Defend Your Favorite: Supercars are Boring

This weekend thousands of very rich men and their very bored wives congregated in Monterey, California, to worship at the oil-soaked altar of speed. They oohed and aahed at the perfectly restored cars that only a hyper-elite could afford in their day. Now those cars will live out the rest of their automotive existence sitting in a temperature and humidity controlled garage until the next time they needed to be trotted out as a badge of wealth. 

It is not that these cars are not beautiful if taken purely as sculpture, it is that their worship is boring. The staleness is not just confined to millionaires trotting around a golf course looking at 40-year-old Jaguars and Ferraris, it extends to modern supercars as well. 

If a McLaren is faster than a Ferrari, but neither you nor anyone you know will ever drive them, does it matter? You can look at all the pictures, read all the articles and watch every video on Youtube about whatever the current “it” supercar is, but if you will never actually experience the feeling behind the wheel why spend the mental effort caring?

I am not questioning why these cars are made. First, they make a ton of money. Most of the companies are private; so it is difficult to ascertain their profits, but Porsche stated just a few weeks ago that it made over a billion euros in the first half of 2011, and that was off selling about 65,000 cars worldwide. Clearly there is money to be made off of selling expensive vehicles, and there are enough rich guys willing to waste money on exclusivity.

Second, these cars are, admittedly, occasionally beautiful. The Alfa Romeo Tipo 33 Stradale is probably the most beautiful car ever made with a curvaceous body and powered by a sonorous two-liter V8. Except that the engine is horribly unreliable, and the interior is cramped. Oh, and only 18 were ever made; so do not expect to see one ever in person.  

Automotive enthusiasts should enjoy driving. The feeling of g-forces moving your body is a car is addictive, and the sound of an engine can be intoxicating. But why do we let ourselves as enthusiasts be talked into loving cars so far out of our reach? A modern Corvette will perform within a second of a Ferrari 458 for less than a quarter of the price. I know all of the arguments about build quality and exclusivity but when it comes down to it, you can have 80% of the performance in a car that is realistically attainable. 

I am bored by these cars because it is not worth my time to care about something that I will never have. A supercar a lot like a walrus; I am never going to own a walrus, I might see one in the zoo once in a while, but for the most part I do not bother to think about them.