It's a lovely looking car, but I'm not sure I'd want to spend £12million on any one thing if I had it.
The Sun clicky

Mark

That's a stupendously stupid thing to say. I assume they mean 'the Mona Lisa of motoring'.

Jon

It's The Scum, this surprises you?

It wasn't The Scum, it was another publication who wrote that. I've got the magazine here in fact.

It is so choice. If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up.

I really would rather have an immaculate E-Type.

Mark

+1

Or an MG.

Thing is, you'd have to assume a car that costs that much is essentially undriveable, since you'd never get insurance so you can't drive it on the roads and it would be so expensive to repair (let alone if you wrote it off) that you'd just never take it out of the garage. Particularly if, as the article says, you were buying it as an investment. Every mile you put on the speedo would cost you a fortune.
Plus.. the bare fact is old cars, even very very very nice old cars, are actually a bit crap. Mechanically they're generally very primitive and often quite uncomfortable. Motoring technology & engineering have advanced quite a way in the last 50 years. There are companies that will take an e-type or classic MG and upgrade it to the point where it drives and handles as well as a modern car does, as oppose to something from the stone age, but they charge as much again as the car costs. And you wouldn't do it to that one anyway, because you'd destroy it's value immediately.

I mean, it's his money to spend and if he makes money on the deal fair enough but the... rose tinted spectacles aspect doesn't really wash to me. It's a wonderful, beautiful object but as a car? You'd be better off buying say an Porsche 911 or Audi R8. They'd be more comfortable, safer, massively better performance wise, be less work to drive and cost a hundredth of the price.

Didn't spot the Ferris Bueller reference then?



That all depends very much on what you're buying the car for.
I think cars, all cars, were meant to be driven. So you should drive them. How often and how far is something for you to decide. Even with an inter-galactic mileage on it, Mr Evans could afford to have the car rebuilt to a standard better than when it left Maranello. And given that there's only a handful left in the world, I doubt if you'd do much harm to the value, although the more original a car is the better the price.
However - if you like the E-Type, intend to drive it a lot, then why not give it to a firm like Eagle to sort out and modernise and make it more useable?
It's swings and roundabouts, and ultimately comes down to what you want the car to do.
We were looking at an ad for a Bentley Turbo R recently. We worked out that the depreciation on the car had cost the owner about £8 every mile from new.

'fraid not. Soz man.

Mark

Well it was $6 million cheaper than the previous one on sale. Though does $20 million count as a bargain?

I'm with Prof.

I used to be secretary for the Austin Healey Car Club (New Forest) and we used to take the Healeys out several times a month for meet-ups (my brother used his every day as his normal car) and we used to autotest them 3 or 4 times a year, have runs out to Le Mans or Montlerey and track days at Goodwood or Castle Coombe.

They were great fun to drive. Yes, they were basic, yes, the handling was poor, compared with a modern BMW M3 etc. But that was the charm, without breaking the speed limit or driving like a complete loon, you could have a lot of fun, drifting the rear etc.

The same with motorbikes. I used to have a 98 Honda VFR800, great bike, great all-rounder and I drove all over Europe on it, but the most fun bike I rode was a 1938 BMW. It had original spec tyres and brakes. It was fine on normal roads, and I actually managed to outride some guys in their Power Ranger suits on new sports bikes - riding around the outside of them on a bend, sliding the back end out. It was controllable, I wasn't breaking the speed limit, I was riding faster than guys on modern sports bikes and it was FUN!

I could have done exactly the same speed (or much faster) on the VFR and left the sports bikes behind me even quicker, but I would have put my licence at risk and I wouldn't have had as much fun...

250GTO is stunning. I always fancied the Jag XKSS too. VERY rare car. When I worked at Jag they had one at Browns Lane and I used to drool over it on a regular basis. Looks more stunning and curvy in the flesh.

not as nice as the enzo photos I posted

also photographed this in Paris:

seems rare



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I think that's a Dino.

There were only 36 250 GTO's built, and picking one up for £12 million is actually a couple of million shy of the record, but I suppose in these straitened times...

Just found this about the SS too. Oh my..... http://www.classicandperformancecar.com/features/octane_features/240448/octanes_top_ten_cool_cars.html