Len's News, Notes, and Stuff

McLaren F1 or Ferrari Enzo? Maybe Neither.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve found that dream cars, or dream anything for that matter, aren’t really all they’re cracked up to be. I’ve written before about how brands don’t have the same appeal or pull on me anymore. I think for the same reasons that previously-favorite brands lose their emotional power, dream cars lose their pull and magnetism. I suspect that even things like dream houses must also lose their luster.

Like so many millions of men around the world, I am a fan of Ferraris. I’ve also been a longtime fan of the penultimate road-legal racecar, the McLaren F1. Perhaps neither of these cars are the best-performing vehicles on the planet. You’ll find other supercars with more horsepower, faster lap times, and more impressive stats. However, you will not find anything with greater emotional appeal than the top-of-the-line Ferrari and the one-and-only McLaren F1, designed as a Formula 1 car made street-legal.

You can read in magazines or on car enthusiast websites all about what each car can do on the racetrack. But, the real question is what it’s like to really own and drive one, every day.

Perhaps it’s a sign that I really am getting older, because the fuel efficiency on these beauties is atrocious. And the maintenance cost? My goodness, the McLaren F1 will cost $120,000 per year just for regular maintenance!

Could I justify spending that much on fun? I doubt it. I’d probably go for a much more economical sports car. Yep, something “cheap” but fun like a Lotus. After all, I have some emotional attachment to the Lotus cars, too: my dad used to own and drive one.

Dream cars are usually dream cars because of their performance. Boys, young and old, want to have the most powerful and have the best, so that they feel the most powerful and feel the best. It’s really all about the emotion.

Between these two cars, I think I get more of an emotional kick out of the state-of-the-1980s-art McLaren F1 than the state-of-the-2000s-art Enzo. Even so, I don’t think I’d get enough kick from the F1 to spend $120,000 per year on it.

Take a look at the following video and see how you feel.