As some of you know, I’ve been on semi-sabbatical down south. No, not Louisiana south; South America, south. Well, it’s hard to contribute to Short Shift from down here but I have managed to acquire some seriously interesting finds! Below in the gallery are some pictures I took of the various supercars/dealerships here in São Paulo. Let me tell you a little about what I’ve seen.
It’s amazing the amount of money some people have. The thing about Brazil is, it isn’t really cheaper here. Not like you’d think. Brazil is plagued by over-taxing and excessive costs. This takes and skyrockets the cost of goods we take for granted. So, let’s say you have a $200,000 Aston Martin Vantage V12 in the U.S. Pretty spendy huh? Well, that same car is going to cost you somewhere around $900,000 in Brazil. Yeah, that’s dollars. All of the Lamborghinis I saw were well over $1,000,000. You don’t even want to know what that damn Rolls Royce was priced at.
Still, the income disparity is HUGE down here in Brazil and like I said before, it’s amazing the amount of money some people have. While I was perusing these dealerships, there were plenty of rich folks shopping in the stores for their teenage kids. No typo there. Seeing how you can’t legally drive before 18, I’ll give them the benefit of being upcoming University students. But still, I bought my first car from money I saved working in catering at the Ramkota. It was a 1986 Honda Prelude Si that cost me a whopping $400, not a $1.5 million Ferrari F40.
Things are very old-school here though. I was NOT a welcome sight in most of the dealerships I went to. For instance, the Ferrari/Maserati dealerships really did not like me. Even worse was one car dealership. When my friend and I walked in, we introduced ourselves as usual and I explained that I was taking photos and exploring the car market in Sao Paulo.
No photos. From then on, a lady followed my friend and I uncomfortably close (about 5 feet away) while pretending that she was talking on the phone. Seriously? Were we going to sneak into a car and drive it through the glass walls? Anyway, some of them were very nice. For instance, the Lambo dealership prohibits pictures but the salesman said I could take two if I was discrete (hence the Gallardos).
Anyway, I’ll do my best to bring some more interesting and rare treats as I find them. From the a warm, sunny country, I wish you a wonderful cold weather!
*Cars to note: The brand new Aston Martin Vanquish (black) and the ultra rare Lamborghini Gallardo LP 570-4 Squadra Corse (grey).
Disclaimer Taking photos was most often against the rules. I did what I could to sneak most of these photos so don’t judge too much on the quality!
*Photos from when we were Sioux Falls Auto Reviews.