The Good
Pop quiz, dear readers. What is better than being face-to-face with a beautiful, functioning piece of automotive history? Being face-to-face with MANY pieces of beautiful, functioning pieces of automotive history. RM Auctions, a premier action house for fine, high-end, rare, unique and otherwise incredibly expensive cars, will be holding an auction on January 18th, 2013 at the Biltmore Resort in Phoenix, Arizona. Present at this event will be 80 gorgeous collector's vehicles from all over the map, and from all walks of automotive history. What's that, you ask? Can I give you some more specifics about the cars? Why, it would be my pleasure, dear readers. There will be an all-original 1960 Ferrari 250 GT SWB Berlinetta, designed by the renowned Sergio Scaglietti, who some readers may recognize as Enzo Ferrari's trusted design manager. There will also be a fire-engine red 1955 Mercedes-Benz 300SL Gullwing, widely regarded as one of the coolest and most elegant cars ever created. The list goes on for miles and miles, and I encourage you to check out the full list here. For me, the highlight of this auction has got to be the original 1965 Ford GT40, which dominated the 24 Hours of Le Mans four years straight from 1966-1969 and was the spiritual predecessor to the fantastic Ford GT90. As exciting as all of this metal eye-candy is, I wouldn't start booking flights to Arizona. Unless you are either looking to spend big or heist big, that is. That GT40 I just mentioned? Well, that is expected to go at the auction for $3,000,000. Give or take a few hundred grand.
The Bad
Oh Tesla, you glorious, insane underdog. Tesla Motors, the independent automaker famous for creating the brilliant but problematic all-electric Tesla Roadster, has hatched a new scheme that seems destined to flop, or at least lose investors a hefty chunk of change. The problem with all-electric cars is that there are not many of them on the roads. Naturally, this creates a problem as far as finding a charge-station goes. Why bother setting up a decent network of charge-stations when there aren't enough cars out there to justify the cost? Elon Musk, Tesla's CEO, and his team think that they have the answer. Or, the start of one at least. Tesla has opened five direct-current charging stations (creatively dubbed "Superchargers") around some of California's most-used highways. Hopefully, you can see the hitch in this plan. Since Tesla is such a small company, they have extremely limited resources, which translates into baby-steps as far as furthering their electric agenda goes. Hence, the tiny number of stations that they can open without going bankrupt. Imagine this. You are driving your electric car along the California coast-line when you see that you are about out of juice. So, you roll in to one of these exciting new Supercharging stations, only to find that there are 5 other cars in line for a charge. With traditional gas pumps this would be, at worst, an annoyance. However, when you consider that it takes 30-40 minutes to fully fill an electric car, this becomes a day-ruining catastrophe. Nobody, and I do mean NOBODY, wants to wait around at a pump for two and a half hours JUST TO GET THEIR TURN TO FILL THEIR CAR. I wish Tesla all the best with their endeavor, and I hope that you, dear readers, will as well. They will be needing it.
The Ugly
The sad fact of life is that one way or another, everyone dies. This is the way of the world, dear readers. SO, for those of you unaware, on September 28th, 2012, one of the automotive world's greats passed away. Chris Economaki, editor for 60 years at National Speed Sport News, ABC Sport Race-event broadcaster, ESPN Formula-1 commentator and Army veteran, died at age 91. This man was the embodiment of the American motor-head, and a leading light for those car-lovers who grew up in his era as well as for the younger readers among us. So, dear readers, give a hug to those you love and tell them how much they mean to you, because you never know when your ways will part. But make sure that when your time comes, be it at a ripe old age like Chris, or a younger age like Mr. James Dean, you are taken doing something you love. So, moment of silence for Mr. Christopher Constantine Economaki, Godfather of the motor-heads.
Just to illustrate how little I knew (and still know) about cars.... I want to thank you for FINALLY defining "Tesla" for me. I never knew what it was, and in my mind I guessed that it was some 80's hair band..... sooooo... yeah, I just hope you stay friends with me after that confession lol
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