Welcome to the world of arts, crafts and cars

In reality these cars are like art and they won’t degrade in value and some will actually appreciate

It’s not every month, year or maybe a decade that you get to experience back-to-back Ice Drives that too with some of the most savage cars that every auto enthusiast has or currently lusting over. Starting at Seefeld in Austria with the Audi RS e-Tron GT and RS 5 Sportback to taking another flight to Kittilä in Finland for the Porsche 911 GT3, Carrera 4 GTS and Taycan Turbo S GT with a simple job to drive sideways on nicely laid out ice tracks. It was my first Ice driving experience, and boy, what an epic one it was! Though the Audi Experience was a great starting point since it was for a lesser time, the Porsche Ice driving experience is a professional programme being held for many years on a dedicated race circuit with pro trainers. Driving sideways, drifting and turning at corners with the simple objective of getting the car in rotation and maintaining the drift is a thrilling experience. Here is the ‘icing’ on the ‘ice drive’ that you can oversteer, understeer and speed up and hit the soft snow banks knowing well that 95% of the time you will be safe unless you are trying to do a mid-air 360 degree, car won’t be damaged and you will be pulled out without the trainers shouting or screaming. How cool is that, isn’t it? This led me to conclude that this would indeed be an expensive sport, and if it’s made into a Formula Ice, it would be quiet engaging, interesting and might turn into a blockbuster IP!

Formula E is already getting a lot of attention and huge amounts of sponsorship dollars are being poured in, with every auto manufacturer with racing pedigree wanting an early piece of the pie while the pie is warm. It’s a clear writing on the wall that the future is electric, and every auto manufacturer is ready with their EV game. It’s perhaps the best way to convince an erring customer that EVs are performance cars and it’s a silent thrill, except the synthetic speakers which mimic the exhaust and some cars do it outrightly well. One trend which is fast emerging in supercars is that many enthusiasts want to get the last pieces of naturally-aspirated V8s and V10s. They are cutting blank cheques without even test driving it and with a waiting period of 6-12 months. The Lamborghini Huracan Tecnica is one such car and I recently drove it in Abu Dhabi and just loved every aspect of this V10. Porsche 911 Carrera 4 GTS is another one and Porsche hasn’t sold a single one of it in India and there might be an immediate market of 200+ such cars even if it gets upwards of Rs 3.5 Crore price tag.

In reality these cars are like art and they won’t degrade in value and some will actually appreciate. Imagine if you have parked your crores in a supercar, flashing it, driving it and living the excitement and in a few years you actually get the same price or more! And all these years you have enjoyed depreciation in your company’s books. It’s a business case study. Oh, did you know the only Mercedes-AMG One that was bought in India with all trumpets and eventually, the first owner sold it and made an eight digit figure as profit! That’s the game. Welcome to the world of arts, crafts and cars