Sebastian Vettel is off to greener pastures this year — see what I did there? — leaving a struggling Ferrari squad for the rebranded Racing Point outfit, now called Aston Martin, that’s coming off a stellar 2020 campaign. Vettel, a four-time Formula 1 world driver’s champion, is also selling eight sports cars from his collection, five of which are Ferraris and none of which are Astons.
Coincidence? I’ll let you decide.
Maybe Vettel doesn’t want bad mojo lingering post-breakup — a relatable feeling, for sure. Whatever the reason, the LaFerrari, Enzo, F50, F12TDF and 458 Speciale will no longer reside in Vettel’s scuderia. In fact, the LaFerrari and F50 have already been taken. The three other cars in the group consist of a Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG and an SL65 Black Series as well as a BMW Z8.
Let’s say you’ve got loads of cash burning a hole in your pocket, just begging to be dropped on a low-mileage sports car well looked after by an F1 champion. But you can walk away with only one. Which would it be?
It wouldn’t be an easy call for me. The knee-jerk response would have to be that F50, both for those ’90s supercar vibes and the fact it’s one of the rarest cars in this group, as Ferrari built only 349 of them. (The SL65 Black Series was manufactured in similarly low numbers.) But that answer is too predictable. Upon further thought, I’d have to go Z8.
I related this to my colleagues in our Slack, and Jalopnik editor-in-chief Rory Carroll responded with only a shrug. “Never really had any interest in the Z8,” he said, as progressively more staffers rushed to the defense of what some of us consider one of BMW’s coolest, weirdest cars ever. It’s a two-seat roadster with a V8 up front and pseudo-retro styling. It has a funky steering wheel, buttons and switches. The taillights are unassailable. What’s not to like? And where does this guy get off telling us what to do, anyway?
You know what, it doesn’t matter. There’s no use trying to convince those who simply refuse to see the light. Anyway, which Vettel car would you buy, understanding full well that choosing any of them may curse you to a series of increasingly more disappointing seasons under the pressure of an entire nation’s hopes?