Exotics and the pursuit of pleasure

The market for exotics has currently very much bottomed. It’s been bad for some time now, the demand for such cars has sank and dealers are left with exotics that are collecting dust. In uncertain economic times like basically now, such exotic cars and items, they respond badly to uncertainty. They tend to lose value. It’s not that the cars are less special or less exotic, it’s that other things are more appreciated, so exotics lose value compared to the other things. Commodities like gold and Bitcoin, oil, the food industry, the arms industry … they’re all pumping at the moment. And this is reflected in the prices. 

Why I’m telling you this? Because, please, listen to me, anyone going in on the exotic cars as an investment, will most likely lose money. Best case scenario - you gonna break even. So, if you’re looking at these cars as a sustainable way to maintain your resources, you’re in for a rude awakening. Very few are going to keep their value and in even more rare cases they are actually going to appreciate in value. But then again you need to have the patience to sit it out. You’re better off with Bitcoin, gold or real estate. 

This is the reason why owning classic exotics is a sign of not being rich, but wealthy. I’m not talking about “new money” vs. “old money”. I’m talking about people who can afford to lose money, period, that type of wealth associated with abundance. That is why when you see someone who just made their money, they’re heading straight to order the latest and greatest from the manufacturer. The cars come with a warranty, which to someone, who just tipped their toes into the supercars / performance cars world, is a form of reassurance. 

I’m not saying the new cars suck and belong with “new money”. Obviously the newer cars are better than the older cars when it comes to safety, powertrain, features and options. That’s a fact. 

I appreciate all brands and cars equally and at this point I’m just happy we still get new ICE launches. But the people who go for the latest launch and the people who go for the 20yo exotic are very different. I’ve been trying to narrow it down to what differentiates them and I came up with the conclusion that exotics are a hobby to its full potential. When you start a hobby you put money into obtaining everything you need without expecting a financial return, because it’s a hobby. You do it purely for the pleasure. That’s what exotics are for - the pleasure. A very expensive way to experience pleasure. 

The SLR and the Murci always make me feel something that is beyond the ordinary. They always deliver the essence of pleasure combined with exclusivity. It’s a very unique feeling that you won’t know it unless you experience these cars. I can go further and say they’re a sensory orgasm - from the authentic savour when you open the door, to the high-quality leather that hugs your skin, to the analogue buttons, to the craftsmanship… they’re not built to be ordinary. In today’s world, I see them also as a reminder that we can create beautiful, aesthetically-pleasing things. If you look around, we live in an ugly world, almost lifeless and way too oversimplified and robotic. It’s almost as if we forgot how to have fun, how to express ourselves and how to experience pleasure. Everything feels like it’s more of the same, people including (eg. the social media “beauty standard”). I can totally see having fun, self-expression and the pursuit of pleasure becoming a trend in wellness, hospitality, design, fashion, art, architecture, music, movies etc. anytime soon. “The pastime” is going to have a moment. Everything is a cycle, we’re now in the dull part of it (npcs are thriving, because they don’t know anything better). When this flips, because it will, the 00’s lifestyle will have a revival. I’m not saying to take your Britney-inspired clothes out and wear them like they’re new. I’m saying what mattered, what made 00’s iconic will be the It. And if we look back, beyond the 00’s, we had the 60’s and the 70’s - again: fun, self-expression and the pursuit of pleasure. That was also the essence of the 20’s and 30’s, famously captured by Fitzgerald in “The Great Gatsby” and when the Bright Young Things were the It. If you’re not familiar with the names of Cecil Beaton, Rex Whistler, Stephen Tennant, please, check them out. They built their whole existence around the pursuit of pleasure and decadence, which was a sign of aristocracy in the 20’s and 30’s. Again and again, almost as if there’s a correlation between pleasure and spending/wasting money to experience it. As we’re approaching the end of 2020’s, I think we’ll begin the shift towards that. We’ll begin to enjoy authentic beauty and aesthetically-pleasing things again, collectively (very important). Why is “collectively” the key word? Because people like myself - we never stopped doing that, but to take that lifestyle to the masses, now that’s a movement. AI will play a big role towards it, because we - as a collective - will be oversaturated and overstimulated by it. We’ll naturally start looking for and aiming at authenticity and beauty. The “White Lotus” is testing the waters, maybe slightly ahead of its time, but it got the right idea. It captures exactly what I’m trying to picture in your heads - authenticity and pursuit of fun and something out of the ordinary. It also successfully points at the shift in how we see beauty - imperfect and natural > the “instagram model”. The cast was chosen for that very reason, too. Fillers and implants become associated with middle-to-lower class, because trying to impress with something you don’t have is a sign of these classes. Even Kylie Jenner got some of her implants and fillers taken out and if this doesn’t tell you enough…

That’s why also all celebrities are getting skinny (Ozempic is the real influencer of today), because being fit is associated with wellness, wellness is associated with money and free time and they’re associated with the subject of this topic - pleasure. It all connects, as long as you can zoom out. Almost as if they’re getting ready for whatever is coming next.

Boho style is testing the waters as well, so we’re gradually, but consistently heading towards it. 

The fact that Erewhon sells a single strawberry for $50 should tell you something and they’re always sold out. What’s the reason to sell a single strawberry for 50 bucks?! I can’t think of anything else but excess. And the ones buying it, are doing it for the same reason - to experience excess. Wasting money is becoming associated with positive experiences (pleasure), which is the first sign of the direction we’re heading towards to. 

Where do the exotics come into play? Let’s zoom out a bit one more time and look at that Erewhon strawberry. They’re not presenting it as “we’re selling strawberries”, they’ve put a single! strawberry in an aesthetically-pleasing container and the strawberry itself is sitting on a cute cushion that supports it to stay in a particular position. It’s very orchestrated and intentional. The way they presented that strawberry, it made it immediately an exclusive experience. They don’t have to justify the price of the strawberry anymore, because they’re selling the experience of excess. The experience of excess is getting brought to the masses and it comes naturally after a long period of time full of dullness. That single strawberry signifies an escapism from reality - wasting money to experience something out of the ordinary.

And what are exotics, if not that?! Obviously a very exaggerated version, but they’re peak escapism. I think we’ll see a huge shift at how modern exotics are presented. At the moment they come with the technical sheet, almost as if they have to justify their price and existence. We’re still at the dull part of the cycle, where pleasure and fun have to be justified. And when the need for justification gets eliminated, I think that’s when we’ll see some proper exotics again like the SLR, the Enzo, the Murci, the Carrera GT … The exotics should’t be conformists, they should be in your face, pointing finger and screaming “You’re poor, my owner is not and you certainly don’t know how to have fun, because you don’t own me.”. To exist for the sake of it, while still being a technological marvel - that’s what I’m missing in today’s exotics. That middle finger moment. They’re all way too shy, clinical and orthodox in a way, like they’re trying to fit in and not distress a Karen at a red light. Still, brilliant technical sheet, but I don’t want a technical sheet at a starting price of 400k. I want a middle finger moment as well. And that middle finger is called excess.  Fuck them Karens and npcs, you’re a Lambo, you’re not supposed to please, you’re supposed to scream. The Revuelto, very cool car, I have a thing for the V12 Lambos, but why on earth are you downplaying and downgrading one of the icons by giving it for a free trial to annoying car influencers???? HELLO? BATMAN? EXCUSE ME? Give the key to Val Kilmer, George Clooney, Christian Bale, Ben Affleck, Robert Pattinson MAYBE??? And watch sales. Why the hell is Emelia fucking Hartford getting a trial period for free and YOU WANT HER FEEDBACK in return?? Hello, is Lamborghini in the room with us?????? It could have been Christian BALE!!!!!! WTF, LAMBO?! All you had to do was ask Adele if she had any unreleased songs on par with Skyfall, get Hans Zimmer to accompany it and put Christian Bale in the car! I'm getting goosebumps just thinking about it. This would have slapped hard for a whole decade and beyond. Just imagine that ... Bonus points, if you revisited the Reventon design, instead of trying to look like anything else. Even if you reaaally need the GenZs attention - you still have Christian Bale driving his Revuelto in Grigio Telesto on Mulholland Drive overlooking Los Angeles' skyline and out of nowhere - Robert Pattinson appears in his very own Revuelto in Grigio Telesto. They smile as if they know each other from somewhere else and proceed to race while Los Angeles serves as an iconic backdrop while the camera gradually shifts the focus to the sky. Because guess what? The sky should be the limit, not an F-list influencer.

I just can't take it seriously since that influencer campaign fail. Them influencers should be selling everything they have to even be in a line for a V12 Lambo, it should be that exclusive. I'm the target and I'm absolutely skipping the Revuelto, might as well get another Murci. And be careful with the numbers, because you failed the Aventador thanks to the numbers. You don't see Aventadors in collections, because it's not considered a collector's car - there are 14.000 of them in the world. That's an insane number. They go for 200k in the USA as of today. It's in a no man's land. And it being even more unreliable than the Murcielago thanks to the electronics, which are lacking in the Murci (due to it being older) and it suffers from the same e-gear issues, it's so unfortunate. And the thing is, the Murci is a very unreliable car - it's a 20yo aging exotic and it's as bad as this sounds. But it's so rare and limited that this gives us a solid reason to keep preserving and maintaining them, even though we get 2-3 road trips per year when the car is acting just alright and for the rest it's in the shop, these 2-3 road trips make the ownership worthwhile and the fact that very few people get to experience that.

I want my Lambo to smell like sex and danger, to choke me and laugh at me, to keep me on the edge, to blur lines and to make me feel invincible, to make me feel alive.

(sorry for the rant, but someone had to say it)

Even to exist just to show what we’re capable of when we let our guard down is a righteous purpose for an exotic. That is why when we come across videos from the 00’s of supercars in Monaco, we all sigh and say “they don’t make them like this anymore”, because they don’t. We’re not nostalgic for the cars only, we’re nostalgic for the time they thrived in and were built for. That in your face waste of money represents abundance and a way of living that served as a reminder that time is the most precious commodity and how we spend it matters. We treated exotics as cars - celebrities parked them in front of clubs and restaurants, leaving them unlocked even. Why we don’t see these cars serving the same purpose anymore? It’s because they lost their main purpose. It’s because people shifted their mindset and now we have to justify everything. It is because we stopped appreciating beauty and replaced it with the idea of it. It is because we lost ourselves in the process of trying to fit in. It is because we started seeing freedom as a privilege, instead of a right. It is because having dreams now is a sign of delusion. I can go on for some time, but, unfortunately, the modern exotics follow the current mood. 

When exotics become associated again with pleasure, fun and abundance, we’ll see some prime examples one more time. I’m sure of that, because everything is connected and it follows a pattern. We’re steadily heading towards that stage and I’m genuinely very excited. 

Owning an exotic should be that, because it is that. It is a pursuit of pleasure. 

Until then, the Murci will piss Karens off with its V12 and I hear they go for 1M with a stick.

Take that middle finger, VROOM VROOM.