Are expensive cars worth it

[steve.zissou]

I get to travel a lot and drive some pretty sweet rides. I also love cars (grew up reading car mags and working on cars) and I love driving fast.

Last week it was a new Mercedes S class for a few days and I have driven most brands of cars (not including hyper cars) - the flash stuff is mainly when overseas.

What got me thinking was that really, the new S class didn't do much more for me than my Jeep Grand Cherokee. Then an even worse realisation was that i probably enjoyed driving the Mazda bravo turbo diesel that I had the week before more than the Merc.

How can that be you may ask. Well with the bravo, I'd shoot down to the beach (i was in Perth) after work and go for a run and a swim, not have to worry about sitting in it with wet boardies. cruise along with the crappy stereo on oldies FM (no bluetooth for pandora). No one gave me a second look, I never got frustrated with slow drivers (be cause i was one) and because the car in general was pretty ordinary, I couldn't focus on any one annoying thing (the aircon worked so I was in heaven).

So all that got me thinking, did i need to spend 65k on my Jeep and I am sure as sheet that i wouldnt never need to spend 250k+ on an S class.

Then i started thinking that in reality your not paying for the features/performance of the car, you are paying to have a better car than every one else. Let me explain. When sultan of bruni paid 300k for his merc back in the 80's (hypothetically) that was probably worse in every way than a current model calais, was he happy with it? He probably was, which meant that he should be just as happy with a current model Calais. But i bet he wouldnt be. And I think its the same with US normal folk. We get caught up thinking we need the next model (Ipad, car, house) but in reality these things dont really make us happy.

In my case, the ability to go to the beach for a run and swim after work was what made my day, and the drive in the bravo was part of that so I enjoyed it. I didnt see many Merc's or BMW's in the beach car park at 5:15pm - most were sheet boxes. Read in to that what you will.

My Ute is a bit different. It is faster than 99.99% of cars in australia and it does put a smile on my dial every time it kicks sideways at 150kmph but it really didnt cost me that much and no where near a GTS or GTR ( or 911 or 458). And as for going around corners - its the same conundrum. Sure your 500k Ferrari feels like it corners on rails but so did a old testarossa back in the day - and at some point in the future your corolla equivalent will go around corners faster than a current 458.

I was just about to start building a house and its the same thing with that - I realised all I use is the bedroom and kitchen. Why do i need a theatre room if I hate watching TV and the closest I would come to using a dining room for a dinner party would be if it was a dress up bucks party. Now a 1000m2 shed - thats something I will enjoy


I might have some thinking to do