builds involved almost 700 hours of work into making a headliner. That’s incredible.
My ultimate dream would be to throw enough money at Mercedes-Benz to convince it to build me a Smart Fortwo painted in an eye-searing pink. I’d want the car so pink that you could easily spot it from your Spirit flight. I have bad taste, so we’ll pair that pink with glittery white accents and a white leather interior, also with glitter somehow in the seats and trim. I’m also a sucker for lighting, so we’ll cover everything in RGB as if it were a PC gaming build. I mean, the computer I use to write these articles has RGB on everything from the motherboard to the RAM. I’m not entirely devoid of class, so I’ll throw in some wood on the floor and some trim.
Alternatively, maybe I’d go the vintage Apple route and have my car decked out in translucent everything. Translucent pink wheels? Check. Translucent pink gauges, doors, and hood? Absolutely. I would also ask for the vehicle’s hoses to be translucent, too. Finish with RGB lighting, of course. Oh, right, I never mentioned what I want under the engine hatch in the rear. Since I’ve gotten well into fantasy talk, give me a two-stroke diesel, like a Detroit 6V71 but somehow tiny:
It’s probably a good thing I’m not a car designer, possibly better that I don’t have enough money or skill to make these wonderful, awful ideas a reality. Still, I’d love to have at least one of my cars in pink.
So, lay it on me, what ideas would you make a reality if you paid an automaker a ridiculous sum of money?
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An Excalibur with modern parts Or a Mansion on wheels because why not?
How do these compare to a train, which I could also then afford?
Limited routes? 🙂
Subaru Brat converted to an EV shooting brake, with tracks for backcountry skiing access, and any other chassis/drivetrain modifications needed to make it as durable and idiot proof as possible. The interior would be fully redone for comfort, but the exterior would be as ratty as possible.
I would order mine in the shape of a 5000 acre Western Montana Ranch, complete with a river, some ponds, lots of forest, a good amount of open meadow, a nice house, an awesome shop, and like 5 little cabins spread over the property for family and friends to use airbnb style.
By which I mean, screw the stupid luxury barge, I’ll just take the ranch
I could definitely appreciate the upgrade from Pearl Bailey’s five pound box of money (my favorite Christmas song!) but your 90s Apple theme has me thinking that I really need the transparent/electroluminescent video-game car from Amon Tobin’s Verbal video. (Warning: very flickery, dark and charmingly janky.)
Better add electrochromic darkening for privacy though.
I would sell it and purchase a few RAV4s, preferably as Prime hybrids. Maybe a few older RAV4s too, or 4Runners, and use the money from the sale of the grossly overvalued Roller to convert those into plug-in hybrids as well.
Because being filthy rich is often a direct result of being an absolute asshole. People who accumulate enemies would do well to be subtle, unnoticeable.
If I won a $1 billion, rather than commission a one-off Bentley, I would start a campaign to legislate and educate that The Left Lane is For Passing. I would do my part to make the world a better place.
You sound angry, Bob! (͡o‿O͡)
Flo, the mascot: “If you’re being passed on the right, move right until that doesn’t happen!”
Instructions unclear. I am now in jail for running someone off the road when they tried to pass on the right. 😉
See this is why we need an organized campaign. No wonder my homemade signs don’t seem to be working…
I think Don Quixote tried already…
Volvo: Make me a V90, paint it green, give it a tan interior, and add a rear facing 3rd row to the cargo area. Oh and give me the V60 Polestar powertrain. Thank you.
I got a V60 polestar coming in March, so excited for the day I bring her home.
Whoa, that’s awesome! Congrats!
Tangentially related: one way to describe a car I’d really want is “I would drive that if it were hot pink and covered in Hello Kitty stickers”.
I prefer bright orange or yellow, but pink is all right. Not a fan of stickers on paint, though.
[checks Amazon]
Oh hell, yeah! Ferrari yellow PPG paint is available in an aerosol can. brb
Since it would still have to conform to a modern platform and electronics, the only option would be a more streamlined Morgan Super Three with sliding canopy or maybe have some modifications done by FFR to a few of their chassis and have someone else build a variety of bodies to my own designs that reflect different decades.
Final gen Lincoln Continental, suicide door special version…turned into a convertible.
Just don’t move to Dallas.
Well, I’d be comfortably ensconced in a cushy leather wingback chair at Rolls-Royce HQ right now describing my dream Wraith. Deep, dark pearl green with a tiny hint of blue. Sumptuous black hides with seat inserts of hand-woven Black Watch tartan wool and dark green piping. Matching dark green Wilton carpets. No shiny sideboard wood, just perfectly turned aluminum on the dash and door panels.
I might have been born 75 years too late.
The first one coming to mind is pretty achievable as a thousandaire, never mind needing to be a billionaire.
Inspired by Matt Farah’s 911 (and its bus fabric seats), take a modernish Mini Cooper S, and have the seats partially recovered with the new Routemaster moquette. VW shouldn’t have a stranglehold on hot hatches with fun interiors.
https://www.ltmuseum.co.uk/system/files/styles/collection_item_component_600_px_wide/private/collection_item/DR00012q5.jpg?itok=6nY28Vn6
Just for fun I’d hire Toecutter for the Sisyphean Task of making good on all those wild claims. I want a vehicle that has all the comforts, all the room, all the vroom and low NVH of a ultra luxury car with slippery styling and low weight to yield gazillions of mpg.
I’d also buy a 2nd gen Toyota Mirai and have it retrofitted with a CNG fired Camry hybrid drivetrain set up to use every @&$+℅∆ trick in the book to achieve maximum MPG. That way I could make good on my own, less wild claims.
I’ll see your Toecutter, and raise you a hire Rootwyrm to create a best-ever Mopar vehicle using all possible available parts and systems.
Now, that I want to see!
I’m confused. One car you say? That just doesn’t compute. I’d buy up the worlds stock of brown, manual, station wagons and NA Miatas. For this is the way.
I don’t know if it’d be considered Coachbuilt, but I have always dreamt of having the money to pay McLaren and Lotus co-develop a compact EV hot hatch, with McLaren’s carbon fiber monocoque designs and Lotus suspension tuning they’re known for.
If I’m building anything on top of a pre-existing car though, I’m finding someone to make the Buick Avista Concept out of either a Camaro or an ATS-V coupe, including doing the necessary TTV6 engine swap if it’s built on the Camaro platform.
I would go all out and have an old car with a convertible open cockpit for my chauffeur and covered closed cabin for the passengers. A long body with a huge motor maybe electric. And a paint job so deep you can see last week in it.
I do plenty of hand-wringing trying to configure cars in the 30-60k range. Something bespoke like this would leave me frozen with decision paralysis.
I’d commission a modern version of the Cadillac Sixteen powertrain and place it in the Elmiraj concept body.
Surely this could be done for less than what a Bugatti costs.
I wish you lottery luck, if only because I’d like to read the Holy Grail article on it 30 years from now.
If I won the lottery and tried something like this, I promise I would not make y’all wait 30 years.
*wrong thread*
I wonder why Jay Leno doesn’t do that.
If I was a billionaire, I’d just have Bentley Brooklands Coupe in black.
The battleship of a coupe with absolute curb presence. The last one they did was the 2008 – 2011 with ye olde 6 3/4 litre V8.
They will not make a car like that again. Period. So I’d have to get an existing one.
There are few cars made with that level of curb presence.
The best thing with a choice like this is you can take it to a specialist – or sometimes the original manufacturer – and have them restore/rebuild it in the color/material choices you prefer.
Porsche does this in Germany
Mercedes-Benz does this in Germany and Long Beach
Brabus does this too.
Aston Martin does this at the old factory in England…
What’s great about Brooklands is most of them were black!
Interior would be the only thing to fuss over. Even then, what’s nice about that 2008-2011 era is the fit and finish were impeccable, so you’re only being picky on what materials and colors. However, that era lacks a lot of the over-the-top nonsense that’s done more nowadays, so they’re pretty much as you’d want it.
Even newer Bentleys can be quite demure, like the 1980s standard of “luxury.”
Yeah, I’d be tempted to get something like Nicko McBrain’s Jaguar.
https://media.jaguar.com/news/2018/03/jaguar-creates-unique-greatest-hits-xj-iron-maiden-drummer-nicko-mcbrain
British rock stars objectively have the best taste in cars.
Oh Hell Yes.
I would have one in dark purple metal flake (subtle flake)
911 Targa with an S/T drivetrain. In nonmetallic Albert Blue with aurum wheels.
….I think I’d just order an LC500 convertible in Nori Green over toasted caramel with a tan top, the touring package for the better sound system and air scarf feature, and the dynamic handling package because duh.
That is my ideal car. Everything more expensive than it is kind of just gravy to me outside of a crazy Parsh. Since I hit the lottery I’d buy a GT3 RS to go with it as my track car and an X5M as my all weather daily. I’d be content for eternity.
Alright y’all need to talk me out of this, and quick
https://www.ourismanhondaoftysonscorner.com/used/Lexus/2018-Lexus-LC%20500-vienna%20va-5f7fc2de0a0e083279169cf0ac8acfb7.htm
Uhhhhh how does one do that?
It’s not Nori Green, and the interior is the wrong color. That’s all I’ve got.
I don’t love the black interior but nightfall mica is a decent enough color. The real tragedy of these is that their older, affluent audience tends to buy them in black and white. Both are a preposterous waste of how gorgeous the car is.
Agreed and it is a solid color at least.
As far as convincing oneself to buy a reasonable frivolous car, you can easily go through the mental gymnastics of “It’s a Lexus! I can drive this thing forever! It’s like a hot Camry!”
Best way to convince yourself is to Turo one for a whole weekend. Use it for everything, even normal conveyance stuff. Try to be behind the wheel, with partner/spouse or other passengers, for 20 hours. Find every little thing that makes you go, “wait, what?” grinds your gears, etc.
The problem on the LC were the vestigial backseats in lieu of making it a better tourer with a larger cargo area. As a result, it doesn’t do the GT job well. It would’ve been much better off being a liftback like the Vantage or F-Type.
The infotainment is also hot garbage. Might be remediable via aftermarket and the Lexus community, but doing it properly won’t be cheap.
Though it mostly does the rest of its job well. Just remember that it is still nearly a 4000lb vehicle with a nice engine. It’s very much a GT. There were also very significant suspension changes on the revision you’d want done.
Also, Structural Blue was the best LC color. There’s no contest on that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y55Zb7byG1I
You’re asking the Autopian commentariat to talk you out of a bad decision? Enjoy your new LC500. 😀
We have a baby on the way, so now is decidedly not the time to ditch my hot hatch. But I’ve already told my wife that once the littles can sit in the backseats safely it’ll officially be time for an LC or another spectacular GT.
No. I think you should buy it.
Very much on board with this. What more could I need? I don’t think sudden, unfathomable wealth would reprogram me quickly enough to actually enjoy anything more expensive than that.
An LC500 (honestly exactly as you spec’d) is everything I would want and probably more.
I’d probably have to buy it stock and then go aftermarket, because I don’t think Rolls Royce would like it when they heard my plan for the Flying Spur safari conversion.
“Still, I’d love to have at least one of my cars in pink.”
Does it have to be a car?
https://salem.craigslist.org/cto/d/salem-1972-ford-f250-ranger-xlt-camper/7699817119.html
A PHEV or EV Element! I’d run into Honda headquarters and yell, “build it you cowards!”
or use that billion $ to do a high interest leveraged buyout.. and walk into Honda headquarters with a sink.
Hand grenades. Plenty of hand grenades