Have You Ever Ridden In or Driven a REALLY Exotic Car (like a $100K+ sports car)?

Back in 1983ish I helped a shop put Weber carbs onto an injected BB512 Ferrari. I supplied the carbs, jets and misc pieces, along with helped with the setup of the carbs.
Anyway one afternoon the phone rang, it was the guy from the shop “get your ass out to the curb, I will be there in 2 minutes for a test drive.”
The sound that that flat 12 cylinder engine makes is magic. That car was also fast. Not 0-60 fast, it was kinda slow off the line, but let’s talk 40-140. :smiley:
What else?
Rolls Royces, Bentleys, a Bitter SC (this one may not quailfy, though, in '84 it only cost $50K, but it did have a 20 kilobuck stereo installed in it for a total of $70K in 84), and several race cars that cost way more that 100K

In 1994 I test drove a Porsche 928 that was about eight years old. I thought it was junk. The suspension was rock-hard, it banged over every little crack in the pavement, and as a result it was full of rattles. The interior fit and finish didn’t impress me at all, and it felt surprisingly underpowered.

I think, however, that that’s more a measure of how much cars have improved since the 1980’s.

Never driven or ridden in an ultra-exotic, nor in any car that cost over $70-80K new. The most expensive road machines I’ve ever been in have been the most recent purchases of a good friend: a BMW 645Ci (which developed several maddening and apparently insoluble electrical problems within a couple of months from new) and a Mercedes-Benz C55 AMG (which replaced the BMW after the factory agreed to buy it back). Drove the 645 before it went schizoid, and it was quite a kick, although the suspension and steering felt slightly disconnected from reality. Only rode in the C55, and although both interior and exterior are pretty nice, and it’s got tons of poke, at normal speeds I might as well have been riding in a taxi.

After that, the most exotic sports car I’ve been in was a brand-new Jaguar E-type coupe, back around '64 or so (for 20 minutes), thus when I was a wee sprog.

I’ve driven a 1970 Plymouth Hemi Superbird. Its easily over $125k.

We took out a Delorean that belonged to my buddies girlfriends stepdad, it was a rattley heap o’ crap that couldn’t get out of it’s own way.
When I was still a kid dad’s girlfriends ex showed up in his brand new Pantera (351) and took me for a ride, when he stomped on it there was so much suction from the air cleaner it drew your hair (Tesla-like) towards the back dash (where the air cleaner poked out). Badass car, scary fast, sounded like a race car and handled like it was on rails.

Unclviny

My good friend here has a super tricked-out BMW M3. It is known amongst the dealerships here as the best BMW in the Czech Republic for racing. It has EVERYTHING. Paddle shifters, most-modern computer and GPS, etc. Heck, I think he said the brake upgrade cost over $15,000. He has taken it well over 300KmH many times while on business trips around Europe. We hit 200KmH in a parking lot once…The thing is very fast, and very nice.

-Tcat

Sports cars are supposed to have stiff suspensions. My 911 had Bilstein Sport Shocks on it – one level below actual racing shocks. As someone else put it, you could ‘drive over a dime and tell whether it was heads or tails’. Rock-hard ride until you got it up to about 70 mph. Then it was very nice and smooth.

Yeah I know, but this was a whole 'nuther level. I’ve owned sports cars with stiff suspensions (my old 240-Z, for example). This thing was so hard it was almost undriveable. It was teeth-jarring hard, and it wasn’t very controllable since it was always banging around over imperfections in the road surface (now granted this is Canada, where the roads are pretty bad because of the frost heaves and such). It’s also possible, since this was a second-hand car, that it had suspension work by a fanatic and didn’t drive like the stock vehicle.

The Libyans!

I’ve driven a 1964 Bentley. I was 19 and thought I could drive anything. Right hand drive wierded me out. Driven a couple of Ferraris. Realized they are made for and by short Italian men, which I’m not.

I got the chance to take a drive in a 1957 Mercedes Benz 300SL Convertable. It was quiet the ride, and when we stopped for gas 3 or 4 people stopped to ask the owner some questions. I didn’t get to drive it but I was happy just riding along! The owner(my boss) had recently bought it at the Barrett-Jackson auction for $250,000. :cool:

Wow, those are like the Cadillac of cars!

:smiley:

My dad is a Jaguar enthusiast, so I’ve ridden in and occasionally driven a few of his over the years. I have no idea how much they are worth though, probably not as much as most of these that you are talking about. But he usually keeps a minimum of three of them, so add it up. :smiley:

Got picked up by a driver of a Rolls-Royce while I was hitch-hiking home from Boston one day, several years ago. I knew the driver who was from my home town. On the dash was a little plaque that said "This car was made especially for xxxxx xxxxxx, with his name. Quite impressive except for the fact that I had seen those plaques for sale in a Lillian Vernon catalog.