I showed you dozens and dozens of driveways in my neighborhood a few months ago, a sea of boring Corollas, Subarus, Volvos, Hondas, and a few old pickups and such. But there’s one I missed, rather obviously, as it’s very out of character in the neighborhood it’s in. A McLaren? Two Benzes and a Cayenne? Somebody’s cannabis business is doing well?
The ’08 Prius is in the garage. Wouldn’t want it to get dinged.
I’ve never driven one, probably never will drive one, and am admittedly not the biggest supercar fan, so I never will figure out the gushing visual attention McLaren gets. It looks remarkably like a souped up 4th gen Eclipse, which is nobody’s favorite Eclipse.
I’m not a huge fan either. However I do need to get on the ball so I can tell these from a C8.
When I was a kid, my parents’ neighborhood had every generation and body style of E-type Jaguar. It had C1, C2, and C3 Corvettes. It had so many Sciroccos forty years ago that I assumed they were at least as popular as Beetles had been before them. One of my neighbors built a convincing Alfa Romeo Carabo replica with Porsche 911 mechanicals. Two-stroke Saabs held up traffic and stank up the air. By the late ’80s, most of the really interesting stuff was gone. The prosperity of the ’80s did bring a wave of BMWs, Mercedes, Audis and four-cylinder Porsches, but there were countless almost-invisible cars too. Today, there are more Avalons than German cars. Most of the cars on the street would be perfect for going on a crime spree, because no witnesses would remember what you were driving. There was one house on their street with a new Lamborghini though. The house it was parked in front of soon sprouted a huge car-barn in the backyard. Then the property changed hands to preppers who surrounded it with chicken-wire and barbed wire. Strange days. I think it is empty now, while resembling some sort of detention facility.
Charlottesville, VA? I ask because I live there now (actually not in the town itself but the surrounding county).
Yes, Albemarle County. The man who built the Carabo was named George Lake.
Okay, Albemarle is where we live, north of town. I guess the Carabo is long gone. Import cars rule here, plus the Detroit 3 large pickups, and all manner of Teslas. No more 2-stroke Saabs are extant, but Mercedes W123s and Volvo 240s are still roaming the roads.
You should consider writing an auto-biography, like Paul, or at least a COAL series, given the number of cars you’ve owned or repaired and the places you’ve lived.
Once again I suspect that it’s probably more fun to drive an MGA than this, but I guess it’s not all about fun.
I don’t know that there’s too many cannabis McLarens around here, after the initial rush to open stores here demand doesn’t seem to have kept pace. Operators are consolidating and complaining that the (much less expensive) black market is still thriving.
There’s one of these I see sometimes parked at a business down the street, the owner owns it and also has a bright green GT3 and a Focus RS.
Funny, I also know someone with a bright green GT3. a Focus RS, and a McLaren. Well, those and a few more Porsches as well. He lives near… a battleship. He brought the McLaren to an autocross where we all got a good look at it. It is beautifully made and makes fabulous noises. He tells me it is very quick on the track and he wanted to explore the limits in a safer environment before doing more track events. Not a bad idea. Of course, he also wanted to show it off. However, my old station wagon was quicker around the cones. We have not seen McLaren since that event.
I know someone with a McLaren. He loves polishing it, regularly does track days, but apart from that it doesn’t get driven much. Not a car that would be good as a daily, and you really wouldn’t want to either.
He is a decently well-off guy and has made a conscious decision about how he wants to spend his money, and I fully respect that. He could let that money sit in the bank until he dies, or he can enjoy it in the form of an exotic car. Good for him.
My neighborhood is also home to an exotic that sticks out like a sore thumb. In our case it’s a Lamborghini Urus.
As for the house, I find the space between the outside wall and the garage a bit odd. Is that common in Oregon? Or was that the result of a compromise when it was renovated or something? Looks like the siding has two different colors. Perhaps the owners just didn’t like the aesthetic of the overhang from the second floor, and decided to eliminate it?
This house doesn’t fit in either. It’s in a neighborhood of very modest little bungalows/ranchers built shortly after the war. This is a major addition that was added about 8 or ten years ago. It looms over the other houses. But I never saw expensive cars there before. It may well be a rental now.
I live in your neighborhood and I don’t recognize this house and haven’t spotted the McLaren. I have been hearing, in late hours, racecar sounds through my bedroom windows. From these perhaps? Have you been hearing same?
Actually, it’s the next neighborhood (or two) over; like W. 22nd and Garfield. I haven’t been hearing that, although maybe occasionally late at night in the distance.
The house struck me as odd as well. Sort of a porch in front of the garage.
I have a friend that has two Ferraris. He also has a successful international plumbing fixture supply business. No Pot, CBD, just pipes and fittings.
I grew up in the Yarra Valley, a wine region about an hour outside of Melbourne, Australia. My parents still live there, so we will quite often head out to a winery when I go to visit.
Late last year, after driving up the rather goat track-like driveway to get to Sutherland Estate, I found this bloke at the top. He’d driven down from Sydney for the weekend (850 km each way)—he didn’t mind the long trip or even driving it on the rough dirt roads (a Yarra Valley specialty) as he’d bought the car “to be used” (his words). Good attitude!
Another interstate visitor, my dad sent me this photo from Zonzo Estate earlier in the year. With South Australian number plates, they would really only be from Adelaide—around 800 km away.
Never mind the McLaren, look at that HQ!
If he was a real baller he’d have an F1. All these other McLarens look like kit cars.
Nothing to see here. It’s just the weirdly normal Oxymoron family living it up in their painfully beautiful home.
It’s good to know that at least some one is living the American Dream!
There looks to be a fairly steep ramp between the parking area and the roadway – not steep in a regular car, but challenging for a supercar.
maybe rich foreign college students