IT COULD BE A BENTLEY ON PLANET POSNER

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KATHY POSNER WOULD TRADE HER CHILD
FOR A NEW BENTLEY--IF SHE HAD ONE!
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Bentley Continental

On Oct 28th of last year, I posted a story entitled, “It Is Finally Time For Me To Grow Up,” when I related the tale of the day I bought a Ferrari. What I did not include in the story was that I had also seen a Bentley that day that I really would have preferred more than the sports car; but since someone was buying me specifically a Ferrari as a gift; I had to pass the Bentley by with a slight tear in my eye. The liberal Democratic readers of this blog are probably sickened by the thought of people spending vast amounts of money on a car when there are starving children in the world, but the people who hand-craft luxury cars have a right to make a living. Without buyers of these cars they would be out of a job. So it all evens out in the long run. Because a number of Bentleys park in my condos garage and I live one block from the Bentley dealership in Chicago, I have to look at Bentleys all the time. If I had a child, I would trade them for the new Bentley Continental Supersports convertible in white with a black interior. Or maybe black exterior; I can always make that decision later. Since I have no progeny to sell on the open market, I don’t have to worry about hearing from DCFS or some other governmental agency about a possible baby-selling scheme. The 2011 model will be unveiled at the Geneva Motor Show next month. It makes no difference to me that the car has a twin-turbocharged 6.0-liter engine putting out 621 horsepower and 590 pound-feet of torque, or that it runs on either gasoline or ethanol or that it can accelerate from 0-60 mph in 3.9 seconds and has a top speed on 202 mph with all- wheel drive. The car is shiny and pretty! It almost seems cheap at about $350,000 when compared to the newly unveiled two-door station wagon featured at the Geneva show starting at around $800,000. The car is not pretty! Why would someone pay almost a million dollars (with tax) for a station wagon? Now that is stupid! This new Continental Star model is actually called a “Shooting Brake” and not a station wagon. For the ill-bred few, this term originated with custom built two-door luxury estate cars altered for use by hunters and other sportsmen who require larger storage space for their guns and other equipment. Only 20 of these cars will be built. A million dollars and it’s not even pretty! I just don’t get the concept. My favorite economic law is that of “utilization.” What something is worth to you at a particular moment in time changes as the conditions change. I might not want to pay $10 for a glass of Diet Coke if I am sitting at hone with 10 cases in my cupboard but I would pay that if I were in the dessert and very thirsty. What conditions could exist under which someone pay $800,000 for a station wagon? Maybe if it came with snow tires.
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