Over at Yahoo! Autos, Editor at Large Alex Lloyd highlights a burning question, something everyone has wondered at one point or another: “Question: I was thinking of giving my son my used Lamborghini as a first car. Is it a good idea?”
Lloyd makes some solid points in the “No, of course not, are you insane?!” column. Specifically, a super-powered Italian luxury auto is likely to spend most of its time in the shop and attract an insane amount of tickets — not to mention that the teen in question is far, far more likely to end up in jail or die in a fiery car crash. Fortunately, the loving father says he saw the light and decided to get his son a more reasonable first car, a Porsche Cayman.
Meanwhile, in Europe, another rich teen offers a cautionary tale for any other parents considering buying their child a luxury sports car. A 19-year-old in Augsbourg, Switzerland was backed into a corner when his father refused to help him upgrade his Ferrari to a newer model. So when he failed to raise the funds himself, he did the only sensible thing and hired three arsonists to set his car on fire.
But instead of collecting the insurance money and upgrading to a newer Ferrari as he had hoped, he was fined 30,000 euros and sentenced to 22 months probation. Fortunately, the spoiled Swiss teen still has 15 more cars to occupy himself with during his probation.
Stateside, U.S. drivers bought more than one million luxury cars (vehicles with a price tag over $50,000) in 2014, which make up about 15% of the U.S. auto market. And this summer, Bloomberg reports that American millennials are in fact inheriting their parents’ taste in expensive luxury automobiles, even if they have to take on even more debt to lease them. The top 10 brands leased by millennials include Lexus, Jaguar, and Cadillac.