Congratulations, you just won 10 metric tons of money! Those late-night stops to the gas station for lottery tickets just paid off because you won enough money to buy the gas station you bought the ticket from. After Uncle Sam takes his requisite cut, you’re still left with way more money than you know what to do with. You’re an Autopian, of course, so your first thought is to restart production on the 2000 Ford Ranger. You still have lots and lots of money sitting around afterward, so you decide to treat yourself by having a luxury automaker build you something bespoke. How would you have your car outfitted?
As an aside, I did say you got exactly 10 metric tons of money. A banknote is roughly a gram in weight, so you have about 100,000,000 bills just lying around. Assuming all of those are 100s, that’s $10 billion to play with. Yeah, that’s right, 22,046 pounds of pure money is just $10 billion. A much smaller $10 million still weighs 220 pounds. That really puts those more bombastic heist movies into perspective, doesn’t it?
Anyway, let’s not distract ourselves with the weight of money. It’s time to have your dream ride coachbuilt! This morning, Lewin published an article about all of the opulent custom-tailored cars Rolls-Royce made for people this year. If you throw enough money at Rolls or really any high-end coachbuilder, you can turn whatever is rattling around in your head into a real live vehicle.
Even more astonishing than the resulting vehicles is the level of craftsmanship and detail that goes into these vehicles. As Lewin wrote, one of the builds involved almost 700 hours of work into making a headliner. That’s incredible.
My ultimate dream would be to throw enough money at Mercedes-Benz to convince it to build me a Smart Fortwo painted in an eye-searing pink. I’d want the car so pink that you could easily spot it from your Spirit flight. I have bad taste, so we’ll pair that pink with glittery white accents and a white leather interior, also with glitter somehow in the seats and trim. I’m also a sucker for lighting, so we’ll cover everything in RGB as if it were a PC gaming build. I mean, the computer I use to write these articles has RGB on everything from the motherboard to the RAM. I’m not entirely devoid of class, so I’ll throw in some wood on the floor and some trim.
Alternatively, maybe I’d go the vintage Apple route and have my car decked out in translucent everything. Translucent pink wheels? Check. Translucent pink gauges, doors, and hood? Absolutely. I would also ask for the vehicle’s hoses to be translucent, too. Finish with RGB lighting, of course. Oh, right, I never mentioned what I want under the engine hatch in the rear. Since I’ve gotten well into fantasy talk, give me a two-stroke diesel, like a Detroit 6V71 but somehow tiny:
It’s probably a good thing I’m not a car designer, possibly better that I don’t have enough money or skill to make these wonderful, awful ideas a reality. Still, I’d love to have at least one of my cars in pink.
So, lay it on me, what ideas would you make a reality if you paid an automaker a ridiculous sum of money?
Support our mission of championing car culture by becoming an Official Autopian Member.
-
What Should Our Beloved Jason Watch While Absolutely Whacked Out On Painkillers?
-
You Hit Powerball. What Car Or Motorcycle Are You Displaying In Your New Mansion’s Living Room? Autopian Asks
-
What Under-$3000 Beater Do You Have Your Sights Upon These Days And Why?
-
How Many Cars Would You Buy If Someone Gave You $135,220?
-
Do You Have A Song That Brings Back Memories Of Your Car?
Got a hot tip? Send it to us here. Or check out the stories on our homepage.
I’m late to this, but I would become the boutique builder. I’d buy the machines, hire the staff, and start building. Goal to be 1% what CVK is.
This could be done with $3 million per year in payroll, and about double for materials. It’s a $10mil capital investment in machines to start.
“I’d want the car so pink that you could easily spot it from your Spirit flight.”
https://www.thecollector.com/vantablack-anish-kapoor-stuart-semple-controversy/
So you’ll use Stuart Semple’s pink?
Denim.
A Morgan Aero 8 GT3 turned back into a road car, with super luxury interior leather/woodgrain interior trim, dark purple paint with gold metalflake ‘ghost flames’ over the top.
A Monteverdi Hai 450 SS (would probably have to have it stolen from their museum, since they only built 2 and sold 1). Build a particularly obnoxiously loud and overpowered Chrysler Hemi from aftermarket parts to replace the factory original, and paint it to look like a shark (Hai is German for shark).
A Unimog.
Most of the rest of the money can go to a big collection of Kei cars, trucks and vans, with a spare Autozam AZ-1 converted to a Lamborghini Miura replica the same as the one already built in Japan.
Plus I want one of each of the 80s Japanese turbo bike models, a Suzuki rotary bike, a Norton F1 Rotary, and a Drysdale V8.
This is the most correct answer I have ever seen on a car site.