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You Crashed a $3M Bugatti. Now What?
- tptacek 7y agoI know this is a low-substance observation that lots of people are thinking already but why the fuck would you buy a $2MM car?
- mikelyons 7y agobecause you're rapt in the trap of materialism and run completely by "the devil" (selfishness)
- clouddrover 7y agoYou buy a Bugatti simply so you can say you have one. It's a status symbol. It's an expression of power.
- tptacek 7y agoIs it really that much better than a Ferrari F8 with bearer bonds duct taped to the hood?
- lonelappde 7y agoThere's no accounting for taste. Someone could steal my bonds. They can't steal the roof of my car.
- draw_down 7y agoFor those who consider it not a significant sum of money, why not? Seems like fun.
- H8crilA 7y agoIf you have $100M the car is still a lower fraction of your net worth than for most people. Also I would consider a car like that to be more like a piece of art, something you have because it's nice. Like a mansion. Nobody needs a mansion. Also, there are diminishing returns to having a high net worth, i.e. every successive 2x increment matters less. No surprise there are goods on the market that are trying to counter this effect. And I'm not even sure all of this is "evil". Italy wouldn't look anywhere near this nice if the rich people of the past hadn't splurged big on status symbols. Even in the United States where philanthropy is included in the portfolio of status symbols (or perhaps is even the major status symbol) you can see the positive effects. What Rockefeller did with much of his money was good and useful.
- tptacek 7y agoI didn't call it evil. I mean to say it's baffling. A mansion makes sense! I don't want one but see the appeal: it's extremely durable, can be handed down for generations, can potentially improve day-to-day quality of life in a number of ways. I literally don't see what a $2MM car gets you than a $500k car doesn't.
- throwaway1777 7y agoWhat does an $800 meal get you that a $200 meal doesn’t?
- tptacek 7y agoReally, probably not much? A $200 meal is already --- except I guess maybe for very high-end Japanese --- pretty much topping out the scale. The Salon at Alinea is ~$200; you can pay $100 more to go from 14 to 18 courses, but, as someone who's eaten at Alinea before, I wouldn't recommend that. Anthony Bourdain has a whole chapter about the $800-meal phenomenon in NYC in Medium Raw, and, long story short, those people are getting rolled.
- BrentOzar 7y ago> I literally don't see what a $2MM car gets you than a $500k car doesn't. Front line valet placement in LA/NYC/Miami. When everyone has $500k cars, you need to go higher if you want them to keep your car out front. It’s a status thing.
- manwe150 7y agoDo you own a house? Those come with non-trivial continuing expenses and time investment to maintain (or more expenses to have someone else manage the work.) I assume a mansion would only scale up in expenses from there. Plus taxes go up too. Perhaps that’s part of the appeal to just spend the money on a car instead. Myself, I’m not much of a car person, and am currently content to rent. Everyone values different things.
- dragonwriter 7y ago
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- Jagat 7y agoIf you have disposable 250k, spending $50k on a car is pretty normal. If you have disposable $100m, spending $2m on a car may not seem that big to the buyer either.
- hanniabu 7y agoTo put it in perspective, if you have $10k in your bank account, does $200 seem like that much for a car?
- o_p 7y agoIt will probably go up in value and its fun, if you have that much money, so why not?
- thunderbong 7y agoIt's a Veblen Good https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veblen_good https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veblen_good
- wglb 7y agoConspicuous consumption, no more, no less.
- pcwalton 7y agoBecause it shows that you have the money to buy a $2M car.
- thefounder 7y agoThe solution is quite simple: If you have money to buy a 3m car you can just buy another one(i.e newer model)
- EugeneOZ 7y agoAnd, therefore, a rule: don't buy a supercar if you can afford only one.
- sekasi 7y agoTo (most) people commenting and reading this, the question 'why would you pay that much money for a car' is just about context. To much of non-first world countries, buying an iPhone Pro Max would evoke the same question. That amount of money symbolises food for a long period of time. Unfortunately your context shifts out a lot. It becomes normalised to buy an iPhone. It becomes normalised to pay a lot of money to buy a house, and if you're lucky enough to build wealth the normality bar just keeps being raised. And then, poof, you just bought a supercar. Or a Patek Philippe. Or whatever other expensive thing that has no real purpose beyond it's a thing that you like. I feel the same way with private jets. But a private jet was a completely trivial sum of money for me, maybe I would. Hard to say.
- myself248 7y agoIf I could afford either a jet or a Bugatti, there isn't even a question in my mind. Not a moment's hesitation. Jet, jet, jet, jet, and more jet. Heck, even if I could afford both, I think I'd just buy two jets. You know, for when one's in the shop.
- seanmcdirmid 7y agoJets have a lot of overhead to operate, you need to keep it near an airfield, it needs pilots, maintenance, fuel, ... A Bugatti needs a nice garage and an occasional mechanic, long term costs much less to operate or even just own than a jet.
- NeedMoreTea 7y agoHmm, if I could afford a $3m car, jet fuel and maintenance would probably not even be on my list of relevant points. Bizjet? No ta. I could have a lot of fun with a Folland Gnat, Hawker Hunter or L39 Albatross though. My environmental efforts would take a bit of a hit. :)
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- akiselev 7y ago
- libria 7y ago> Singh’s insurance policy covered the cost of the repairs; he declines to specify the total amount but says the incident did not increase his monthly premium. I assume they did so only after the at-fault driver's insurance was maxed out?
- lonelappde 7y agoIf the law would hold me liable for damages to a car worth over about $100K, even if I was 100% at fault, the law is deeply unjust. At some point the act of putting an absurdly expensive car in public is negligent behavior.
- ehsankia 7y ago> negligent behavior You know what's much more of a negligent behavior? burning a red light. And you know what's even more valuable than a supercar? A human life.
- perl4ever 7y agoPeople can and do put their cars right through houses, which cost much more than $100K. And some houses are situated in spots where people crash into them over and over, like at the end of a T where it isn't visible to a reckless or drunk driver until too late. So wouldn't your logic apply equally to such a house?
- DuskStar 7y agoIf you drive up onto the sidewalk and break both my legs, I would certainly expect you to pay more than $100k if my medical bills came to that. Or more generally, a human life is worth quite a few times more than $100k - does that make it negligent for me to go outside?
- paraxion 7y agoI did wonder that, the article didn't actually specify what happened to the Uber driver. Beyond the inevitable heart attack when your stupidity embeds your Honda Civic into the side of a $3m supercar.
- userbinator 7y agoI've noticed that as the price of a car goes up, or if its marketed as a "luxury", its complexity and difficulty of repair also goes up disproportionately; this is true also for cars far below $100K. Given things like the placement of consumable parts, it's almost as if they are deliberately designing them for anti-serviceability, so that they can charge more for servicing. On the other hand, I have an old American car and all the major parts for it --- powertrain, suspension, brakes, etc. --- are still cheap and widely available, even after nearly 5 decades. It's very serviceable and relatively simple, yet still quite comfortable and pleasing to drive; and despite the powerful engine, probably still has better fuel economy than these supercars.
- ChuckNorris89 7y ago>Given things like the placement of consumable parts, it's almost as if they are deliberately designing them for anti-serviceability, so that they can charge more for servicing. Same applies for apple products only that supercars aren't filling the landfills like tech products are. Supercars are like a swiss watch, they'll always be repaired even when completely damaged, never thrown away.
- muzika 7y agoYes these cars are deliberately designed to be expensive to service and repair. This is even the cars for some “cheaper” cars like some BMWs and Mercedeses.
- ChuckNorris89 7y ago>This is even the cars for some “cheaper” cars like some BMWs and Mercedeses. I can assure you this applies to even cheaper budget brands like Fiat or Hyundai. Competition between budget brands is a race to the bottom so dealers sell them with very low margins, making most of their money on service costs. But you don't know or expect that when you're buying your budget car, you just look at the sticker price. On my older Fiat I could easily replace the filters myself in less than a minute by undoing some clips. Not on the new models where they use a weird bolt that none of my wrenches work. But guess what, the dealer has the wrench set that works. Funny, huh?
- pmiller2 7y agoI’d be more interested in hearing how people who hit $3M cars avoid bankruptcy.
- Scoundreller 7y ago> Aston Martin Vulcan went so far as to include a repair and maintenance clause for all customers, promising that the original technicians and engineers who built the cars would conduct any necessary work. I guess this clause is null and void in USA?
- ambulancechaser 7y agoAre you reading that as you are prevented from working on the car? I took that as a promise that they would be willing to service and repair the car with the same team that originally built the car
- Scoundreller 7y agoIf so, they should have said “could” instead of “would”.
- steelframe 7y ago> Fast-forward five months, and Singh was reunited with the car in Italy Still faster than some Tesla owners have had to wait for their cars to get fixed. Lengthy and complicated repairs aren't limited to $3M cars. https://www.sfgate.com/cars/article/tesla-repair-wait-time-complaints-electric-car-13796037.php https://www.sfgate.com/cars/article/tesla-repair-wait-time-c...
- joeblau 7y ago1. File insurance claim 2. Get your claim money 3. Premium goes up 4. Buy another one
- rasz 7y agoUsually you dont own a $3m car, your LLC in Montana (no tax state) does. No need to worry about premiums, in case of a crash you use another LLC to buy and insure a new one.