Ask Jack: A Fleet In Perfect Harmony?

They say Leo Fender never learned how to really play the instruments that bore his name. Ronnie Schreiber, itinerant TTAC contributor and respected scholar of Detroit’s historical culture, uses that excuse when he explains how he managed to invent and patent an electronic harmonica without ever achieving much more than an enthusiastic novice’s skill with the thing.

I was an early backer of the Harmonicaster idea and I attended the most recent NAMM show as a worker bee at Ronnie’s booth there. Luckily for me, I was off talking to James Trussart when an executive of a major music-store chain stopped by to work a deal with the man himself. You’ll be seeing Harmonicasters out on the street in the near future. Which brings us to this week’s episode of Ask Jack.

I don’t want to count my poultry before it’s produced, but thanks to my Harmonicaster deal I could be looking at a significant bump in my income in the near future.

I’m close to perfectly happy with my ’15 Honda Fit and intend to drive it into the ground, but if I do start making serious coin I’m going to want to have something a little more fun to drive.

A six figure income isn’t unrealistic (well, if I don’t screw up) and if someone is making six figures, spending roughly $60k on an automobile wouldn’t be regarded as extravagant. Being the non-conformist that I am, should I be fortunate to have the money, I’d spend that $60,000 on two cars, not just one.

You’ve described the Lotus Elise as a $30,000 car. That’s about how much you pay for one in decent shape and it’s about how much you’ll get for one if you go to sell it a couple of years later. Much as I’m a acolyte of ACBC, though, any Lotus would be a toy. The other $30k or so I’d spend on a CPO Cadillac ELR to daily drive when I want something more luxurious (and quieter) than the Fit. The Volt drivetrain has been endorsed as a great daily driver by car enthusiasts like Matt Farah and Jay Leno and I think the ELR looks as good or better than the CTS coupe.

One can dream, though, and if my gizmo succeeds beyond my wildest dreams, well then an upgrade would be in order. The McLaren 570S is a terrific bargain at ~$200k.

Of course this is all spitballing and fantasy, but at those two income levels, six figure and seven figure, what car or cars would you recommend?

I think there’s an Unwritten Rule Of Autowriter Advice and it goes something like this: If a reader is considering the purchase of a single vehicle at a given price, split that price in half and recommend two cars. The problem here is that Ronnie, as an autowriter himself, has already split his budget into two cars! What am I to do?

Let’s create a corollary to that unwritten rule: If a reader is thinking about getting two cars, then add them up and suggest something at the resulting price. Except in this case, I don’t think I can come up with a $60k car that performs both tasks as well as Ronnie’s proposed dynamic duo. Knowing the man as I do, however, I suspect that Ronnie wouldn’t drive an Elise much if he had one. He’s already let one Lotus kind of vanish into a barn (what? You didn’t know he owned a Lotus already?) and I think that purchasing another one would do him precisely zero good.

Instead, I’m going to suggest this used Tesla Model S P85 in a fetching shade of brown. It’s faster than the Elise or the ELR in a straight line and it’s a modern successor to the clean-sheet luxury superstars that poured out of Detroit after the First World War. It has plenty of room for the amps, guitars, and other stage hardware that Ronnie drags around to various Detroit venues on a regular basis. And it’s a fitting vehicle for a man whose mostly unadvertised scientific credentials are matched by his flair for showmanship.

So that’s the six-figure garage covered then. What about the seven-figure garage? I’m going to wag my finger at Ronnie’s proposed purchase of a McLaren 570S. It’s a half-measure car, purposely dumbed-down from its Super Series relatives and wickedly difficult to run at the true limit of the chassis and (narrow front) tires. No, what Moneybags Ronnie wants is the 720S. No reason to do anything by half measures. The 720S might cost another $80,000, but that represents a tremendous value and you’ll get your money back at resale time.

And as long as we’re spending money, let’s find Ronnie something that he will actually use most of the time. I’m thinking a Ford F-150 XLT SuperCab with the 2.7-liter EcoBoost and not much extra gingerbread. And I happen to know that the NorCal McLaren dealerships make very nice stainless-steel license-plate frames with the McLaren logo for just $250 or so. If Ronnie becomes a harmonica zillionaire, I’ll be happy to buy him the McLaren frame for his truck, just so he can have the joy of correcting people who give him a hard time about it.

I’d consider it money well spent.

[Image: Ford Motor Company]