Every week Damien writes a list of five things. Every Thursday www.driven.co.nz runs it online as the Thursday Five, here is this week’s list of random nonsense, which also happens to be the last! Damien has left the NZ Herald and www.driven.co.nz for the greener pastures of the Sunday Star Times and www.stuff.co.nz, so there will still be plenty of car stuff to share here!
Unless you are catastrophically unaware of what goes on around you, you must know that it is Christmas soon tomorrow. I mean the decorations went up in the chain stores about three months ago.
Anyway that means finding the perfect gift for the petrolhead in your life. British supercar maker McLaren thought they would help out a bit and sent out a press release helpfully suggesting their exciting new range of P1 hypercar models as potential “stocking stuffers”.
Unfortunately, the fact that one of them costs a healthy NZ$18,000 has seen them roundly ridiculed on the interweb tubes. But rest assured, McLaren aren’t alone in the obscenely-priced gift suggestion stakes, as we find out in this week’s Thursday Five!
McLaren P1 1:8-scale model
While they have been roundly ridiculed for suggesting it as a “stocking stuffer”, this model of a McLaren P1 is a startling piece of work.
Made by Amalgam Fine Model Cars – whose models all run somewhere around those prices anyway – the detail is utterly stunning. But it is still a serious amount of money for a model car.
But then, if you have enough money to drop several million on a real car, $12K for a model is really pocket change.
1962 Ferrari 268 SP front end replica
When it comes to whoring out your name charging rich idiots HUGE sums of money for junk with that name on it, McLaren are mere amateurs when compared to the absolute masters of the art – Ferrari.
Take, for example, this 1:1 replica of the front of a 1962 268 SP. While it is, indeed, a beautiful car, this particular nose cone has never been anywhere near a real one, as it is as said above, strictly a “replica”.
A replica that will cost you a staggering $13,500.
That, by the way, doesn’t include freight, which will set you back and even more staggering $6,538.31 for the cheapest option, bringing the replicas price up to a fairly startling $20,038.31, which the Ferrari website helpfully informs you that still doesn’t include any custom duties. Or GST. Never forget GST.
Lamborghini Gallardo exhaust valves
While these are by far the least expensive thing on the list, Lamborghini has seemingly done the impossible and figured out a way to sell suckers valued customers its old, second hand parts.
This from the website: “The Lamborghini Gallardo valves are original mechanical components of the vehicle, a valued element for both fans and collectors of memorabilia of the House of the Bull. They are part of an exclusive collection, and come with a signed certificate of authenticity.”
Hopefully the certificate says “Ha ha! We found these in the bin! Thanks for buying our rubbish, sucker!”
It won’t, but if you actually paid $1,012 for four exhaust valves, no matter how nicely presented, you would deserve that. Actually, come to think of it, they could actually be cheaper than buying a new set of exhaust valves if you own a Gallardo…
Porsche 911 Turbo wheel rim clock
$2,299 for a 20-inch alloy wheel from a Porsche 911 Turbo is probably not a bad price, but for a clock it is verging on offensive.
So for a clock made out of a 20-inch alloy wheel from a Porsche 911 Turbo? Um… well, it’s still only usable as a clock, so… yeah, that’s quite steep.
But probably the worst thing about this is that it is actually quite useless as a clock. You see, it is a ten spoke wheel, meaning that while your mind would naturally align the positions of the spokes to numbers on traditional clock, it would be very wrong indeed, making telling the time on this huge, massively expensive clock a very confusing and challenging ask indeed.
Bentley Blower ride-on model
Bentley have a crack at out-Ferrari-ing Ferrari with this exciting expensive child’s ride-on Bentley Blower. At $7,200 it is horrifically priced, but also impressively crafted.
Taking more than 60 hours to build by hand, the ride-on Blower has a wooden body finished with high-gloss paint and features machined aluminium wheels, a stainless steel grille and a personalised number plate. It also comes complete with a car cover and a wooden garage…
If you want to teach your kids about the rich and exciting racing history of Bentley, buy them a book. If you want to make sure they know they are rich and turn them into spoiled little monsters buy them this. If you want to buy it for yourself to display in your Bentley-themed room, then you have WAY too much money, so go for it!
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