5 toys for boys
November 8th 2008 03:09
1. The car
The problem with the Bentley Turbo, Aston Martin Vantage and all those red Italian toys is that every Thomas, Richard and Harold has one. The golf club car park is so full of them that you can't get your clubs out of the boot without scratching someone's Rolls bloody Royce. What is needed is something so outrageously expensive and so outlandlishly stylish that it will make Ferrari owners turn rosso with envy.
Enter the Koenigsegg CCX.
As a name, this does not have the resonance of, say, Lamborghini, but nothing is perfect. Blame the Swedes, who make it. Everything else about this car is exemplary. It has a manufacturer-claimed top speed of 417km an hour (although, looking at the picture, you'd have to suspect this is a conservative estimate).
The engine, seated amidships, is a twin-supercharged, 4.7-litre, 32-valve V8 assembled by Grainger & Worrall, a British company that produces drivetrain components for Formula One cars. The power, coming from two centrifugal superchargers producing 601kW at 6900rpm and 919Nm of torque at 5700rpm on 91 octane fuel, goes to the rear wheels via a six-speed manual gearbox. Zero to 100km an hour in 3.2 seconds. Zero to 200km an hour in 9.8 seconds.
We have no idea what the above paragraph means - we just know that we want to read it over and over again.
The Koeinigsegg CCX's chassis is made of carbon-fibre, Kevlar and aesthetically distributed blobs of sensuous red paint.
As for the price, if you have to ask ... oh, okay, US$2.3 million and this toy is yours.
2. The boat
This is Octopus, touted widely by web sites wherever you Google to be the largest private yacht in the world. In fact it was - in 2003 when delivered new to its owner, Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. However, in what must be a heart-breaking confrontation for Mr Allen with the reality that time stands still for no squillionnaire, Octopus is today only the eighth largest private yacht in the world.
It's still a worthy toy, however. It cost something over US$200 million to build, not counting the champagne in its guest rooms. It is 414 feet, or 126 metres, long. It carries two helicopters, a 63-foot (19-metre) tender, two submarines and 60 permanent crew.
It was built in Germany and the interior was created by American designer Jonathan Quinn Barnett of Seattle. He allowed lots of champagne storage space.
3. The big woofers
High on any boy's toy wish list is a set of audio speakers which allow you to hear, every six bars or so, the singer's intake of breath. It just can't get any more exciting than that.
We know of one boy toy lover in Belgium who paid US$1 million for a customised Kharma speaker system known as the Grand Enigma. Turn that up a bit and they can hear it on Mars.
A more realistic, and available, speaker system, and a much-better looking one, is the Wisdom Infinite Grande, a steal at US$700,000.
The system weighs 3,800 pounds and stands thirteen feet tall. It employs three stacked planar-magnetic arrays and eight-foot tall subwoofers. The manufacturer claims the Infinite Wisdom Grande is capable of producing sound pressure levels in excess of 120 dB, which, to quote one expert audio system web site, is "really, really loud".
4. The house
A good home is the stuff of good dreams. Of course, it doesn't have to be particularly grand to be comfortable. It doesn't even have to be right in the centre of Monaco. All we ask is a roof, a comfortable bed and a fridge that keeps the cavier at the correct temperature. The marina doesn't have to be huge and a two-craft spaceport is adequate.
Our search for this haven of domestic perfection continues, but in the meantime we were impressed with a sweet little flat in London.
It sold in June 2008 for US$236 million, making it the world's most expensive residential property. Neighbours include the Queen and the Prime Minister, and lots of those no-snobs-here-old-chap gentlemen's clubs are just around the corner in Pall Mall.
We can't show you a picture of the flat because it hasn't been built yet. It was bought off a floor plan, one of six flats to be created on the current site of a seven-storey office block.
5. The plane
It is possible these days to buy any plane you like, throw a few million at tarting up the interior, and there you have it - your home in the sky. For the true high flyers, prices for the Airbus A380 start at US$315 million. The refurbishment of the one pictured above (owned, naturally, by a serious toy collector of Middle Eastern origin), cost a further US$150 million.
You could buy a conventional Boeing 747 Jumbo for about US$230 million, but then everyone would know you accept second-best.
en.wikipedia.org, nzherald.co.nz, higherfi.com, property.timesonline.co.uk
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