Friday, July 31, 2009

We start our journey in the morning

Thus it begins....

Four guys, four cars, from Manhattan to Monterey, via the Blue Ridge Parkway, Tail of the Dragon, Graceland, St Louis, Grand Junction, Moab, Zion, Tahoe, Napa and the Pacific Coast Highway.

We're taking a Ferrari 612 Scaglietti, a 533 hp V-12 grand touring beast.

We're taking a Ferrari 16M Scuderia, a brand new, limited edition convertible with 510 horsepower.

We're taking a McLaren F1, the apogee of supercar stardom since its debut. The one that decorates posters on bedroom walls. 627 horsepower. Very limited production, held the top speed record for over a decade (241 mph), and has three seats (the driver sits in the middle, the blonde to the left, the redhead to the right). If you can find one for sale, it trades today for about $2.5mm.

And one more . . . we're also taking a one-off show car, the Bertone Mantide.

This is a styling exercise built by Bertone, the legendary Italian designhouse that has designed cars for everyone from Alfa Romeo to Lamborghini, Ferrari to Maserati. It is, literally, the only one in the world. Built on the Corvette ZR1 chassis and drivetrain, with a supercharged V8 putting out 638 horsepower. Worth about $2mm, if you could buy one, which you can't, because, again, it's the only one in the world....

Why? Stay tuned.