But how far is too far when it comes to factory installed options? We understand paying a little extra for some carbon fiber extras is fine, but spending what could be a few years salary for most people on pretty-looking interior accents seems downright insane. Here are some of the worst offenders.
The headliner on a Rolls Royce is already made of leather so soft that it has to come from cows raised where their skin can be free from harsh elements, but for a mere $12,925, you can have holes poked into the leather and filled with fiber-optic lights to mimic the night sky. Ironically, if owners decide to go this route, they must forgo a sunroof, which would allow for viewing of the actual night sky. The process of making the starry headliner is actually harder than it sounds because most customers ask for the stars to be arranged into the patterns of constellations. Rolls Royce doesn’t half-ass this process either because a planetarium is consulted in order to make sure that the constellations come out as accurately as possible.
Aston Martin likes to put it out there: each and every one of its cars is hand built and this means that no two are alike. But this option does absolutely nothing to add to the car. Instead, it essentially enables the car key to your Aston to tell time for a paltry sum of $29,500. The Aston Martin Transponder watch is essentially a better-looking iWatch that unlocks your car, except that it can't send text messages or tell you its time to get off the couch. The fancy-looking timepiece/key is an optional extra for DB9 and Rapide buyers, and is only cool if you really want to have James Bond gadgets bad enough to spend the money. For that kind of money, it at least could have thrown in a laser beam that cuts metal or a grappling hook.
Carbon fiber is awesome. Not only does it look cool, but it makes supercars lighter and more stiff and when arranged properly on a car, it can make it visually pop out. Before making cars, Pagani got famous by making some of the best carbon fiber in Modena, Italy. Now that it builds some very fast and expensive cars, Pagani uses its knowhow of the sixth element on the periodic table to outfit its cars in the precious substance and lets some of it peak through the paint for aesthetic value. However if an owner wants to bathe the entire car in carbon fiber, it’ll cost a cool $152,000, or in other words, one Nissan GT-R NISMO with a few grand leftover for caviar. Of course, this is a bargain package on a car that has $112,000 worth of bolts.
Remember when you bought your latest iGadget and the sales person tried their best to get you to buy overpriced extended warranty you turned down? Well we have no sympathy for you because just listen to how hard Lamborghini owners have it. If you buy a $400,995 Aventador and want to extend the included three-year warranty to a fourth year, you’ll need to fork over an additional $11,600. If you plan on keeping your Lambo healthy a year after that, sign over another check for $22,200. This outrageous sum of cash is probably only worth it if you plan to drive your Aventador daily. Lamborghini either has no faith in the quality of its products or it knows just how much abuse owners will subject them to.
Time is money, but Bentley took this phrase a little too literally when it decided to offer the optional Breitling clock on the dashboard of the Bentayga. Bentley probably feared that its billionaire customers wouldn’t be able to differentiate themselves from the casual millionaires, so it priced the timepiece at $170,000. Of course, only four of these special watches are offered per year because only a single Breitling employee can make them and it takes three months to build a single watch (more reason to ace procrastination). Of course, we think it would be better to buy a few Porsches or Corvettes along with a new iPhone, which you’ll probably use instead of the watch to check the time anyways.
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