Secret Diary of a Female Petrolhead: the Supercar Edition
Explain to me about supercars.
No, seriously. If anyone out there has a clue, please write in and explain to me how anyone can consider them ‘cool’. Now, I like a supercar as much as the next person. Wait, scratch that. How can I say I like it? I’ve never driven a supercar. I’ve never touched one. I’ve never even seen one in real life close up. (I will obviously have to make an effort at the next motorshow.) So how can I categorically state: yup, that one there, that’s the one for me, the one with the bright orange paintjob and the rotating guns mounted on the spoiler?
I realise I’ve just finished telling you that I am really quite partial to the Zonda R, but that’s more of an abstract sort of love. I love it like I love Dali – I’ve no idea what’s going on with it, and would feel vaguely disturbed if I did. But to stand up and say, yup, I’d love to own one? No.
And then it melted.
And yet, despite that, I’m having to wage battles over whether or not the Exige – or the Agera, or the One-77 – is cool, uncool or just too uncool for words. My logic, for anyone who is interested, is this: if it looks like it’s something a City banker would drive without a hint of irony, there are no words for how uncool it is. Give it up now.
Actually, I don’t see why I should be having this argument at all, because it’s my fridge, and my fridge magnets, and if I decide to have the Exige in the Uncool section, on my own head be it. And still, out it came – “but look at it! It looks like the Batmobile!”
There is, I suspect, a significant difference between engine enthusiasts and car enthusiasts. Both care about what the car has under the bonnet, but the car enthusiasts also care about whether or not it looks like a Batmobile. Whereas I actively gravitate towards non-Batmobile cars (they don’t go with my handbag).
Anyway, the point is, I’ve now had a few driving lessons, and have therefore been thinking about what car I would hypothetically buy once I pass my driving test (and before I move to my castle, complete with moat). Meanwhile, my instructor was telling me to stop giving way to people (why? They were busy and going somewhere, whereas I was driving in circles!) and hold my ground. I had to stop being so cooperative, otherwise I would be ‘forever taken advantage of’.
While I was thinking about being less cooperative, I was cut up by a bloke driving a royal blue Ferrari. I can’t swear as to the model, due to the extreme speed at which he almost ran me off the road, but its sloping front looked rather like a Ferrari Daytona. Suffice to say I was rather surprised to see one in Clapham, and even more surprised to nearly have it embed itself in the side of the Fiat 500 I was desperately trying not to stall.
Ah, I thought. That is what I’m supposed to do. That raw, unbridled aggre-
“Was that the same Ferrari I saw on the roundabout a few minutes ago?” my instructor asked. I wouldn’t know, since at the time I was trying to remember which turn I was meant to be taking. But if so –
“Why is that bloke driving around pointlessly?”
As several Very Busy Persons behind me decided to improve my driving skills by honking their horns and pointing out that I should have allowed the Daytona-alike and my little Fiat to merge rather than braking and therefore delaying them by 3.4 seconds, I pondered the problem of the supercar. Even a Ferrari seemed a little pointless in South London. Surely anyone who drove one would either have to buy their own corner of Monte Carlo, or would otherwise have to face running for a pint of milk in something that looks like it should ram other cars for daring to share road space.
There’s a reason I’m going to have to learn to rebuild an engine. (Image via alfaromeowallpaper.info)
I’m going to have to decline. I’d much rather drive something that didn’t automatically make people hate me from miles away.
I’ve settled on an Alfa 166. No, it’s not a supercar.
It’s better.
The hivemind has entreated me to comment, and so I will, even though I don’t have anything *very* insightful to say.
I think giant batmobiles are basically awesome. But I don’t think I can explain why. Perhaps it’s a conditioning thing, because I did so enjoy Adam West in his actual Batmobile as a young child. It is sad that they’re almost invariably driven by arseholes. Maybe the solution to this is to stage a stealth takeover by encouraging lots of awesome feminists to buy them? Except probably they could use their money on more important things. I want a Lotus Elise, which is far too cheap to be a supercar, but does look a little bit like a batmobile, and is marginally within the realms of conceivably-financially-feasible-in-fifty-years’-time (when, presumably, petrol will be so expensive cannibal hordes will be fighting over it in the streets, so there’ll be no point having a Lotus Elise…).
Go Batmobile. (Adam West-era Batgirl drove a motorbike. She was much *more* cool than Adam West.)
Yay, comments! The hivemind likes your comments.
I think there’s a whole stereotype about who drives these cars which is really hard to separate from the car! So your reaction to seeing one in the street is usually a mix of “coool” and “… wanker, though. Still a wanker.” The stereotype is usually “wannabe machismo chauvinist dude”, especially if the car is being all loud and bass-laden, and the fact remains that I almost never see women driving them. Is this because they’re status symbols, and not as many women actually *are* “city banker” level salaried? And if they were, would they buy them?
Motorbikes are so much sexier than cars. So, so much.
Depends on the car! The new Alfa (4C) has me salivating. It takes all the pretty of the 8C, wraps it up in pretend-practicality, and delivers it for under £40k.
I may decide to forgo such luxuries as rent and food, and just live off its prettiness. And if only the production run wasn’t so bloody limited…
It was a real problem with Beamers for a while, wasn’t it? Driven by CBW (city boy wankers) and therefore undriveable by anyone else. Now that the CBWs have all moved to Audis (srsly, I was in the city the other day and there were three identical black Audis, all jumping a red light), the Beamer is starting to become a little more acceptable.
I agree with you that partly it’s an economic status issue: city boy wankers are almost exclusively men, so the car seems aggressive and piss-in-your-face even if it isn’t. There is also something aggressively affluent about the supercar: I am so rich, I can afford to advertise my wealth with this level of aggressiveness, because you are so insignificant that your hatred of me doesn’t even register. See my automatic spoiler erect itself with a flick of my finger! If that’s not a phallic metaphor, I don’t know what is.
Did anyone else clutch their heads with despair over this article? Not only did this guy total a Zonda F Clubsport Roadstar, but he’s not bothered, because he was planning on getting himself a Huayra anyway. Mate, you didn’t have to total it, I would have taken it off your hands!!
Maybe the solution to this is to stage a stealth takeover by encouraging lots of awesome feminists to buy them? Except probably they could use their money on more important things.
I like your solution. The problem is that the people that are rich enough to afford supercars are almost all male (and the few females are not terribly into cars, from what I can tell). Nothing says you can’t get yourself a decent second-ahdn supercar for £50k, though, I encourage all the City and professional ladies to trade in their wheels for one. If nothing else, they’re going cheap at the moment. (Poor millionares, having to sell their supercars to make the mortgage payments on their mansions…)
Of course, my budget being precisely 50p rather than £50k, I will have to settle for a postcard of one…