Who buys $448,300 car? Guess

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<H1>Who buys $448,300 car? Guess</H1>[img]/images/common/spacer.gif[/img]
<SPAN class=deck>Porsche dealer
says only that buyer lives in Summit, isn't LeBron. You can rule out some other
rich folks</SPAN>
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If you're in the business of selling sports cars, you don't tend to smile
much in the winter.</P>


But one area Porsche dealer will have a marvelous March -- even if he doesn't
sell another car.</P>


On Monday, Kempthorn Motors of Canton will finalize the sale of a Carrera
GT.</P>


Now, there are Porsches, and there are PORSCHES. This one is the
latter. Sticker price: $448,300.</P>


Seriously. For a car.</P>


Sure, that figure includes the $2,900 destination fee and the $5,400
gas-guzzler tax (compliments of a 605-horsepower engine that delivers all of 12
miles per gallon). But the tax is extra.</P>


Let's put it this way: the sales tax alone -- $30,260 -- is more than the
price of most cars.</P>


The buyer? Somebody in Summit County. The seller won't name names.</P>


Can't blame him. You don't want to blow a chance for repeat business with a
guy who buys $448,300 products.</P>


So we are left to speculate. And in some circles that has turned into quite
the parlor game.</P>


The most obvious guess is the young multimillionaire who lives in Bath
Township and works in downtown Cleveland. But could a 6-foot-8 guy fold himself
into a two-seat sports car?</P>


Well, maybe the person who rode into national prominence in the biggest ride
around (the infamous Hummer) decided to sacrifice a bit of comfort to fulfill a
need for speed.</P>


Wrong, says Kempthorn's sales manager, Charlie Schumann. ``It's not
LeBron.''</P>


But that's all the help he'll give. Which means we've managed to narrow the
field of Summit Countians from 542,899 to 542,898.</P>


<SPAN class=subhead>Possible buyers</SPAN></P>


What about the new minority owner of LeBron's team? Maybe Usher is
temporarily using a guest bedroom in LeBron's manse. Seeing as how Usher's last
album sold 11 million copies, he wouldn't have had much trouble coming up with
the $50,000 deposit required to order a Carrera GT.</P>


Nah, not him. He'll be in town only during basketball season. You don't drive
this kind of car in the snow.</P>


What about Goodyear CEO Robert Keegan, who recently pocketed a $2.6 million
bonus for propping up the stock price?</P>


No way. This silver bullet comes with Michelin tires. Goodyear's marketing
department would crucify him.</P>


Televangelist Ernest Angley certainly could afford it. After all, he's got a
Boeing 747 parked at Akron-Canton Airport, ready to whisk him across the globe
at a moment's notice. But it's doubtful Ernie's coiffure could survive a
T-top.</P>


Although Lou Rawls lives in Green, his peak earning years are probably behind
him.</P>


High-profile industrialist David Brennan? ``He's more like a
Cadillac-with-big-fins kinda guy,'' quips one newsroom wag.</P>


(And the person who said, ``Cindy George's present to her new boyfriend'' is
hereby ordered to wash her mouth out with soap.)</P>


If we're looking for nouveau wealth, our heads would tend to swivel in the
direction of the Bath estate where youthful Internet entrepreneur Ryan D.
Johnson purposely trashed a Mercedes SL500 and a Volkswagen Touareg last year in
a vain attempt to impress his ex-girlfriend.</P>


But it can't be him. Would that guy ask a car dealer to keep his wealth
private?</P>


Maybe we should look farther north, to Richfield, where the National
Interstate Insurance Co. went public at the end of January. After the first day
of trading, founder Alan Spachman's 3 million shares were worth $47 million.</P>


But it's probably not him, because he's in the insurance business. He'd know
better than to try to buy a policy on this thing.</P>


Akron insurance agent Angela Curlich, a former board member of the
Professional Insurance Agents of Ohio, says even Progressive Insurance, ``the
most liberal company on the market'' in terms of taking risk, won't insure a car
for more than $150,000.</P>


So you'd need to patronize three companies: one to insure the front end,
another to insure the middle and another for the rear.</P>


Just kidding. What you'd do is head to a speciality company such as Haggerty
Insurance, based in Michigan.</P>


Haggerty's Bob DeKorne says the annual premium for a typical driver would be
$10,000. If you had a small fleet of exotic cars -- which most people in this
price range do -- the premium would drop to about $8,000.</P>


That no doubt pales next to the policy on the truck that delivered the GT to
the dealership -- a truck that carried two other GTs bound for distant
locations.</P>


<SPAN class=subhead>Handled with care</SPAN></P>


Speaking of which, you don't just let a long-haul driver fire this thing up
and back it down a ramp. The people who delivered it wore white jumpsuits and
white gloves. And before they stepped inside the car, they put on hospital
booties. If somebody is going to inflict the first scratch, it had better be the
owner.</P>


That person won't have to worry about finding a ride to the dealership
Monday.</P>


Eighteen months after the order was placed, three Kempthorn employees will
haul the half-million-dollar baby to the buyer's residence in an enclosed
trailer. Then they will offer lessons on the fine points of its operation --
such as how to properly store the two detachable roof pieces in the
teensy-weensy front trunk.</P>


<SPAN class=subhead>What it's made of</SPAN></P>


Whoever the sporty driver is, he will be crawling into the earthly equivalent
of a rocket. Porsche has taken all of its 50 years of racing and engineering
knowledge and deposited it into one car, price point be damned.</P>


The whole body is lightweight carbon fiber. The rods are titanium, the wheels
magnesium. The seats include Kevlar. Drop 10 cylinders into that package, and
you can go from zero to 60 in 3.8 seconds. Top speed: 205.</P>


But stats are the least of it, according to sales manager Schumann. ``Don't
buy a car by the specifications,'' he says. ``If you're gonna buy a car by how
fast it goes, the zero-to-60, go buy a motorcycle.''</P>


The only appropriate reason to lust after this kind of machine, he insists,
is ``the handling of the car, the feeling of the car, how the thing glues itself
down to the road. It's the whole feeling of oneness with the road.''</P>


Many of us would love to feel at one with the asphalt. But even if we had the
means, the separation anxiety might be too intense.</P>


In other words, can you imagine turning this thing over to some guy at the
E-Check station?</P>


Bob Dyer's column appears every Friday. He can be reached at 330-996-3580 or
bdyer@thebeaconjournal.com</P></SPAN></table>