If you’re like many of our readers, you’re fabulously wealthy and line your underpants with $50 bills, just because it feels so good. You’re also always about to buy some new premium automobile of some kind, but you’re probably bored as hell with all the Mercedeses and BMWs and Range Rovers and Audis and Bentleys and all those other Camrys of the Rich. It’s time to stand out. It’s time for Bufori.
Bufori is one of those weird companies that you’d think would have been gone long ago like other companies of its type: companies that specialize in making modern luxury cars that look sort of like cartoonish cars from the ‘30s and ‘40s. Companies like Excalibur, for example. But, somehow, Bufori is still here, and, technically, you rich people could be driving them around.
Bufori is a Malaysian company, and their factory can hand-make up to 300 cars per year, and those cars can actually be sold in America, though the website for their American distributor appears to have been co-opted by some scammer bullshit. Most of Bufori’s customers are in China and the Middle East, and the car is really pretty much unknown in America.
That may be changing, as for some reason I’ve been encountering people talking about Buforis more lately; a reader named Christian mentioned them to me recently, and I’ve seen them showing up in other various places online, perhaps most notably in Road & Track, which just earlier this month had a very in-depth article about the car and company that included a visit to the factory and driving the cars themselves.
So, clearly, something is going on. That’s why it’s important we talk about Bufori now.
The Bufori name is a hilarious acronym for “B – Beautiful, U – Unique, F – Funtastic, O – Original, R – Romantic, I – Irresistible,” which is pretty silly but the end result sounds just Italian enough to seem plausible, so good for them.
Bufori started in 1986 producing what was essentially a better version of a Volkswagen Beetle-based kit car called the Madison. They kept with the basic rear-engined VW Type I layout until 2003, replacing the old air-cooled VW boxer with a more modern Subaru boxer.
Now they make cars on more modern platforms, like the La Joya, which has a mid-mounted 172 horsepower 2.7-liter V6 (which I think is a Hyundai engine) and, presumably, a long, strange trunk up front, along with Jag XJ6 taillights, which, according to the R&T article, Bufori makes on their own now, and much better than the originals.
The bodies are made from an impressive-sounding Kevlar and carbon fiber mesh, which is a big step up from the fiberglass of the original cars.
Now, I don’t want you to think this article is some sort of advertisement for this company, because that’s not the point; the point is that if you’re rich, do us all a favor and at least consider buying something other than the usual white BMW 7-series or black Range Rover or silver Mercedes-Benz G-Wagen.
I’m imploring you loaded types out of a sense of civic duty; I want to see the carscapes of cities become more exciting and engaging and surprising car-wise, and if at least some percentage of premium car-buyers would try something less ordinary, we could achieve this.
That’s why I’m letting you know about, say, Bufori’s current full-size offering, the Geneva, an impressive and gleefully cartoonish beast. There has to be some percentage of rich car-buyers that are sick to hell of tired ideas like “having good taste” and are willing to try something beyond the usual Lambo or other supercar cliché.
I mean, look at this thing: it’s got suicide doors in back, massive, sweeping fenders, and enough presence that wherever you pull up, you’ll eclipse every other $100,000+ bullshit that everyone else rolled up in.
You can get these things with wet bars and tea sets and whatever the hell else you want in back.
Look at that, there’s screens and integrated coffee-makers and a tissue dispenser so that you can clean up after yourself as you commit the sin of Onan back there, reveling in how good you’ve got it.
Look, there’s velvety drawer in the trunk! Plus, it’s got a Chrysler 6.1-liter Hemi V8 in there, so it’s even easy to get parts for in America!
And, plenty of room for a picnic or to cheat on your taxes right there in the engine compartment, on that carbon fiber/Kevlar desk surrounding the engine. Also, that’s picture up there is, apparently, with part of the engine cover off. Look at what it looks like when you open the hood:
What the hell is that? A robotic ass?
Is it ridiculous, a bit? Of course it is! But all crazy-ass expensive cars are, and that’s how it should be. Rich people, I’m calling on you. Buy some more bonkers cars. You can think of it as a charitable act, to make the global carscape less boring. These are within that $150,000 to $350,000 ballpark you’d have spent on some G-Wagen, anyway.
Get some big-ass Cruella DeVille-looking cars like this Bufori and get them in bold colors, and then get your tax guy to write it off as a public arts donation or something.
You have the resources; you can help us make the roads more interesting. It’s important you listen to some broke-ass dipshit like myself when it comes to spending your money. Thank you for your very expensive time.