You Crashed a $3M Bugatti. Now What?

Regulation is definitely heavier than cars — nobody makes you file a flight plan before you drive to the store — but there are tons of private pilots who seem to find it worth enduring in exchange for the fun and freedom of flight.

Besides, I can _already_ drive my own car. A faster car isn't actually much of an upgrade in capabilities.

The median yearly income in the very very poorest countries in the world is $500-1,000. So an iPhone might be 3 years of salary.

Most of these supercars are worth more than what the average American would make over 40 years.

Beyond the fact that rural environments in poorer countries don’t even have the structured economies needed to make some of these comparisons, there are orders of magnitudes differences at play here.

There might be some people who think “if I had that much disposable income why would I spend it on that?” But these aren’t iPhones. These are private jets. They are fundamentally out of reach for everyone and are immense signs of wealth.

There’s surely a bunch of engineering and cool shit to nerd out on from it, but there’s no democratization of the super car. If these companies wanted to they could mass produce and sell at 1/10th the cost. But that defeats the purpose of these cars existing.

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Do you remember the last time you saw a pre-Aventador (so Murcielago, Diablo, Countach, Miura) V12 Lamborghini hammering down a road at 40+ mph (65+ kph), and not dawdling about looking for attention? If so, you probably remember something you actually felt. In your body. A shockwave, even as a pedestrian, imparted by that V12. It's a lot more real INSIDE the car.

Drive a high-revving (8000+ rpm) mid-engine Ferrari. Once you're well into the depths of what the second camshaft profile offers, there is legitimately a frequency in which vibrations are transmitted into the chassis that will literally make your spine tingle.

Get into a motorsport-derived Porsche. The air-cooled ones have a buzz about them by lacking the insulation of water-jacketing. Though the newer ones, past 7500rpm, twist their sound into a chilling, baleful howl. All while it's telling you exactly. what's. going. on... through its freakish levels of precision and feedback. You can put any knucklehead in a modern proper 911, have them go through a corner at twice the speed they would've normally considered, and the car basically will have made it absolutely clear they can go faster still next go around.

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There are other things too with materials. Where everything feels fantastic to touch and hold, and some devilish CNC work, machining and precision. Though for very high-end metal (granted, less so in the past 5 years, 10 for some brands) there is a real physicality to the driving experience that gives those cars the "soul" that other cars do not have. Some older more accessible sports and muscle cars have done it similarly well -- older Nissan GT-Rs, some Corvettes, Mitsubishi Evos, RX-7s, some particularly playful compacts and well-sorted muscle cars.

The thing is... as everything else becomes increasingly homogeneous aside from body/character lines, headlamp and grille graphics, interior themeing -- particularly on the power train front -- that is what's going to differentiate manufacturer A from B. The new Porche Taycan Turbo S reviews all laud how brilliant the engineering is, and how well it handles, and how quick it is, and the usual build quality. Well and good. Though all the journalists have admitted that it has no soul, and ergo they just can't really give a rats. "It's nice. It's fast. Buy it if you want it. Cheers." Your Tesla you're so thrilled about? You're going to eventually acclimate to that torque. Then everything will have that torque. Congratulations, that will soon be the new normal... and a very different character (and I'd say less exciting) of torque delivery than other types of cars have offered.

For most people, a "good car" is fine. Great. Focus on comfort, safety, reliability, TCO and emissions. It's the pragmatic choice, and I fault no one for it as it's the correct choice. In fact, I'm a pedestrian and public transit user well over 99% of the time! Though realize that for some of us, we like driving, and doing it in something interesting in ways that is difficult to quantify. Not commuting. Driving. At 3AM in the middle of nowhere. Having an adventure with our good friend: the machine.

Of course, these cars cost a fortune to insure and maintain, and they are absolutely not practical for daily use. I’m just saying the reality is more complicated.