Today I was driving home and I got behind a Maserati. And, no, for all of you Eagles fans out there he wasn't doing 185 mph (which would be a whopping 298 kmph!) Nope, this guy was doing about 5 kmph around one of the many rotaries of Dubai Media City.
The scary thing is, on Saturday we were almost hit by a different Maserati while pulling out of a parking lot behind a bookstore on Beach Road.
Where am I going with this? Well, the Dubai Motor Show just went down last week, and the big talk was the Maybach 62 Landaulet prototype.Now, it got me to thinking, I'm pretty sure I've never seen a Maybach in my life.
Dubai has their share of crazy cars - seeing two Maseratis in the span of five days is not out of the ordinary. And we have every manner of Lamborghini, Porsche, Ferrari, Jaguar - you name it. Once last year we saw two bright yellow Porsche 911s racing each other through traffic of Sheikh Zayed Road, weaving and bobbing through the other cars like they were standing still. And last year I saw the ugliest color Rolls-Royce Phantom in the world (see Rolls). But Maybach? There must be a few here somewhere, but dang, I've never seen one.
This Landaulet is pretty sweet. It's a half-a-convertible, so your driver (in the front seat) is covered, and you (in the back seat) can enjoy the sun. Ironically it's kind of the opposite of Scrooge McDuck's car in DuckTales (the one Duckworth the butler used to drive).
Yes, I get all of my preconceived notions about wealthy lifestyles from 1980s cartoons. Doesn't matter if Scrooge was a duck, homeboy was richer than the Sheikh. I mean, does he have a ginormous Money Bin in which he can literally swim through gold coins?
Didn't think so.
Anyway, the 2008 models range from $341,750 to $432,250 (yes, that's dollars and not dirhams!). And you wonder why they've only sold 800 cars ... since 2003. Not sure if that's worldwide or just the US, but I got the numbers from an October BusinessWeek so they have to be legit!
The money quote from that article? "After all, $335,000 is a lot to pay for a super-luxury sedan that none of your neighbors recognize."
I'm pretty sure I wouldn't recognize one if I saw it ...
