I have great news to tell you. All of your hard work over the years is paying off because tonight, a man in a highlighter-yellow trenchcoat will meet you in the back alley of a Walmart to give you a present. See, the man has observed your work as a sewer inspector and thinks you’ve done a bang-up job. So, he’s going to hand you more than enough money to buy all sorts of crazy vehicles. The only stipulation is that you have to spend the cash on vehicles that aren’t cars. So, what kind of boat, plane, train, or motorcycle are you buying?
Today is a great time to be and become a motorcyclist. The variety of motorcycles on the market and the prices associated with them means just about anyone can enjoy two wheels. Want disgusting, life-threatening amounts of power? Swing a leg over a Kawasaki Ninja H2. Want to feel like you’re riding a time machine? Janus Motorcycles and Royal Enfield have plenty of classically styled fare. Even if your wallet isn’t bulging, you can get affordable motorcycles, too. A Honda Navi is technically $1,807 and if you don’t mind something old, you can still find used bikes under $1,000. Electric, gas, cruiser, or adventure, there’s a bike out there for everyone.
My motorcycle wishlist is almost complete. I achieved my dream of owning Suzuki’s failed rotary motorcycle experiment. I also have my favorite Buell creations, a lovely Royal Enfield, and a stupidly big power cruiser to make me have all of the giggles. Now, I have two more two-wheeled fish I want to catch next year. I’d love to pick up the cheap and cute $3,299 CFMoto Papio SS and one day, a Honda CBX. The CFMoto is an easy one, but it’ll be hard to find a CBX for the sorts of prices I like paying for vehicles.
Aside from that, I need to get back into the cockpit of a Cessna.
The flight lessons themselves aren’t too expensive, it’s combining them with renting the plane. My instructor would love for me to fly every week, but I don’t have the kind of dough required to spend $500 a week on lessons. Even $1,000 a month is a bit pricey. Thus, it’s been a while since I last sat in the cockpit of a plane. Pilots call this getting “rusty” and in terms of rust, I’m probably one of the cars David left in Michigan. So, the next time I fly, I’ll be flying to get back to where I used to be before I can advance forward.
There are also so many other vehicles I’d love to buy or at least drive. I want to get into the engineer position of more locomotives and boats sound like a ton of fun, too. If someone gave me a stupid amount of money, I might even buy a Kenworth T2000. Do I need one? No, but look at that design!
Here’s where I turn things to you. There’s a whole world of vehicles out there that aren’t just cars. Getting on a motorcycle is easy. I would recommend taking a Motorcycle Safety Foundation class first. This will not only teach you how to ride safe but also give you an idea if riding is even for you. You can also learn how to command a boat or fly a plane. In this scenario, you have all of the money you need to do that!
So, are you going to buy a boat, train, plane, or motorcycle? Maybe you’ll buy something else, like a mining truck, submarine, or a mobile crane?
Top graphic images, clockwise from upper left: Honda Grom (Honda); Bede BD-5 (Andi Siebenhofer/public domain); Kawasaki Versys 1000 (Kawasaki); Rutan VariEze (Stephen Kearney/Wikimedia Commons); Yamaha AR195 (Yamaha); Handsome Stock Fella (Cookie Studio/Stock.Adobe.com); Seahunter 39 Tournament (Seahunter)
I’ll take two planes.
For a motorcycle I’ll take a Ural. It’s the only one my wife might, begrudgingly accept me having.
As for a boat, hmm… A Contessa 32′ The guy might have given me the money to buy it, but I gotta pay for the maintenance.
At my age, 1 of each is enough. As long as each is the right one. Have a plane (Cherokee 180) and Cycle (ZRX 1200). So need a boat.
Been sailing. Love sail boats. Beneteau boats are beautiful. I’ll take one.
A nice new 14 foot Princecraft tinny h a galvanized trailer and a 9.9 fuel injected suzuki.
Boats don’t have brakes, so owning a large expensive boat becomes a stressful and tedious endeavor in which you will sustain expensive cosmetic damage with each use.
Meanwhile I’m all smiles with my tinny as I drag it onto a rocky shoreline.
Boat? Ww2 PT boat with tripple packards, or a Vietnam era river patrol boat.
Motorcycle? Gurney alligator, or a Ducati with the desmodromic vlave train, I’m not much of a motorcycle guy but I like the oddball engineering.
Planes? And yes there would have to be multiple as I’ve been an aircraft nerd my whole life. Gonna have to start with a Dehaviland Beaver turboprop conversion with amphibious floats, next would have to be a Consolidated PBY Catalina turned into a flying camper, then there’s the Rutan Quickie Q2 and Long EZ, I’d love to get my hands on and convert to a civilian personal aircraft an EA-6B, at least two F-5Fs(One for me and one for my dad),an F-16B for my father in law as that was what he flew for almost 30 years, and an F-8 Crusader.
I’d love prowler but done up in a bizjet white / cheesy graphic livery. Complete with the gold tinge on the canopy. With a couple of drop tanks. Imagine going 4-up in one of those.
Exactly. I will never forget getting buzzed by them coming over a ridge on Whidbey, and watching the A-6s doing practice bombing runs out over admitalty inlet. The P-3s were cool, but the tadpole brothers were so much fun to see even though they drove my parents nuts when they’d make their runs over our house because they’re just so loud.
Ekranoplan would be the sweet spot between an aeroplane and a boat.
Mosquito XE 290 helicopter. In kit form.
A classic wooden Chris Craft to cruise around the lake in Wisconsin & so my wife can say “we’re just a couple of old poops” like Katherine Hepburn in On Golden Pond.
I have simple tastes. A Little Wing 2-place tractor gyro with at least a 100hp fuel injected engine would be a lot of safe, low-speed flying fun at a moment’s notice! (Some assembly required.) I would see if a farm 15-20 min away would allow me space to fly it.
A good Cessna high wing would offer more travel opportunities. That is also good.
nothing says f u money like a helicopter.
But if you fly the said helicopter by yourself it would be cool in a way being schauffeured in any Rollsbach Learstream could never be.
Have all he other stuff, not that it have really made me happier, but still missing one of these planes: https://www.instagram.com/p/CyGetzFImdR/?img_index=1
Airplane. Specifically, a Grumman Albatross, which I will have rebuilt and modified into a flying, floating, traveling apartment. After which I will hire my brother to manage my wealth, and no one I currently know will see me again. There will, of course be rumors. Alleged sightings, here and there. A deeply tanned man with a shaven head and a well trimmed beard, laugh lines etched at the corners of his eyes, seen laughing with strange and furtive companions in coastal bars across the country.
Is he doing anything besides showing himself a good time? Writing, running a Michelin starred kitchen, somewhere? Tending to a Llama racing empire?
Me and the big seaplane, seeing the world and getting in and out of scrapes.
Just one?
Ok, I’d commission one of those old fashioned bespoke New England boat builders to create a modern version of The Busted Flush. I’d be retiring by the time it was finished, so then should have time for maintenance & upkeep while I live out my golden years on it.
Guess I’d have to rent a garage on shore, though.
You have taste I see. As a pickup guy, I’ve often thought about how to patch together a nice-looking and functional Miss Agnes.
Having been around my grandfather’s teens, 20s & 30s old cars from a very young age, Mrs Agnes featured heavily in my tween musings. I hope somebody somewhere actually put that Grand Old Dame together.
How convenient! I’ve always fancied a Zeppelin.
Yeah, but, where will you moor it?
-best answer yet, not withstanding.
Just stay in the air indefinitely.
Keep a fleet of small airplanes for grocery-getting and trips to the ground like this.
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/remembering-the-navys-doomed-aircraft-carrying-airships Watch the embedded video!
That sounds a bit like Tom Swift’s Atomic Aircraft
-and I can hardly believe that bit of flotsam jostled up from the pit of memory 🙂
I want a Bugatti railcar.
The fact that there is only one left and it’s in a museum is just a small detail…
https://newsroom.bugatti.com/press-releases/bugatti-train-the-story-of-the-french-railway-revolution
I’d betcha money someone whose owned multiple Bugatti’s asked the company if they could buy that rail car.
I wouldn’t blame someone for asking or wanting it either.
That’s wild it even exists!
I’m buying a Hyperloop and use it to go back and forth from the couch to the refrigerator for beer really fast.
This is the correct answer
Bad idea motorcycles are small potatoes you can only ride one at a time. Airplanes are uncomfortable at the owner/pilot stage unless I get a G7 with a pilot I am a nobody really flying in a VW Beetle crammed together no? So give me a ship, a sailing ship, a ship so big I can land a helicopter, launch rafts, soak on a hottub, ogle beautiful supermodels travel nationally and never have to pack. A Yacht is the perfect ideal you can pilot or hire a pilot load the boat with hot bikini clad porn stars. Woman don’t Don bikinis fir motorcycles or planes but they strip top less for yachts.
A retired USCG Cutter…
The Millyard Flyer – and/or a Honda Gold wing w/a turbo
A Hawker Typhoon in flyable condition
Any largish steam train
A Denning Coach with a 6v93 Detroit
Any Kenworth with a gen 2 signature Cummins
A Blackhawk
A Caterpillar D9 bulldozer
An Interational Harvester 6788
The list could go on… now I need the space to store them all
W900A Aerodyne, 8V92, jam a modern 18Speed in it, along with new style wheels.
Or a BJ. MacKay K truck
Either of those may be acceptable… depending on what you are doing with it even a 13 speed Eaton Fuller Roadranger would be fine… but 18 is best
Forgot to mention “and someone else is paying the fuel bill”
There is that, yes
Any of the 80’s big bore two-strokes (RG/RZ/NS), or 90’s 250’s. TDR250, but good luck finding one. First run CBX, Ducati 900SS (anything pre-Terreblanche), RC30, OW01. Slabbie Gixxer. CR500. Suzuki LT500.
Planes and boats, well I already have a 22′ pontoon and that does the job, and the kind of aircraft I would want requires a government sized budget to operate, so nah.
I tell my wife that while the above motorcycles wouldn’t make a whole lot of money, they wouldn’t cost much either. I think…
Planes, trains, etc., but not automobiles? Hmm.
I’d go for a boat first. Sailboats make a lot of sense but my experience and preference lies with vessels that go when you push the levers forward. I really like the basic Grand Banks 42-footers but an old 37’ Rybovich sportfisher would be special enough to keep me pouring money into that hole in the water.
Next I’d want a motorcycle, but it’s become apparent that the kind that once appealed to me (a cop bike like a BMW RT1200) is beyond my abilities as well my needs. I’d be happier with a brand-new Honda Super Cub to run errands with more fun and practicality than my large-ish cars.
Planes are tough because the reasons I wouldn’t fare well on a liter-plus bike get amplified by the prospect of being a pilot: I would fail lavishly and fatally. So if Mr. Moneybags is throwing in an aviation component I’d get something that could be operated as a charter plane I could occasionally make use of, say a Beech King Air or Pilatus PC-12.
But if the mystery benefactor said I could only pick one vehicle with cost as no object, I’d have the SS United States restored to its former glory and given a good home… one that I don’t have to bankroll.
Y’remember Darkside from Twisted Metal? That, with some manner of Kawasaki death rocket and I dunno, an Indian maybe, tied down on the back for the ride home. Whatever’s hot in GT bikes these days, I’m too crabby from fixing one coolant leak just to find another (manifested, perhaps, by the negative aura of my swearing and having to take an hour to painstakingly grind away scale with a steel brush, Dremel, and 80-grit) on the F-150.
Sidecar rig.
As far as motorcycles go, I’d like to reacquire a low mileage Yamaha SRX-6. Had one back in the day and like a fool I sold it. Now, most of them have been hacked to bits for racing, and aren’t fit for restoration.
As to planes, I wouldn’t be using it for long distance flying, so prolly a Piper Super Cub. Some fun STOL antics with that one.
The boat would likely be a late 1950’s ChrisCraft Corsair restoration, built with a few choice modern amemities. I am a sucker for wooden power boats.
Boat.
I’m a simple man of simple pleasures. All I need is a nice pontoon boat that can eventually sink to the bottom of a lake with my corpse still strapped to the seat.
“ The only stipulation is that you have to spend the cash on vehicles that aren’t cars. So, what kind of boat, plane, train, or motorcycle are you buying?”
So… I get money to buy the plane, train, motorcycle or boat… but then I’m on the hook for operating and maintaining it?
So I would want something that costs a lot up front, but won’t cost me a lot to keep.
That rules out getting a plane or a train. And I wouldn’t use either of those enough to justify the cost.
I would consider a motorcyle… but you don’t need much money for a motorcycle. I could get one tomorrow if I wanted to.
And no any regular speed boats… since those are floating moneypits.
HOWEVER… I would get a house boat.
What I would opt for would be a nice house boat like one of these located near Bluffers Park in Toronto that I would rent out on AirBNB and use for myself occasionally:
https://torontofloathomes.com/2021/11/17/serenity/
I could either rent it out on airBNB as a 2nd source of income, or just rent it out enough so it costs me nothing net and use it for some of the time myself or just decide to live there and sell my current house and pocket all that cash.
I am as ridiculously practical as a man with 9 cars can be. I only buy things with reasonable maintenance costs so that I don’t become a slave to my possessions. I can’t be trusted with a motorcycle, don’t have the patience to learn to fly, don’t really have an interest in sailing, so I guess that leaves cars. While there are dreamcars like a Ferrari Dino that I would love to have, let’s stay practical and get a fully restomodded Vixen RV – classy, practical, garagable.