Drive a Bugatti supercar without ownership hassle
SYDNEY (Reuters Life!) - Call it rental, but for the super-rich: the Australian chapter of an elite automobile club is allowing members to drive the Bugatti Veyron, one of the world's fastest supercars, without worrying about actually owning it.
Touting the car as having specifications "straight from the pages of a boys-own adventure novel, wrapped up in a glamorous and easy-to-live-with package", The Supercar Club has sold 10 "shares" in the Veyron that entitle holders to drive the car for 20 days, or 2,000 km (1,400 miles), a year for two years.
The car is powerful and ultra exclusive.
Its 16-cylinder, quad-turbo engine produces 1,001 horsepower, has four-wheel drive and has a top-speed in excess of 400 km per hour (250 miles per hour).
Spokesman Richard Thomas said the fractional ownership scheme had been scooped up by three Europeans and seven Australians -- the club's target market.
Shares, plus an annual membership fee and sales taxes, were sold for about A$200,000 ($173,000) each.
If it were ever sold in Australia, the Veyron would cost more than A$2.7 million ($2.3 million), but Thomas said that was unlikely given the country's 33 percent luxury car tax and the fact that the car was only right-hand drive.
"This was targeting the super-rich in Australia as not many people here, no matter how much money they have, would want to fork out that much money on a car they can only drive on private tracks," Thomas told Reuters.
"For Australia, this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the very wealthy to drive this luxury supercar. This is ownership without the costs and burdens, especially of depreciation, which makes it very economical."
For the first year, Thomas said the car would be based in Europe -- Britain, France, Germany and Scandinavian countries where owners can drive it on real roads -- and would come to Australia in the second year, where owners would only be able to drive it on private tracks.
As for the specs, the Veyron 16.4 will gladden the heart of petrol-heads and includes the ability to go from zero to 100 km (62 miles) per hour in 2.5 seconds.
(Writing by Miral Fahmy; Editing by David Fogarty)
