This is Don DiMuro and today I'm gonna cover exotic cars that you are wrong about. This is exotic cars where the general public has one opinion of the cars and I have the opposite opinion and today I'm going to explain myself so let's get started Before I get started, be sure to check out Cars and Bids, which is my enthusiast car auction website for cool cars from the modern era with free listings. You can list your cool car for free and auction it on Cars and Bids. And we've had some great sales recently, including this Dodge Viper RT10, which sold for over $41,000, this fantastic Tesla Model X Plaid, which sold for $117,000, and... This lovely Toyota Century with a V12 that sold for over $22,000.
We love the weird stuff on Cars and Bids. If you're looking to buy or sell a cool enthusiast car from the modern era, Cars and Bids is the place to do it with daily auctions and free listings. Check it out at carsandbids.com. Okay, so exotic cars that you are wrong about.
Now, this is a rare topic because truthfully, I primarily have the same opinions about exotic cars as most people do. I'm not one of those... annoying contrarian YouTubers, I generally think, you know, the McLaren F1, the Carrera GT are god, the Ferrari F40 is amazing, the F50 is weird looking but we like it, the Vector W8 is insanely cool, etc.
I share virtually all of those exotic car opinions. But there are a few times where my opinion of exotic cars differs from the norm, and I'm going to go through seven of those with you today. Okay, let's start with the original Ferrari California.
You are wrong about this car. These are fast, fun, cheap, and they're still a Ferrari. Everybody hates the original California because it's like the cheap Ferrari, the crappy Ferrari.
It's the Ferrari you get if you can't afford another Ferrari. Listen to what that means. The cheap Ferrari. Okay, it's still better than the most expensive Toyota, right?
Like this is still a really cool car. And even beyond that annoying reputation, California just drives well. It's fast. It really is fast.
It's fun to drive. It handles and steers like an exotic sports car. It's quick.
It's precise. It's... It's very...
Well balanced, it's just a great car. It has a great sound, and most importantly, it's cheap. You can pick up California's early ones now for like $85,000 to $105,000.
It doesn't sound cheap, but two things to keep in mind. Number one, other Ferraris are a lot more money, and number two, it doesn't lose all that much value, and it's also relatively affordable for the performance level. And I just think people are so obsessed with the fact that it's the cheap Ferrari that they're not thinking about the reality, which is it's still a damn good car.
Okay, next exotic car that you are wrong about, that would be the new Acura NSX. I have gone on the record many times about the new NSX saying that I think it's a fantastic car and that opinion is generally not shared in the community but I have felt this way since this car came out back in 2017. It's gorgeous, it looks amazing, it's fast, it's fun, and it's reliable which is important in the world of exotic cars because a lot of them aren't. This came out at the same time that like the McLaren 650s was on the road.
Those cars are disastrous to own, unreliable, difficult. Acura NSX is just as fast, in my opinion, cooler looking, and it's reliable, and it's way cheaper. You can get NSXs for like 150 grand. I don't think they're going to go down from that point, maybe to 130, 140. But this is an amazing bargain for that price level. They do 0 to 60 in under three seconds.
They're fun, they're fast, and, and this is an important point, they didn't make that many of them. Acura told me they made less than 3,000 of the new NSXs, which is a smaller production run than... the Ford GT, which is a car that everybody thinks it's such an iconic, special, amazing vehicle.
Well, the new NSX is rarer. Personally, I think people have totally overblown the fact this car isn't all that great. It's not as good as the original NSX, blah, blah, blah. Well, it's still amazing.
It's special. It's fast. It's reliable. And there's a lot of great things about the new NSX. Okay, next exotic car that you are wrong about.
The Ferrari 348. So this was the entry-level V8 model mid-engine Ferrari that was made from like 1989 to 1995. And for years, this car has been derided and criticized for being the crappy Ferrari from this era. the crappy V8 Ferrari, nobody likes it, nobody wants it, etc. I have generally agreed with that opinion, but in the last few years, my view of the 348 has started to change a little bit. For one thing, it was often criticized for its performance, it just wasn't all that fast. But the truth is, all exotic cars from this era...
...are not fast by modern standards, so the speed and performance doesn't really matter that much, right? Like, okay, it's not that fast compared to, you know, other 80s, 90s cars, but now no car from that time period is even close. So the performance is not that big of a deal, but it does have a few cool things. For one, it handles really well.
This was the last V8 Minitin Ferrari made with manual steering. The 355 had power steering and a lot of... people say that power steering is kind of over boosted and over assisted the 348 was still like turn it yourself kind of go-kart like it also I think is aging well in terms of its design 348 for a long time was criticized for not being particularly attractive it was a very like 80s design with the side strike thing and the flat wheels, a lot of angles, but the truth is, the 80s cars are hot right now, late 80s, early 90s, and I think its design is only becoming kind of cooler and more vintage as the 348 ages. And so you got a stick shift, very analog Ferrari, a lot of open roof cars were made, both a target top one called the TS, then later the GTS, and then also a Spyder.
They're fun. It's like actually a pretty fun and enjoyable car to drive. And I think that people make a mistake by saying that this isn't a good Ferrari.
You know, for a long time, it was kind of a used Ferrari and whatever. But I think it's aging into that vintage Ferrari feel sort of gracefully. And I think the 348 isn't so bad.
Okay, next up, exotic cars that you are wrong about. I'm going to get some real criticism for this one in the comments, but I strenuously believe... the Lexus LFA.
This is the only one of these that goes the opposite direction. Most people now have this godlike acceptance and love of the LFA. I think the exact opposite.
I think the Lexus LFA is probably the single most overrated car in existence today. So... If you don't know, the LFA was like Lexus sports car came out in the mid 2010s, 2000, somewhere in there. And it was supposed to be like this halo car for the Lexus brand.
But of course, Lexus doesn't have any experience making a halo car and they mess the whole thing up. They charged way too much for it. It was way too rare. And most people didn't even know that it existed. It didn't really have that halo effect for Lexus.
But they're out there now. And they were for years, they were impossible to sell. I mean, they were 400 and some thousand dollars new. They couldn't sell them.
Lexus had a horrible time trying to get people to buy them to the point where they had to hire a full-time employee to go to events around the country, hoping to get rich people interested in the last few LFAs that they couldn't sell. It was a disaster. Over the last few years, now everybody has money because of pandemic stimulus checks, PPP loans, and all this other stuff, the rising stock market inflation. Everybody's got a lot of cash. And they're looking for special cars.
And a lot of the really special cars have gotten really expensive. Carrera GTs are a million bucks. F40s are two and a half.
F50s are three and a half, five. You can't get any of these cars anymore. And so people started thinking, well, what about the LFA?
And so they started buying it up and kind of created this demand and excitement. Only problem is the car doesn't actually deserve it. Yes, it sounds amazing.
It is one of the greatest sounding cars of all time. But other than that, it is not particularly attractive. It is not particularly fast.
It has a terrible transmission. The interior is no different from most Lexus models. It's just not all that great of a car. All the reasons people weren't buying it when it was new.
are the same reasons that people shouldn't be buying it now. And I think that this car was a pretty good deal and maybe kind of cool in the $250,000 to $350,000 price range. But now they're selling for $600,000, $700,000.
And I can think of a million cars that I would have before that, including Countach, Diablo SE30, Diablo 6.0, a nice Ford GT, Ford GT Heritage, all sorts of stuff. But that car has appreciated and gained a lot of traction, and I don't get it. I just think it's not a great car.
Maybe people are buying it to round out a space in their collection for like a special low-volume exotic car. Maybe people are buying it because they fear they're missing out on an increasing market. I don't think anybody's actually buying this car because they love it. Because truthfully, there's not all that much to love.
Okay, next up. Cars, exotic cars that you are wrong about. The Ferrari Enzo. The Enzo is actually probably the least controversial on this list. I think there are a lot of people who love the Enzo.
But the Enzo has also gotten a lot of complaints over the years for a few things, namely its styling and the fact that it was an automatic transmission. You know, it came out in 03, it was kind of the end of the manual era. But Porsche decided with the Carrera GT that also came out at that time to do one last manual supercar and Ferrari decided the opposite. That they were going to send their supercar into like the next generation of transmissions and give it the F1 trance.
That was a mistake obviously in retrospect and that's gotten a lot of criticism. The other big thing that people criticize the Enzo for is the way it looks. It's this really long front end kind of this like folded origami body. It's not the most attractive car. That's the criticism.
Now, for years, I have not been the biggest fan of the Enzo. It's an amazing car, but when you think about F40 and F50, I find those to be so special. And then Enzo is an automatic that they made.
more of and that doesn't look that great. But over the last few years, two or three years, I've really started to come around on the Enzo. For one thing, I think the design is aging beautifully.
It was an okay looking car when it was new, but I think as automakers push the limits and do weirder and weirder stuff, the Enzo's looking better and better with time. More importantly, I think it actually drives really well. Now, if you're a long time viewer of my channel, you know I've never driven an Enzo.
I did a review on one, and then the opportunity to drive that car was rescinded when I showed up to review it. But coming up very soon on the channel, you'll see a video. in which I was able to get behind the wheel, at least to an extent. And anyway, it drives great and it's a lot of fun and it's more exciting and more fun than I ever expected it would be.
It feels lighter and more tossable than I thought it would be. And of course it does. It's a Ferrari.
I had the same feeling about the F50. You get so intimidated by these cars and you show up and actually use them and they drive quite well. And so I think overall, my feeling on the Enzo has kind of evolved to be this car is aging gracefully.
It drives really well. And then the only real drawback is the transmission, but here is a very controversial opinion, another exotic car that you are wrong about, and that would be not a car at all, but transmissions. I think, this is a bold claim, I think that the paddle shifter transmissions of the late 90s and early 2000s, the sequential manuals, the F1s, E gears, will someday be considered desirable and cool. Ha, that's a big statement, but hear me out. I think when you drive those cars now, they feel pretty mechanical in a way that cars with dual clutches don't.
Now, to be clear, dual clutches are more reliable, they're faster, they're always gonna be better. But I think as cars start to make this switch to dual clutches, to plug-in hybrids, to fully electric, there's gonna continue to be this draw to mechanical. analog supercars and sports cars and i think that absent the real manual transmission cars the next thing people will start to desire might be these single clutches they feel like you're shifting gears you pull it it feels like something mechanical is happening because it is and it has a lot more of a mechanical analog feel than a dual clutch and so i actually think that cars with the flappy paddles as they were derisively called at the time f1 e-gear all of that r-tronic i think all of those might someday actually see some design and appreciation as people look for more ways to make their cars feel mechanical. So that is a bold claim for exotic cars that you're wrong about, but watch it happen and the Enzo would benefit from that.
And so would the last car on my list, the last exotic car you're wrong about, that would be the original Aston Martin Vanquish. It came out in 2003 and most people agree this car is gorgeous, but most people also think that the transmission is terrible and that kind of ruins the car. And I got to tell you, that car is gorgeous, but the transmission is terrible and it ruins the car. All of this is true.
Every viewpoint that regular people have about this car is correct, except number one, the car is really gorgeous. It's not just gorgeous. I think it's one of the most beautiful cars of its era, which was a beautiful car era. And maybe one of the most beautiful cars of all time.
It is tremendously special and tremendously beautiful. A. B, it's cheap. You can pick up a Vanquish from this era in like the $40,000 to $70,000 range.
It's like the price of an E-Class. Actually, it's less. It's like the price of a nice C-Class at this point.
And for one of the most beautiful V12-powered exotic cars in the world, in my opinion. the transmission does suck. But two things.
Number one, yes, you can get a manual swap, although it's tremendously expensive. But number two, you can just do the flappy paddles and maybe feel like it's not so bad. Now, this is one of the slower and worse to respond sequential manual transmissions, but it still does kind of have that mechanical feel and connection.
And most importantly, for 50 grand, maybe you live with it. Maybe you just say to yourself, hey, I didn't have the budget for a Carrera GT, so I have- have to buy something that's a little bit more flappy paddle-y, but it's still incredibly beautiful, it's still a V12, it's still an exotic car that turns heads, it's just here's a drawback but at least it still feels more mechanical than a dual clutch car. So I think there's something to that.
But that's my list. Those are the exotic cars that you are wrong about. These are cars that I feel differently about than the masses and I can't wait to argue with you about these in the comments.