While there probably is one or two of you reading this who do actually own a Bugatti Veyron, the other 99.9999999999 percent of us don’t and never will. Lots of new car buyers, however, turn to leasing when they want to drive what they can’t afford to own. This month’s issue of Automobile mag reveals what costs are associated with leasing the most powerful and unofficially fastest production car in the world from Putnam Leasing.

First, if you want to lease a Veyron you’ll need to take the college fund you set up for your kids, empty out your 401-K and get an advance on your parents’ will to afford the car’s $400,000 down payment. Then you’ll have to figure out how to scrape together $23,595 for your first month’s payment. And then you’ll have to repeat that feat another 60 times, as the Veyron is only offered with a five-year lease. You are afforded 2,500 miles a year, which means if you’re planning on using the Bugatti as a daily driver you’ll be taking the bus a lot. There’s no word on what the penalty is for going over that limit, but expect to forego a 50-inch plasma TV for every mile over.

When all is said and done you will have shelled out $1,815,700 for the privilege of driving a Bugatti Veyron without the hassles of ownership, which happens to be over $400,000 more than the car’s $1.4 million Buy-it-Now price. D’oh!

Mercedes-Benz is slowing taking this year’s Paris Motor Show with debuts of two high end and high-performance, the CL 63 AMG and the Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren 722 Edition. The latest version of the CL-Class is making its public debut under the slogan “The Virtuoso Luxury Coupé”. Don’t really get the slogan but all I know this thing is all business, under the hood is a AMG 6.3-litre V8 engine that puts out 525hp and 630 lbs of torque. But we can’t forget AMG isn’t just about power, you can also find in the new CL 63 AMG the unmistakable AMG bodystyling, upgraded AMG sports suspension based on Active Body Control, and to stop it all the AMG high-performance braking system.

All this power adds up to the CL 63 AMG doing 0-100 km/h in just 4.6 seconds, with a top speed electronically limited to 250 km/h.

(more…)

Audi has announced they’re putting a race-derived 6.0-liter V12 TDI in the Q7 SUV for 2008. The street version of the V12 TDI will be the most powerful passenger car diesel in the world, with get this 500 horsepower and a staggering 720 lbs ft of torque on tap. And it doesn’t end there, according to the same report, the monster diesel will find its way into the next A8 sedan, due in 2010.

Unless you’ve been living in a cave, you know that the V12 TDI is the engine that led the audi R10 to American Le Mans Series dominance this year, and powered audi to overall victory at the 24 hours of LeMans.

With this new engine, the Audi Q7 will join the Porsche Cayenne in an exclusive category where you never want your neighborhood soccer mom driving. No news if this car will ever hit North American shores.

Being a Canadian I fortunately get to enjoy all four seasons, but having a winter, especially a Canadian winter can be killer on a car. Not only will you get some funny stares driving your Porsche 911 in the dead of winter but you will also be asking for a death wish. Rear-wheel drive and anything over 300hp don’t go too well with icy roads. Not to mention the salt will just eat away at the car’s body.

So a lot of us will have a summer and winter car, for the fortunate one’s they would have two nice cars but seeing how we’re not all professional hockey players it’s usually a nice car in the summer and a beater in the winter. A Toronto-based company called Dreamfleet is trying to solve this dilemma with offering what basically comes down to a timeshare for automobiles. Similar to what has been available for airplanes and private jets for sometime now.

Describing itself as an “automobile lifestyle club,” DreamFleet, on its
website, says it offers “four flexible, convenient programs to suit your
personal driving patterns.”. Depending on your membership level you can choose from a variety of luxury vehicles, from a BMW 325 to a Mercedes-Benz CLK500 convertible.

To learn more, visit Dreamfleet:
http://www.dreamfleet.com

Caparo is not a household brand but just wait until people start spotting their first supercar the Caparo T1 on the streets of London, Dubai, and Monte Carlo. Caparo is the brainchild of two ex-McLaren engineers so they have all qualifications necessary to build one badass supercar. And with the debut of the prototype Caparo T1 it seems like they are on the right track.

As its outrageous styling suggests, the T1 is all business with bodywork styled for functionality above aesthetics, though I think it looks fantastic. The company promises F1 performance in a street legal package, the prototypes are doing 0-60mph in 2.5 seconds which is just insane. Like the latest F1 cars, the T1 uses a 2.4-litre V8, though supercharged and with a lower rev limit for reliability.

Caparo is aiming for the T1 to be the world’s first production car to exceed 1000bhp-per-tonne, that’s twice the amount of a Buggati Veyron the current most powerful and expensive street legal car. So if you have an extra £165,000 or $310,000 sitting around you should seriously consider adding the Caparo T1 to your collection.

It should be available to customers by the end of this year.