The stress of driving an exotic car

Marc Lachapelle

Marc Lachapelle

Friday, 25 August 2017 11:58

UPDATE
Friday, 25 August 2017 11:58

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I have beautiful to do this job of automotive columnist for thirty-five years, I felt nervous as a beginner by looking for the car test the other day. I have however led to more powerful, recently. And even one that was even more expensive.

But this one is different. Rather long, fairly broad but mostly very low, it waits for me quietly in the shelter of the rain. His painting is perfectly smooth and glowing, large aluminum wheels are pristine, and the interior light.

Normal, for a car that has only 2 316 km on the odometer. Especially that it’s part of that rare species called “alien”. Those who are turning heads, on their passage. Those which make us all dream.

The exotic the most common Italian names; Bugatti, Ferrari, Lamborghini. The one I have been looking at today, however, is british and has a name that is just as legendary : McLaren.

I had the amazing opportunity to test drive a McLaren 12C and a very rare Can Am Edition of the competition two years ago. But it was on a circuit at the Autodrome St-Eustache. Easy, relatively.

Because this time, I was going to face a test much more risky: me start on Quebec’s roads in a McLaren 570GT almost new a quarter-million dollars that I could hear well protect him as the pupil of my eyes.

Marc Lachapelle

Once its controls and its controls are quite unique, tame, I did not forget to taste its performance and road holding where the thing was possible without defy the laws of physics. Or the act, any short. It is my job, after all.

Fortunately, the acceleration did nothing illegal, because it is an exercise in which the McLaren is fulfilling in a spectacular way. It cuts you even breath if you find a deserted road where to enable the “starting gun”.

Simply touch the button “launch” on the console, left foot on the brake pedal, and push down on the accelerator of the right foot. The engine of 562 horses climb immediately to 3,000 rpm, you release the brakes and the McLaren leaps like ejected from a catapult.

The feeling is even more intense for the passenger or the lucky ones who took advantage of the ride that it offers necessarily, after the presentation of the 570GT, describes its mechanics, and opened its large doors in elytra.

Because the best exotic are the pure-blood mechanics, creations, fabulous, and fascinating, of which there is reason to dream. It must simply hope that the privileged who possess them know how to share this pleasure like no other, in the absence of having each his own.

Marc Lachapelle

How much does it cost?

The thing is not obvious, and not only for the purchase price, which is usually by cheque, according to the director of sales for McLaren in Montreal. Otherwise, we are talking about a payment which may vary from 2 000$ to 4 500$ per month.

For insurance, a driver of a mature age with a good record (to me!) will pay approximately $ 2,000 while a driver of a 25-year-old winner of the jackpot, or Dragon prosperous, will have to pay 5 000 $. And this base will have exploded > of more than 10 000 $ if the folder is ‘more difficult’, according to my broker. With a deductible of $ 2,500 or $ 5,000 in all cases.

Obviously, there is also the question of where to park such a car for the night or for an hour only. A dry garage with alarm system is obviously preferable to a street in the Plateau. This is the reality, the real world.

I parked the McLaren 570GT in the same place where I had found her, her tank full, his body intact, its big wheels clean and chic beige interior also. I would have kept it gladly, not crazy, but I was not angry make. Finished to the concerns of the see esquintée, scratched, or worse.

Marc Lachapelle

I then found my compact for about ten years, at the end of the parking lot, with a certain pleasure. Even if it was a good 28 degrees and the air conditioner does not work at this time.

Because the car that belongs to us is always the best, if it has chosen the least bit well and takes care of them. For the air conditioner, I have to deal with it. Soon. Promised.