Super Cars repo'd?

[Kayvan]

Passed an MB dealer looking at a MB SLR McLaren (which btw are not selling well); salesguy says it had 1200 miles on it, it was repo'd b/c previous seller missed payments. Would still have 7 yrs/100K warranty from 12/05 Delivery date, and would sell for $350k

Heard this a number of times at the pebble beach weekend too, around Lambos and some other exotics. Or is this dealer talk for (it was owned by a little lady who drove it on sundays?) or more likely (some dot.com :ack kid redlined for 10 days with no oil in and our specialist has now "fixed" it) and knocked off $100k on the Price.

 

[neilhellr]

I know of a Ford GT that was wrecked twice ($40k damage, I believe) in 645 miles. The buyer then decided he was done making payments and let Ford Credit "take it back". The car was fixed and sold at auction for $125k. Should have bought it, but hindsight is always 20/20!

 

[Red Rocket]

supercars going cheap

some of these stories of cars new or near new going cheap are true. Enzo's are going for more than list at last check, so far anyway. But MB-SLR's are dropping in value and so are Porsche Carrera GT's.

The reasons for the MB dropping are not clear, but may have something to do with the facts that (a) they are not the ultimate performance car by any stretch, (b) they cost too much so they are not good value, (c) only a severe car nut can really tell them apart from a regular Mercedes because after the show car was shown, the MB styling dept. borrowed so many of the styling cues from the SLR for the SLK etc that they all look alike now and (d) the Paris Hilton curse maybe?

As for the Carrera GT, (a) the triple-disc clutch makes it difficult to drive in town, and stalling your supercar in front of dozens of people tends to make the driver the butt of ever-lasting jokes, and (b) Porsche made way too many of them so they lost exclusivity. I am hearing of NEW Carrera GTs going for 50% of what people were paying two years ago. They make a lovely sound though.

On the same topic it would be a shame for Ford to make a follow-up to our GT's and I hope they are listening. It would diminish what we have as well as future models. I hope Ford learns the lessons of MB and Porsche well. It is a huge mistake to alienate your existing loyal customers by making their purchases look like stupid mistakes. My two cents, but I think others will agree that it does not pay to make people so passionate about cars regret their purchases.

 

[STUNTS]

Nicely said Red Rocket :thumbsup

I was told that Ferrari is very strict with their dealers as not to up the sales cost of their cars. There for the dealers sell them at msrp for a couple of miles and get the car back as a "USED" car and then Mark up the prices. I don't have any validity to this remark but I am asking if this is something others have heard??????????

 

[css 290]

With Ford's financial woes (thank God the GTs were built before this came along or we would not have the grins on our faces), another supercar is the LAST thing that it would consider building. What with the price of dinosaur juice these days---PC would dictate no more of the GTs. Plus, the federal law effective Sept. 1 says no more GTs althought I am not up on the specifics.

 

[dbk]

SLR is one of those bad ass cars that fits nowhere in particular. Are you really gonna pay 400+ for anything with an auto that kinda looks like something that's 40k and isn't particularly good looking, doesn't belong on a racetrack, but isn't exactly as soft as most GT cars, etc... It's a car I'd love to have if I woke up with an extra $10 million bucks to waft around the autobahn in.

CGT is a car I'd love to have. I understand it's hard to drive and have heard from an owner (who sold his for an FGT!) that his was constantly in the shop. But what a ridiculous sound! Best sounding road car in existence for the sheer ferocity and shriek. A guy up the street has one and takes it to work now and then, surrounded by sedans and SUV's...

As far as Ford building another GT...I got to talk with Edsel Ford in his office and to paraphrase, he said it'd be a lifetime before they did another one of these.

 

[Red Rocket]

good additional points DBK. Glad to hear it about rumored new versions of the GT - I saw it somewhere on this forum a week ago but could not relocate the thread, so I was concerned. Good news if this is true.

BTW - re Ford - their financial woes have been on-going for several years, really since around 2002, so the fact Bill Ford went ahead anyway with the GT shows what a great car guy he truly is. Hats off to you Mr. Ford!

Also - re the Carrera GT in case you get that spare $10 mill Dave: The secret to driving them is to NOT rev the engine and drop the clutch on takeoff, becuz that engages all three discs at once. The secret is to engage the clutch at idle-level revs and it will roll away nicely (using only the first stage of clutch).

 

[SuperB]

I don't think $350 is a deal on the SLR, I think if you look around you can get a new one for clost to that.