If you’re someone who consumes online media, and it’s probably fair to say that you are since you’re reading this, you’ve probably read a thing or a few about the Apple Vision Pro headset. [Ed Note: Apple prefers the device simply be called “Apple Vision Pro,” no “the,” but we don’t care.] Apple is marketing this thing as bringing humanity a touch closer to science fiction. We’re not quite at the level of Ready Player One yet, but some are hailing the $3,499 device as the best consumer-grade headset on the market. Now, thanks to the Apple Vision Pro, you can turn mundane tasks like doing the laundry into something filled with apps and such floating in your vision. Still, that’s a lot of money. Would you spend $3,500 on the Vision Pro or on a car or motorcycle? How would you spend that cash, if that’s your choice?
I’m equal parts fascinated and a bit hesitant. Imagine being able to fix your motorcycle while having the instructions or the service manual right there in your “vision,” like so. That’s great! Then, I think about all of the recent viral videos and articles about people driving cars and flying planes while wearing these things. At first, that sounds exciting. I mean, what if a pilot had ForeFlight right there without having to mess around with an iPhone or iPad screen? That’s neat! Then I remember that these are still VR goggles and the world you’re seeing through them is just a video feed.
If something glitches out while you’re fixing your car, that’s not a super big deal. But, if the device conks out while you’re driving or worse, trying to land a plane? Oh that can go south pretty fast. So, I don’t recommend operating a vehicle while wearing these unless it’s low stakes like a Honda Motocompacto or something.
At the same time, $3,499 is a lot of money. Where I live, that can buy you a fantastic Buell motorcycle, a daily driver condition Audi TT, or an entire running and riding Suzuki RE-5. Or sure, a very nice Dodge Omni, if that’s your thing.
I couldn’t tell you the exact car I’d buy with this money, because there’s only one of them for sale right now for about this price. But I will suggest other cars. You could buy and then import a rough, but running kei truck from Japan for about $3,500. You can buy an old crapbox Volkswagen Golf GTI, a first-generation Honda Insight, or a massive Honda VTX1800 cruiser.
Speaking of bikes, just open up Facebook or Craigslist in your local area, set vehicle type to “motorcycle,” and start cruising. There are lots of interesting bikes to be had in that range from Royal Enfields and Honda Groms to the occasional Harley. Here’s a 2006 Harley-Davidson V-Rod (above), one of the coolest motorcycles Harley has ever built, for $4,000. It’s been for sale for 13 weeks. I bet the seller would take $3,500 or something pretty close to it.
If you look hard enough, there are some $3,500 deals out there. So, lay it down for me. If you had $3,500 to spend right now, would you buy an Apple Vision Pro, spend it on a car or bike, or something else?
I like the concept of the VR , but I’ll wait a few more while for the price to lower and the bugs to be worked out. Maybe I’d buy one of the 3000$ ish HD Sportsters you see on the market this time of year.
I recently saw a Holy Grail on CL, a 2008 or 2009 Toyota Camry with manual transmission. It was pretty rough cosmetically, and had over 200k, but I might spend the $3,500 on it if it passed muster.
That would be the ultimate winter beater.
Well, it’s not *not* what I’d buy with $3500, it’s possibly the most Apple-inspired motorcycle. At $700 for a passable standard, I’m extremely tempted.
https://www.kijiji.ca/v-sport-touring/barrie/bmw-f650-cs-motorcycle/1684821367
I bought one of these new back in ’03. Was a fun bike, but it had a couple of issues that made the two hour ride to the BMW dealer for the service just a little bit too much for my thin blood. I should have just bought a Honda from a local dealer like my Dad told me, but Honda didn’t have anything like the Scarver in 2003.
If it was just a freebie 3,500 and I had to use it for an apple product or a vehicle of some sort, it would definitely be a minimally used Honda Monkey. https://www.cycletrader.com/listing/2023-Honda-MONKEY+ABS-5026313364
A few interesting vehicles showed up on the local CL. The one that stood out the most is a 1951 Triumph Mayflower. A project but looks like most of the parts are there.
I don’t game and spend way too much time online anyway, so the Vision Pro is out. Getting another car (or putting the money to fixing and registering my mom’s old Grand Marquis) would give me the ability to go further afield than I can manage on foot or the e-bike I don’t ride, which, even though I dislike spending time with anyone these days, would give me practical advantages such as not relying on Instacart for Costco runs.
I’m sorry Mercedes, but there never was such thing as a “very nice Dodge Omni”
ヽ(͡◕ ͜ʖ ͡◕)ﾉ
( for the record I’d spend the 3500.00 on a 4 wheeled vehicle, not on Apple VR goggles)
I’d presume that a “very nice Dodge Omni” is the sole example in existence without terminal rot at the windshield base.
At the very least, yes!
Nope. Not even a brand new Omni wasn’t a very nice Omni. The Omni was and will always be a mound of rhinoceros spray barely hardened on the surface like that ice cream chocolate shell thing, which covers you in poo the second you open it up.
LOL!
I think I saw a nice Dodge Omni like a decade ago during a car show.
Pics or it didn’t happen! (͡• ͜ʖ ͡•)
That VROD has mid controls! Was that the Street Rod??
I took a test ride on a regular VROD at the Long Beach Motorcycle show and hated having my feet out in front of me. I went full pucker when I scraped those forward controls hard on a freeway on ramp. The motor was divine, I always wondered what it would be like to ride with better foot placement.
mid-controls were an option you could change I believe, at least after a while for that platform on all of the models.
If you look at the seat, though, it is higher than a normal vrod. The vrod was so low I think mid controls would have been impossible.
there were different seating options as well.
I’m taking that and getting a manual Suzuki SX4 to use as a rallycross car. I’m sure a $3,500 cash offer would buy this one.
DO IT! SX4s rule.
I missed the Mecum motorcycle auction last month, but there’s a nice 1971 Triumph Bonneville (unrestored/survivor) on eBay right now for $4K OBO.
If I had to spend it on a car I’d put it towards a down payment on a hybrid. Probably a Corolla Cross or something similar.
I think my days of $3500 vehicles are over, but I have no desire whatsoever for VR goggles. So I guess mine is going in the future vehicle down payment fund.
I’ve been wanting a,dirt bike for a while, $3500 might even buy two. Alternatively $3500 buys a Toyota HiAce off Yahoo auctions in Japan, because #1 son did that last week. Of course he has to ship it back but fortunately he knows a guy so it’s currently in storage in Yokohama until it’s actually 25 years old and he will be in Japan this spring to drive it
$3500 will get you a solid dirt bike.
Either a used one for around $2500 with $1000 left over for repairs, or a brand new Chinese one.
There’s is a non-running Isuzu Vehicross on FB Marketplace for $2500, I’d take that and spend the extra $1000 shaping it up.
Had a playstation VR and it was not what I hoped, years ago(like over 20) a friend had some lcd goggles you could hook to your computer to use as a display, they were great but you could also vary the transparency of the screen you’re looking at and actually see through. I would think now, in the FUTURE, they could have that instead of the camera feed thing, but instead they’re like nope, just gonna slap an iphone in your field of view and call it good.
What color is the vehicross? Mr Sarcastic here has one and I’ve always wanted one.
It’s grey/silver with red interior, it looks pretty rough though, Sanford, NC
I have below zero interest in a Vision Pro, any car would be at least slightly more interesting to me than that, so that’s the direction I’d go
$3500 buys a real nice motorcycle. Not so much car, but that’d be my second choice. Apple Vision Pro? No thanks, that’s like choosing porn over personal participation.
Personal participation hahaha
Vision Pro is cool, but is absolutely a first gen product that isn’t strong enough to justify its high price to me, especially when my Quest 3 does everything I want for 1/7 the price. That and I’ve bought three separate cars for at or under the 3500 mark in the past 2 years and that’s an easy choice, new project/weekend car all day every day.
$3,500 towards the $7,400 estimate I just got on repairing my car …
Oooof!
Yikes, did you break a tail light on a Rivian or something?
Nothing that complicated … it’s just an Audi.
I would rather have a colonoscopy for $3500 than the Vision Pro. At least the colonoscopy would check off an upcoming thing off the to-do list.
All jokes aside (wait, I wasn’t actually joking, I’d genuinely take a colonoscopy instead), the list of cars I’d rather have over the Vision Pro is practically endless. And yes, totally give me that sweet sweet Omni before that face computer any day of the week.
What if you could watch the colonoscopy on a Vision Pro?
Huh. Can’t decide if that would be fascinating or horrifying. Maybe both?
Would be apt for someone spending $3500 on the Vision Pro to shove their head up their ass, in a way.
I’d spend that $3500 on a paint job on my daily driver
This isn’t entirely hypothetical for me as last month I spent a bit more, $3927.30, a new personal high for a vehicle, on a Triumph Acclaim. Of course there’s still the matter of getting it here from the UK but I suspect a Vision Pro wouldn’t be of much help with this anyway.
Ha! Then you must not be the MHarrell1 that took yesterday’s BaT ‘vette!
You’re right, that’s not me. I’m Mike_Harrell on BaT and the last time I bought anything listed there was before they became an auction site.
As someone who recently acquired a VIVE VR headset, I’d rather put the $3500 into the Omni than another VR headset. VR is neat, but the value proposition simply isn’t there. I’ve used it for virtual monitors, but it isn’t superior to the ultrawide monitor setup I already have. I’ve played with mixed reality and augmented reality, but those are more gimmicks than useful. I’ve tried watching movies and playing games, but it isn’t better than my big TV. $3500 is simply way, way, way too much for a toy of such limited use.
Agreed 100%. I’ve heard of some use cases where VR/AR makes a decent work case, but I bought a Quest 3 just because I really enjoy VR games. The AR is neat and all, but I don’t care, the best thing about it is I can now check my phone without taking the headset off since the cameras are way better than the Quest 2. Give it 5-10 years for capability to be added and price to come down and I could maybe be swayed, but a triple monitor setup with a mouse and keyboard is really hard to turn down for CAD work and multitasking.
Back in my corporate engineering days, I evaluated the first version of the Microsoft Hololens to use as AR work support, theoretically to allow my electricians and technicians to see procedures and manuals in real-time while working. Neat idea, but in reality it was less helpful and more distracting, and also didn’t work with arc flash suits.
As you note, my ultrawide monitor flanked by two 16:10 monitors is hard to beat for CAD, Visio, spreadsheets, and just general multitasking.
I would rather have $3500 worth of jellybeans than a set of digital ski goggles. In the choice you pose, I’d definitely be buying a car with that cash. Probably saving it up for the purchase of a nice, green 1977 Datsun, in fact: https://www.theautopian.com/inline-six-stickshift-wagons-1978-dodge-aspen-vs-1977-datsun-810/
I’d spend that $3,500 on repairs for my Compass. New bumper, fender repair, new headlights. If I have enough left-over, I’d also get a new passenger seat outer molding that always breaks on these damn cars….
To be honest I would rather stare at $3500 in cash stacked on my table then to have the Apple Vision Pro. With that said I would definitely be buying a NA Miata to compliment my current fleet if I had to buy a car. If parts are allowed then I would buy parts for the cars I already have.
Funny you say that, given I got lucky and scored a driver NA a bit over 2 years ago for under the given budget, and spent a bit on parts (Disclaimer: it was more than I bit. Once you make one mod to an NA, its hard to stop, they’re just SO EASY to work on)
Yes. An N.A. 94 up with the 1.8 and a 5 speed manual. It’s not a slow car, it’s a fast street legal go cart. Miata Is Always The Answer.