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1968 Pontiac Firebird 400 four speed. Had it up to 145 MPH on a county highway and could have got a bit more but the front wheels wanted to come up after every little bump in the road. You cannot know how much I miss that bird.
911 Turbo or a Mercedes S Class or Audi A8L are all probably tied for most expensive. The 911 was obviously the fastest though I have driven corvettes that may have challenged it. I remember parking both the vette and Porsche after they had re-tarred the lot, after a short rain you had to watch it real close.
Rumor has it they will go about 190 mph. I suppose given enough room to run , it is possible . My former 911 Turbo would accelerate up 160 miles per hour quite smartly, per the GPS in the radar detector. I haven't had the current car over 140 miles per hour , but when on the boil it got there pretty quickly so I'm assuming it has at least a buck seventy in it.
This may seem trivial to most of you but the fastest car I ever drove was my 1967 1/2 Jaguar E type Roadster when I was in my 20's. I'm 66 now. I took it up to 100+ and I had the top down so even though it was thrilling, it was also scary. The drive was on a long stretch of the 210 freeway in So Cal very late at night. It was a once in a lifetime experience I'll never forget.
Most expensive is probably what I just bought, a 2014 Mazda CX 5. I'd never bought a car before from a dealer and all my previous cars were used. So to me this was a big deal. I was only able to buy it because I got an inheritance.
1968 Pontiac Firebird 400 four speed. Had it up to 145 MPH on a county highway and could have got a bit more but the front wheels wanted to come up after every little bump in the road. You cannot know how much I miss that bird.
I had a 1970 Formula 400 Firebird with stick... it was really a good road car... enjoyed it a lot. Gas Crisis did it in and had to part with it.
After having worked on numerous italian supercars and older german collectables (some in the $7-figure range), I got to drive many of them to "verify the repairs". With so much at stake, however, I only drove them cautiously within speed limits and with a concern that many of them were "magnets" for all those folk that just had to share their stories of having owned one, or their brother-in-law's doctor's son friend had one and they got to sit in/drive/touch it once ... or maybe it was the elbow of the owner that they touched, I'm not sure.
But it was very frustrating to not be able to drive them anywhere and leave them unattended for a second. Had more than one time where I drove a car to a restaurant to get a bite and came out to find somebody sitting/leaning on a fender just waiting to tell me their car stories ... as if I cared. I learned real quickly that once these cars were completed at my shop, it was best to either deliver them to the owner's location (I got to deliver/drive a few to Aspen or Vail or Sun Valley or Jackson) or have them transported/picked up from the shop so that my responsibility ended.
The worst experience I had ... early on in the game ... was to take a dealer's '71 280SE 3.5 Convertible to a restaurant in Cherry Creek (Denver area). Came out and it had been "keyed" down the right side. Thanks, pard. The car had a high end paint job ($12,000 at the time) and I had to send it back to the shop that did it in Denver. Cost over $5,000 to refinish and it came out of my pocket. Filing a claim with my business insurer would have cost me more in increased premiums ... as it was, they were nervous about an 8-bay shop with the prospect of 8 ea 6-figure cars sitting there overnight. Had the same thing happen with a '57 300SL roadster a few years later ... only this time, I'd taken the car to a private function wedding in Evergreen at a residence there. Guess one of the guests there couldn't resist the opportunity to vandalize somebody else's car with a dealer plate on it. Again, I got to pay for the damage out of pocket ... fortunately, it was an older paint job on the car in poor condition and the dealer was going to send it over for painting after the mechanical repairs (my shop) and upholstery shop were done with it. So my cost was not too bad to repair this one.
While market value and top speed can be parameters for the fun factor in a lot of cars ....
My fondest/happiest times have been in more mundane vehicles. Such as a Morgan +8, a turbo'ed 2002tii, or similar sleeper cars that don't scream "look at me" to everybody. Have had a euro BMW 745i (factory turbo'ed model) up to 135 indicated going across NV at night to deliver it to LA the next day ... for a mile or two, just to see what it was like; couldn't tell any difference in the ride between 60 mph and 3 digit speeds, the car just ambled down the road with the same grace as the road stripes passed by more quickly.
In +/- 1981 I test drove a 1971 Baracuda Hemi convertable. It was for sale for $750 (very rusty). However I saw one sell for $2 million in about 1989 +/- and I heard they later sold one for $4 million - but those were not all rusted out. At least not at the time of sale.
Good Lord, my brother had a '71 Barracuda Hemi convert till 1974. Bought brand new.
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