Super cars

This is the 16th and last edition of Brakes Please! the automotive and driving safety column we launched 4 months ago. This concluding piece is on High Performance Vehicles (HPV) or what many auto-buffs prefer to call ‘supercars.’

Supercars are to the automotive world what designer wear is to haute couture. Designer clothes are expensive, often impractical and high maintenance – just like your typical high performance vehicle. Some – (and all Italian men) would say the closest thing to a supercar is a tall, full figured and very, very temperamental woman.

A supercar is not a vehicle with a souped up engine – it is that also – but much more than meets the eye … Supercars are thoroughbreds in and out, designed with virtually no cost compromising and sold to a usually informed select clientele segment. Authenticity, Integrity and Prestige, ALP for convenience, are the hallmarks of such cars.

Authenticity
Stick your head inside a Ferrari, Mercedes Benz 500 SEL Coupe or less exclusively, pop inside a 1980s Lancia H.P. Executive and you can smell the aroma of authentic materials. No simulated junk in supercars; only the best veneer wood, leather, burnished steel, even silver and gold plating on high –end versions. Applying only the best of natural materials complemented with labor intensive, high quality fit and finish is the mark of a supercar worth its name.

Integrity
Supercars, when first conceived, are built around a dedicated one-off chassis design. This rugged framework made from the best steel alloys and other high quality metals is built to precision levels of extremely thin tolerances. The body of the vehicle must seamlessly be melded onto this chassis to achieve a mechanical engineer’s nirvana. Supercars don’t rattle and shake and take corners at high speed without groaning in pain like a mass production car and you get a firm yet comfortable ride. Integration of a well made chassis with body shell is second on your checklist if you are wealthy enough to afford such automotive extravagance. In fact, another, slightly envious term for a supercar is ‘rich man’s toy.!

Prestige
The most sought after-supercars are made by brands which have attained legend status and are institutions unto themselves. Modena, the home of the Enzo Ferrari family is so synonymous with the supercar manufacturer that it is a pilgrimage site for the truly car crazy not to mention race car drivers, which by definition are all insame.
Badges, with names like Lancia, Bugatti, Ferrari, Lamborghini, De Tomaso and Zonda indicate that Italian marques have high prestige value in the car world. Of course, the Aston Martin DB-9 is a pretty wild supercar just askDaniel craig’s James Bond in Casino Royale.
The last decade has brought a few new brands of supercar but they will struggle for many years before they unseat the big boys.