You've already sold the emerald-encrusted Veyron and you're looking for a new way to show Mr. Rare Earth Magnate the next country over what real money looks like. Here are the ten ultimate displays of car guy wealth, as chosen by Jalopnik readers.
Welcome back to Answers of the Day — our daily Jalopnik feature where we take the best ten responses from the previous day's Question of the Day and shine it up to show off. It's by you and for you, the Jalopnik readers. Enjoy!
Photo Credit: Ed Callow
10.) Lend your cars to Top Gear
Suggested By: Cheeseslap
Why it's so money: Just because you own a pristine example of every vintage, classic, and exotic car ever made, how is the world going to know about it? Lend those cars out to Top Gear, if only to prove to Jay Kay and everyone else who's too afraid to put an Enzo into the Stig's hands (talons? mandibles?) that you have enough bank to not care if they total the thing. Don't forget to call up Alain de Cadenet and Victory by Design for all your vintage racers, too. Us geeks need our car porn.
Photo Credit: Tony Harrison
9.) Race in Ferrari Challenge
Suggested By: Joey Jo-Jo Junior Shabadoo
Why it's so money: As far as you're concerned, poor people race Porsche Cup. We understand that your lucrative West African oil conglomerate is taking up much of your time what with all the protests and insurrections you have to micromanage (Good help is so hard to find these days!), so it's nice to have something fun that you can blow a few million on just to race Ferraris on the weekends. If this isn't expensive enough for you, you can always enroll a child or two in the series.
Photo Credit: Clive Mason/Getty Images
8.) Daily drive a Le Mans racer
Suggested By: Scroggzilla fights Mothra in the Carpocalypse
Why it's so money: The hyper-rich can take a page out of Glickenhaus' book and take a GT40 Mk. IV to work, or a Ferrari 412P, if the mood strikes you. This is a much easier tactic for showing off your car collection to the other princes than having to invite them all to privately tour your garage. Also, we get to stare at your cars as they drive by. Racing V8s and V12s sounds reverberate better when they're bouncing off parked cars.
Photo Credit: motoringconbrio
7.) Build your own private race track
Suggested By: Jstas
Why it's so money: Shout out to Alan Wilzig, you're living the dream. While other items on this top ten may inspire the quiet jealousy of your peers, constructing a race track in your yard will only provoke the ire of your neighbors. The real trick in showing off your cash with this unfortunately private racetrack is to blow further millions on lawyers in the never-ending court battles that will hound your track from the get-go.
Photo Credit: Google Maps
6.) Pass the "959 Rule"
Suggested By: My X-type is too a real Jaguar
Why it's so money: So you've just purchased your favorite limited-production supercar, but Johnny Law doesn't like your crash tests or your tailpipe emissions, so your car is getting impounded. Microsoft head honchos and gazillionaires Bill Gates and Paul Allen each faced this problem back in the late ‘80s when they brought over the DOT- and EPA-disapproved Porsche 959. It took over a decade, but they successfully lobbied Congress to pass the "Show and Display" law to allow their cars on the road. The law is commonly referred to as the "959 Rule." Yes, they basically paid off the government so they could drive their cars, and if that's not what wealth looks like, I don't know what is.
Photo Credit: Porsche
5.) Commission custom one-offs
Suggested By: snapoversteer, Arbiter of D'Elegance
Why it's so money: Bah! You bought cars straight from the factory? Peasants! Real rich people commission their own cars from Italy's authentic, exclusive (rich people love those words) carrozzeria. If you're Jay Leno and you're reading this, no, we haven't forgotten about the EcoJet, but you and I know that when people think big money car nuts, they're thinking the Pininfarina P4/5 and the new Lancia Stratos. There are plenty more Ferraris and Maseratis to mention, but above all no two are alike.
Photo Credit: Derk Photography
4.) Start your own World Rally Championship team
Suggested By: Slo-Z
Why it's so money: This is where things start to get ridiculous. Why create just one car, when you can create a whole race team? Many people have started out teams, but it took some major cojones and major funds for Petter Solberg to start up his own rally team in 2009 when his former team, Subaru, pulled out of competition. Petter, we want you to know that this is thousands of times cooler than just buying yourself a seat in F1 or what have you. This is a true mark of car guy wealth.
Photo Credit: Alex Solano
3.) Start your own damn car company
Suggested By: TheSlurpeeMan
Why it's so money: Shouts out to Koenigsegg, Lamborghini, and Malcolm Bricklin – why settle for a single racing team when you can start your own company and churn out all the cars your want? This doesn't seem like it would fly for the super-wealthy who have too much work to handle to start a new company, but really they should just pass the family business to either your limp-wristed child or your thieving, plotting Number Two and get started on building your own hypercar. After all, why bother turning up in a car that doesn't even have your name written on it?
Photo Credit: Alden Jewell
2.) Be Mr. Panoz
Suggested By: glyphon
Why it's so money: Among other things, Don Panoz still holds the patent for the nicotine patch, and he has the kind of cash you need to buy absolutely every gearhead dream. Reader glyphon lays it out your life as a Panoz:
Your own race track, with your own car company, complete with race team, that puts on a race with enough clout to draw 100k+ fans and gets the class winners an automatic entry into the following year's Le Mans.
This man doesn't just have his own car company, or a race team, or a race track, he has all of them! The more the merrier.
Photo Credit: Gavin Lawrence/Getty Images
1.) Be Klaas Zwart
Suggested By: SennaMP4
Why it's so money: There can only be one man at the top of the automotive heap, and he's a Dutch billionaire. Expect eccentricities.
Indeed, Klaas Zwart didn't just start his own exotic car company — the basic building block of any career in automotive excess— he built a massive luxury racetrack resort in sunny southern Spain. Unlike Mr. Panoz, as far as we can tell, Zwart never had much business in mind when it came to his circuit, and we honestly wouldn't be surprised if the whole thing started out as a way of having fun with his buddies and building his dream. The takeaway lesson for all the multimillionaires and billionaires out there is to build prettier, faster cars than anyone else, then build a racetrack where we can go drive them for free. Also, give us a free spa treatment, the flight over to your private country is a bitch.
Photo Credit: Ascari