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?
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I wouldn’t even bother my arse with that nonsense. I’d buy a V12 Toyota Century for when I wanted to be driven around, and I’d get Rocky Auto to make me a 2000GT clone for when I wanted to drive places: https://www.motorbiscuit.com/rocky-autos-toyota-2000gt-replica-goes-3000-2jz/
Everyone else is wrong.
I’d get the top on the Z4 fixed so I can stop destroying my shoulder yanking it up by hand because I’m too cheap to buy a new one and too lazy to find the little hydraulic bypass toggle.
RS6 Avant with a manual for fun days and the regular DSG for road trips. I’d also have a closed garage and some nicer-than-Kobalt sockets and wrenches.
Some kind of blue over gold Subaru, but one of the stupidly expensive Icon ones with all the nuts and bolts clocked and fart-resistant condor leather interior, with cooled seats, and luxury of luxuries, working AC. I want to smell the vape-scented tears for destroying the character of the car while I tear ass (farting or driving, take your pick) everywhere I go.
Several bikes. I don’t even know. I’d just take a suction cup dart gun to a dealership and at least end up with a BMW 1000RR and whatever else I want before I head to the Japanese dealerships to do the same thing.
Oh shit, here’s the one. An M3 wagon in matte orange, black interior. Some kind of forged multispoke BBS’s, either black or black.
This is like the montage of the fever dream of the cars I always build immediately every new Forza.
“ That really puts those more bombastic heist movies into perspective, doesn’t it?”
The classic suitcase full of money bit has always bothered me.
‘The Way Of The Gun’ got it right with the $15 million ransom that a team of bag men, pull out of the beds of pickup trucks and stack in the creepy motel courtyard near the end.
(underrated movie)
To answer your question though…
Easy, I’ll take a Volvo P1800 Cyan with brown saddle leather interior thanks.
I forgot to add, make mine a three door shooting brake.
I salute your taste, sir. I was looking for an 1800es when the M Roadster came up for cheaper than I could get one in decent shape. My birthday pic from Jason was one in Rootbeer.
Yes, one can quibble that I passed on a 50yo car because of the maintenance only to buy a high-mileage BMW—but I don’t have a garage, and the M is just for fun whereas the Volvo would be forever cherished & pampered.
Respect.
Id like Rolls Royce to spend 700 hours pre-rusting (pre-patina’ing?) a Ghost, with the back half cut off for a truck bed conversion. Billions or not, I’m still me and I got a “rusty-as shitbox” aesthetic to uphold.
I would love to have mint condition/restomod/upgraded vehicles from my past! 79 T/A Nocturne Blue with a manual and modern drivetrain/suspension, and t-tops! My 5.9 Limited with everything working and a Trackhawk drivetrain! My old 85 Ranger STX with a V8, manual, AWD drivetrain! OMG! Oh yeah, and my Celebrity Eurosport, but with a RWD GNX drivetrain, but leave the body nice and shitty.
I don’t care about ostentation so off the shelf a DS21 Decapotable by Chapron. Custom job, a lefthand drive Toyota Century. Then spend the rest on reasonably priced fun cars.
I kinda like the Starlight headliner…
And I wonder what sort of inspiration Rolls Royce could draw from my Fiestaware collection.
I want a starlight headliner in everything from my ZJ to my bedroom!
I’d really like to do it old-school. Get some engine and chassis from Bentley or Rolls or Bugatti and have some carrozzeria make something truly bespoke.
If I can talk to any coachbuilder, I’d probably get a singerized Lancia Fulvia HF through Alfaholics or some similar Italian company. Otherwise, I’d get Maybach to make me an SL convertible in white with navy blue top and interior. And force AMG to develop a manual transmission.
Assuming the rules are the car need be new, I’d order my Ferrari 296 GTB in white with a blue stripe nose to tail NART style.
Bentley Speed6 with the supercharger out the front. Seats in fine grain deep oxblood, dark rosewood panels with minimal fine ebony accents. All the brass and nickel switches & levers. Yes, I’d feel the fool without a proper cape—but I’d likely just sit basking in it before jumping out to drive my Morgan Super8
I hope that if I ever get to the point where I care so little about money that I’d commission a bespoke billionairmobile instead of doing something useful with it, the poor would just eat me instead.
Pink reminds me of the times GM ran a series of cars for Mary Kay Cosmetics every time the plants came out with a cycle enhancement. We had to set up the Paint Shop and schedule pink interiors from the suppliers to make the run together and once for that car model. After that, car production for the plants returned to normal.
1975 Citroën DS23ie with everything is enough for me, when it comes to limos. Thats probably less than 100K.
And then use the rest on some fun old Porsches and sailboats, the unsinkable Belgian built Etap in a reasonable size for instance.
Yes, beautiful wood sailboats, one beautiful wood powerboat to get out to them, one bentley s2 body with the Toyota century v12 powertrain to drive to the powerboat. Cars, gauche, yachts, class.
M5 wagon with a manual transmission and rear-facing third-row child seats (a la E Class)
I would pay pantone to come up with a brand new color for the paint, then buy the rights so nobody else could ever have the color.
“I’d want the car so pink that you could easily spot it from your Spirit flight.”
Mercedes, since you’re not Anish Kapoor, you could get your pink here which is billed as the world’s pinkest pink:
https://www.culturehustleusa.com/products/pink-50g-powdered-paint-by-stuart-semple
11 people are viewing this. All Autopians?
That’s violently pink. I love it.
Ha, that’s indeed a good way to put it!! My kids & I have gotten that paint and it really does need to be seen in person, as digital screens simply don’t do it justice.
Mine is pretty doable by billionaire standards: Porsche 911 DAKARGA.
That and the rest of my Porsche fleet painted to match, Python Green all around.
Bentley Brooklands Coupé updated with a Tremec TR-6060.
On the “cheap” side, I’d want an old safari-style landrover with all the weirdness forced upon it. Bamboo and mahogany trim pieces, woven seats reminiscent of palm thatch, hand-carved idols everywhere, and bespoke tiki-mugs for my cocktails…
On the “someone drives me” side of things. Same deal, but perhaps a Maybach or a Rolls? Again, Tiki everything, brown exterior but also a Woody with bamboo and thatch. Perhaps the analog dash clock could be replaced with an animatronic bird from Disney’s Tiki Room that squawks the time at me. And of course a pebble ice machine (like Sonic ice) for me to mix my own Mai Tais from the back seat while a couple dozen perfect little speakers give life to my Exotica music…. Oh, and just to be extra weird I want the leather to be textured after actual fossilized dinosaur skin. I think that’d be cool to have T-rex leather seats or similar.
Any of their standard vehicles would be fine – but supply it to me in kit form, carefully packaged in an illustrated shipping container. And supply me with detailed, illustrated assembly instructions (think Tamiya instructions), and all the tools needed to build the car.
Yeah. I’d make a weird billionaire. Probably for the best that I don’t play the lottery.
Oh my god, that’s such a freakin awesome idea! I would absolutely love that. Doesn’t even need to be fancy car…. any car I would want to drive afterwards would work.
I’d commission Lamborghini to rebody a Huracan as the AMC AMX II show car. It is a travesty that no one has made a functioning version of that beauty!!!
I would commission Rolls – Royce to reproduce a replica of the 1925 Rolls-Royce Phantom I Jonckheere Coupe. ( A.K.A. the round door Rolls)
You can see it here:
https://www.petersen.org/rollsroyce-round-door
That thing is just beautiful
Thank you! I think it is Badass!
https://www.globalxvehicles.com/pangea-lifting-roof.html
If I’m a billionaire, I want to spend some cash to make sure my family and my money are protected.
Amongst the fleet would have to be a Mercedes-Benz R129 SL that’s been taken to the Belgian specialist Moncler for a rebuild/restoration as an eSL – with an interior fitted by Vilner in bright red hides under Diamond Blue Metallic monotone paintwork – fitted with burr wood steering wheel and drive selector, and 18″ Brabus Monobloc V wheels.
The folks at the MB Classic Center in Long Beach would also be kept busy remanufacturing my Grosser 600 Pullman. Magnetite Blue Metallic with Red leather forward of the partition & Creme Velour with Blue welts in my compartment, and a Champagne refrigerator behind the rear armrest. Along with a late-production W198 300SL Roadster – with disc brakes. Make that one Grey/Blue Metallic with a Bright red interior, fitted luggage and Rudge wheels.
Then the Bentley: a LHD S3 Continental Mulliner Park Ward Drophead Coupe (the “Chinese Eye”) – Restored and Electrified by Lunaz. Morrocco Blue with a Red Interior and glossy burr walnut with silver inlays. And the little cocktail cabinets in the doors.