Are you the kind of crazy that allows you to build an insanely successful career, but lets people know that your real passions include being a fire truck and/or dinosaur? Do you spend your nights pondering why poor people just can't seem to buy more money? Here are five ultra-luxurious items that would warm the barren cockles of even the most shrewd batshit billionaire.
5. Volkswagen Jetta TDI Water Pump - $4,000
There are good ideas, and there are great ideas. Here's a seller that takes cheap Chinese components for an entry-level German car made in Mexico, and gives it a price fit specifically for an Oprah Winfrey that just took Thursday's and Friday's allowance of bath salts. As an added benefit, the picture used looks like a mechanical clown that's trying to eat you, which automatically puts any potential buyer on the government's list of "future part-time cannibals".
While normal water pumps deal with the mundane and frankly boring aspects of pumping water and coolant, you can rest assured that with this ultra-exclusive set of components, your Jetta, Golf, or Passat can be adequately cooled by pumping any of the ground narwhal that you might have left over from this year's office holiday party. It's a steal at twice the price!
4. Two Fire-Damaged Lamborghini Murcielago Engines - $17,500
Has your personal robot butler stopped eating his usual mix of battery acid and orphans? Does it require something more, dare I say, refined? Well, look no more, as you can now buy not one, but two pre-cooked engines from a Lamborghini Murcielago, eliminating all the usual messy work of getting your android servant to happily belch those familiar plumes of thick black smoke and return to the daily duties of refilling your surprise alligator pit. You'd be stupid not to buy it.
3. 1963 Pontiac Catalina - $548,000
There are those that say truly good mysteries don't exist anymore. Questions like "Is there a god?" and "Why are we here?" are rendered complete pantloads in comparison with " Why does this old Pontiac cost more than a half million dollars?" Could it have been a clerical error? Does Bill from Sales want to get fired, or is this the secret signal to all the other coworkers to start the bloody resistance against their captors?
Now, I know what you're thinking. "It's a rare muscle car! Those are worth their weight in printer toner! I require validation of my opinions!" You'd be wrong. Even with the pedigree of having two holes drilled in the frame by John Delorean and having the prestige of being named after a pungent sandwich topping, anyone who looks at this as a great investment opportunity probably thinks financial collapse is what eventually happens when you play Jenga with glued-together stacks of hundred dollar bills.
There's maybe $40,000 worth of actual car here, which begs the question: how many failed coke mules does it really take to line the trunk of a Pontiac Catalina?
2. 1943 Willys Jeep - $750,000
Ladies and Gentlemen, this is living proof that people can and do go insane by watching Antiques Roadshow. Every time some aging beatnik finds a brain in a jar in their basement, it's suddenly time to go get it appraised as a relic from a golden era. Newsflash, Gramps - it's just a regular, run-of-the mill monkey brain and you're wasting your time, again. This is why no one comes over anymore.
Even if the price didn't reflect an extra $725,000 of sentimental or historical value, the description is also written like a curmudgeon yelling at his kids to find the damn remote and close the gate for the third damn time. Kids these days, am I right? Oh, that trinket on that table over there? It's made from the petrified kidney stone of a Victorian-era harlot. That'll be $50,000.
1. James Bond Lotus Submarine Prop Car - $1,000,000
Here is an expensive '70s Lotus that doesn't run. What's that? Doesn't narrow it down enough for you? OK then - Here is an expensive '70s Lotus that doesn't run, and also doesn't go underwater. It also doesn't shoot rockets. I give up.
Not only does this monument to involuntary middle-aged celibacy cost 7 figures, but it's one of three wastes of space made for a movie that features an original viewing audience who will have reached the end of their life expectancy by the time the next iPhone rolls out. You can't sit in it, you can't drive it, but it's one hell of a conversation starter at the next party featuring all of your favorite childhood hallucinations. It's also a bit ironic that the only person insane and rich enough to buy this financial suppository is an actual Bond villain.
Tavarish is the founder of APiDA Online and writes about buying and selling cool cars on the internet. He owns the world's cheapest Mercedes S-Class, a graffiti-bombed Lexus, and he's the only Jalopnik author that has never driven a Miata. He also has a real name that he didn't feel was journalist-y enough so he used a pen name and this was the best he could do.
You can also follow him on Twitter and Facebook. He won't mind.