Last week was Monterey Car Week, and I’m still recovering from all the remarkable cars I saw and touched and smelled and (keep this between us) tasted. Of course, Car Week tends to skew towards the higher end of the market, as most of the attendees are people whose net worths dwarf mine like an ostrich does a hummingbird. There’s rich people crawling all over the place, so most of the new cars introduced at events during Car Week tend to be high-end ones; this is not the place where, say, Mitsubishi is going to unveil a new Mirage, for example.
But even with that in mind, as I flowed through the various lavish events of Car Week, drooling caviar juice on my one “nice” shirt, I still couldn’t shake the feeling that I was seeing too many damn hypercars. There are just so many options for the hypercar buyer looking to drop hundreds of thousands or even more dollars on one of these sleek, incredibly engineered, wildly fast beasts that will likely never be used to even a tenth of their capabilities, and will likely spend the vast majority of their lives keeping expensive, climate-controlled garage floors safely pinned to Earth.
Oh, and I’m calling these hypercars but some may be supercars or whatever; the line’s kind of blurry, I think, but generally I’m talking about cars that are very limited production and cost at least, oh, around $250,000 or so at the bottom end, but most likely much more.
I’ve never really understood the appeal of these incredibly expensive and rare cars, and while I’m sure my biases are coloring a lot of my thoughts, it still doesn’t change the fact that there feels like a glut of incredibly expensive cars out there, and a dearth of cars people can actually buy and use, and that doesn’t feel right.
If you’re incredibly, wildly rich you have a lot of options to find a car that really lets everyone know you’re incredibly, wildly rich. Cars like these, all of which were shown at an event named The Quail, A Motorsports Gathering:
- Gordon Murray T.33 Spider
- Pininfarina Battista Gotham
- Tuthill GT
- Maserati GT2 Stradale
- Lamborghini Temerio
- Karma Kaveya
- Hennessey Venom F5
- Kalmar 9X9
…and there’s even more out there. These cars range in price from about $250,000 to well into the millions, and they’re all targeting the same basic group of buyers, and they’re all cars that most of us will never see in person in normal life, really.
I’m just not sure I see the point here? I guess if these companies can keep selling these rarified machines to this small, fortunate segment of the population, great, but for everyone else, who gives a shit?
And for companies like Karma and Maserati, what does this really do for them? Maybe these can be considered “halo cars,” cars that are exciting enough to get people interested in a given brand. But, for that to work, people have to actually encounter these cars.
Currently, I think the most successful halo car may be the Tesla Cybertruck, which drives huge amounts of attention (good and bad) to the brand, and this partially works because the Cybertruck isn’t super/hypercar priced. It’s not cheap, but it’s affordable enough that you actually see them on the road.
Hyundai was very clever about this idea a while back with the Veloster, which you could argue was their halo car, even if it was also near the bottom of their lineup, price-wise. Making a cheap and highly visible halo car is a good idea.
That’s what Karma, who introduced their Karma Kaveya electric supercar during car week, needs to learn. Though official pricing has yet to be released, it’s going to cost somewhere between $250,000 and maybe up to $400,000, which begs the question: Just who the hell is going to buy this thing?
The brand has no real cachet, it looks cool but not so much cooler than anything else out there, it will likely drive like pretty much all fast EVs do – what’s the point? What if, instead, Karma had made a fun, fast, EV coupé or GT car or Supra-like sports car and it cost, oh, around $85,000 to start? That would be much more exciting because you might actually see those around, being driven and used and enjoyed.
I also think Maserati needs something more like what the Biturbo did for them in the 1980s: when Alejandro DeTomaso bought Maserati in 1976, they’d sold 201 cars the year before – the Biturbo itself sold 40,000. There’s a big advantage to making a car that can be bought by just regular old one-house-and-one-vacation-house rich people, and not just available to why-yes-I-do-have-a-small-island rich people.
It’s not like I have real data to back this up, but that’s fine, because fundamentally, this is just a rant: I’m sick of supercars, hypercars, all of that. It felt like new ones were popping up all over the place, and I just can’t get excited about a class of car that hardly gets driven and I hardly ever encounter.
And even when I do encounter them, like when we crashed the Exotics On Broadway event with our crappy Aztek, while I appreciate their looks and sounds and drama a great deal, it just reminds me how little these cars tend to get used.
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There were dozens of McLarens and like 20+ Paganis/Koenigseggs at this supercar parade, and it feels like outings like this are some of the only times these cars get out and driven. Now, of course there are exceptions (though the number of people who daily drive a supercar without also having a YouTube channel seems small), but I think what I’d rather see being introduced at events at Car Week are more cars that people will actually buy and use.
It’s possible to have something that’s too good, and I think that’s the Achilles heel of hypercars. They’re too expensive and rare and valuable to actually be used and enjoyed, so that makes them, effectively, useless.
So, fuck the hypercars, shove it up your exhaust manifold, supercars, and next year I hope to just see some exciting cars I can’t ever afford as opposed to a bunch of exciting supercars almost nobody can ever afford.
This is why my dream car is a perfectly restored CRX. Now that I am adult i realize that ill simply never get to own/drive/see a real bedroom poster car. but a perfect crx… i could still swing that, drive that and enjoy that every day.
I’m 100% with you Torch. In the 60’s / 70’s / 80’s there were supercars before hypercars, and they were much more interesting. Every time I see Countach I’m stiil wowed and amazed. Most current hypercars are utterly forgettable, and look a generic illustration on Hot Wheels packaging. Forget insane performance, give us real character and stunning. elegant design.
“I’m just not sure I see the point here?” Jason, there’s no need for the question mark.
There’s a beautiful irony in the way the related stories links are three hypercars I’ve never heard of and don’t care about.
I’m not as anti-supercar/hypercar as a lot of other car people are these days but I agree. I can’t afford any of them, never will be able to afford any of them but that’s ok because they satisfy that childhood “ooh fast car that looks like a race car” part of my brain.
The latest and greatest Bugatti or Pagani is cool but they start to lose me when they come out with some special edition that’s the same car underneath but has some different bodywork and is limited to 5 cars.
I’ve never been able to really get excited about anything from any of those other brands that no one’s ever heard of before. They all end up looking very similar and seem to only exist at fancy shows like car week or Goodwood but you never see any proof of anyone actually buying one. Those guys are the ones that should be going wild with their designs and features to try and stand out, not just making “generic modern hypercar #2594”
Torch, what the fuck is a Lamborghini Temerio?
It’s the new one, and their new “base” model. It’s actually pretty neat looking, with a not so “outrageous” design. I wouldn’t buy one, but I like it as it could (almost) be a daily.
The joke is that Torch misspelled Temerario
Honestly, I find them mostly boring and full of design clichés that have been beat to death. There are most definitely too many of them.
I’m bored with hypercars. Most are just [glass] garage queens that never see the light of day. Electric cars have removed 0-60 times as a bragging right. You can’t use the power on normal roads, and most never see a track in their lifetime. And the majority are driven by douchebags or confer douchebag status on the driver.
Maybe I read this site too much, but give me an Aztec over a Pagani any day.
I am split on this… I have mostly given up on paying attention to these hypercars/supercars, but I am grateful for some of them. Thank goodness Ford gave us the GT in 2005, or Porsche blessing us with the Carrera GT. Paganis are incredibly good to look at (inside, especially). The work that Gordon Murray is doing is admirable and exciting. The McLaren F1 is still an absolute icon that I would freak out seeing.
On the other hand, I often freak out similarly when I see a Murano CrossCabriolet or an Amphicar in traffic, so there’s that. At the end of the day, if people want to buy these high end cars, good for them.
The electric hypercars do NOTHING to satisfy the cool car itch, personally.
I love exotics, have since the 80’s when I was a kid and an Esprit was my dream car (still is) and I had three Countach posters on my bedroom wall. Wedgier and more outrageous the better.
Later on as you might know, it can be argued I was patient zero for Koenigsegg fanboys. It was an obscure, nutcase brand that was even more exotic than all the exotics I knew to that point, run by a mad genius. I loved them, still do.
But as awareness of Koenigsegg evolved, everything around it changed. Originally it was a brand that few knew about, that catered to folks looking for something different, something on the fringe. The early cars were a little raw, and honestly kind of basic. If you had one, it was because you were a different kind of enthusiast, and many of those early cars, no one even knew where they were or who owned them. But then Instagram hit, and suddenly each individual car had to me more special than the last, and the guys buying them almost seemed to have more interest in posting IG threads like “How should I spec my Regera?” than they did in driving them. Nowadays, having a Koenigsegg is almost de rigueur for a certain subset of ridiculously rich young guys. The owners are now more famous than the cars themselves, which is kind of backward since it’s the cars that will outlive their owners. When I passed the Registry project onto its current stewards, I felt I did so at the right time; it feels to me people are buying the cars now not for what they do to them, but for what they do to others.
This is a long-winded way of saying that there’s a massive market for this, in that there’s an absurd number of absurdly wealthy folks out there now who make very little effort at it, who want the fame and attention that having such a car bestows upon them. And I can’t blame the manufacturers for striking while the iron is hot. But I do feel it’s all gone past what the cars are actually for. Buyers unabashedly say they are investments, and to a point I get that, but they are cars first, and leaving them to sit in a private room for most of their life defeats their purpose. They’re a cookie no one’s going to eat.
There don’t need to be so many hypercars, but as long as these folks keep buying them, there will be folks happy to sell them to them. Are cars their passion, or is money their passion? I think I know the answer.
I want to see what someone built in their garage, not bought to sit in their garage. I have always been glad all the expensive cars park together at Cars and Coffee here, makes it easier to avoid the lot and focus on the fun stuff. My wife understands. She has said things like “If you win the lottery you are just going to have a fleet of heavily modified and exquisite 90s Japanese cars and such.” That meme is always floating around about not telling someone I won the lottery, but there being signs. Mine would be pulling up in an Efini RX-7 Spirit R.
“ I’ve never really understood the appeal of these incredibly expensive and rare cars”
Seems like Jason doesn’t grasp the concept of a dick measuring contest
They may win the financial measurement, but I feel like oftentimes the practical measurement is significantly less of a threat.
I think they’re neat to look at. I can’t afford one. However Kia built my car. I’m sure there are many millionaires out there that would never buy a Kia, so they look to these specialty builders as they have the money to buy one. No skin off my back, as at least I can see them.
When I was a kid, I was in to supercars (hypercars weren’t really a thing, unless you count McLaren F1). I had Countach and Diablo posters on my wall. Eventually, I grew out of that phase.
The older I get, the less interested I am in vehicles I’ll never be able to own.
That’s one of the main reasons I like this site. We get excited about cars that have literally been considered the World’s Worst Cars. Speaking of, aren’t we overdue for another installment?
Yeah, even back in 2019 when I last attended Car Week I had hypercar fatigue. Nearly every car at the Concours d’Lemons was more interesting to me.
Next year you guys should cover the Dream Cruise – it’s exactly the sort of car event you just asked for. The event you went to has been a hypercar event for a while now.
Why The Woodward Dream Cruise Is Such A Gearhead Paradise – The Autopian
Yes, written by a local guy ( and well-done, too). But Torch was the one complaining, and so if he wants to see the event he asked for, come here next year.
Karma karma karma karma karma Kaveya car
You come and gooooo… you come and gooooooo
Loving would be easy if your colors were like my dreams
Red, gold, and green, red, gold, and green
To make 30 million dollars, it’s a lot easier to build 10 cars and sell them for 3 million each rather than 300 cars at 100k. And, fundamentally, the costs are not much different, so that extra 2.9 million is mostly profit.
Matt Farah often says, when someone is at this level of rich, it is no longer a choice about which car to buy, because they can simply have all of them.
I want see someone daily drive a priceless Pagani just because they can
My parents were traveling earlier this year and my dad sent me a picture of two Paganis parked in front of their hotel. He said they were both filthy and bug splattered, with some minor scratches and dings. Turns out the owner really did just drive them like regular cars when he traveled. He had a driver with a truck and trailer that follows him, so he can have more than one car on the trip. A level of rich I can hardly comprehend, but props to the guy for actually driving the damn things.
Irrelevant to the story, but I’m curious as to what kind of hotel
I have no idea lol. Probably some kind of resort hotel, they always book higher end hotels when they’re traveling.
I had a nonsensical image of a couple Paganis parked in front of a Days Inn or something.
You really needed to just focus on the taillights. That would have calmed you down…
As a fan of Gran Turismo and Forza and the like, I am a big fan of hypercars because they are fun and fast in the fake world, they’ve become almost homologation specials for your racing games of choice.
I am an Engineer, and I agree that these are not actually that interesting from an engineering standpoint. Engineering is the art of balancing constraints, and without cost as a constraint, there’s really no engineering challenge. Even extremely expensive projects like aircraft or spacecraft have other constraints, like balancing payload, range, speed, etc., or are bumping up against physical constraints like aerodynamic limits or radio propagation. This makes some of them, like the Boeing 747 or F4U Corsair or F-104 Starfighter or Saturn V or SS United States, awesome. None of that seems to apply here. These cars just use money to take mostly existing ideas and turn them up to 11.
WRT these manufacturers making an attainable “halo car,” they won’t do that because they CAN’T. At least, the could not do it in a way that is competitive with an established manufacturer and differentiated enough to make it worthwhile. Producing a reasonably priced car that is reliable enough for semi-normal people to own, and interesting enough to compete, is actually more of an engineering challenge and does not actually work for these types of manufacturers.
Eye roll at the “restomod” Ferrari and Lamborghinis. They’re not even doing anything new. Just taking a 1 million dollar car, rebodying it in carbon fiber, tuning the engine, and selling it for 3 million dollars. Nearly no imagination or innovation.
Amen; if you don’t care about CHEAP, you don’t have to sacrifice FAST or GOOD.
There is no man with bigger balls and more skill than a F-104 pilot that has found himself in a flat spin and got out of it.
I wholeheartedly agree. Even as technical exercises, hypercars are boring because they do not operate under any sort of reasonable constraints that other cars do. F1 is interesting because there is a giant rulebook that limits your design space and forces all sorts of tradeoffs to be made. “Normal” cars are interesting because they have to be sold to the general public, who might have a net worth under six figures and expect to install things like car seats.
Hypercars are just automotive Lucky Charms- all of the “tasty” elements cranked up to 11, totally devoid of the balanced context that makes them interesting. And bought, I suspect, by people who use all of the cheat codes in video games.
I came here to say that this article is stupid and that these cars are wonders of technology but am surprised to find the opposite in the comments. I will take the word of a real engineer as I am only a fake software engineer. I guess to me these cars are engineering marvels but to someone in the business they just think “I could’ve done that”.
EAT THE RICH
DON’T YOU KNOW, LIFE IS A BITCH!
ultra hyper EVs do absolutely nothing for me. Hearing is a sense as well and it’s begging to be fulfilled.
PREACH