Over $100 Million USD worth of cars, but the experience? Priceless.
One year ago, August 2018, I remember working the late shifts when Sparky had made a trip out to Toronto and was rolling around the downtown area. As a result, I never got the chance to see his Koenigsegg or Pagani in person. It was never a thought in my head that fast forward one year that I would be invited out to his "castle".
From the bottom of the driveway, all the way up to Sparky's "castle" is about a minute drive. Now although a minute is not very long, when is the last time you have drove for one whole minute from the beginning to end of someone's driveway? That being said, it was pretty steep, and after walking up it for a couple minutes we were actually able to hitch a ride in a Bentley Bentayga up to the castle entrance.
A shuttle service in the Bentley Bentayga? Not a bad start to what was to be an epic weekend in Connecticut.
After arriving to the castle, we met with Sparky, "The King", and some other friends of the hosts. I couldn't help but notice the entire property was extremely well kept and decorated beautifully with various colourful plants. This made for a great background for the cars that were yet to arrive.
When we arrived on the Friday, it was more of an introduction of what's to come, and it did seem to be a bit more private as there wasn't many of us. Pretty much everyone there were taking their photos, and there could have been people around me that I follow on Instagram, but I would have only recognized them by their Instagram name, not their face.
The first teaser we experienced was with the entrance of the De Tomaso P72. Everyone seemed to just pause and take in the sound of the V12 engine as it took the minute long trip up the driveway to the main area.
I had never seen this car before online or in person, so this experience was quite unique to me. I have to say I was really impressed by its overall design and how cool it looked. The interior was plated with copper, the doors flew up just like the SLR, and the engine had a rumble like that of a Lamborghini Aventador.
The interior of the P72 was a lot like the interior of a Pagani. The gauge clusters were large and present, the shift column was exposed, and of course the leather was beautifully stitched. The exterior had no shortage of it's angles and unique features too.. my favourite being the pattern found in it's grilles.
Something that kept getting repeated was along the lines of "this is only a taste of what tomorrow will be like".
What? I had just seen more hyper-cars in one small area than most people will see in their entire lifetime! You're saying this is only a teaser?
It's so bad ass to see someone drive with both doors up. Reminded me a lot like when Damon from DDE was rolling into the Ace of Spades Rally here in Toronto in his Murcielago.
Apparently it gets hot enough inside the P72 and Murcielago that this is one of the few ways to cool it down!
After starting to feel completely exhausted from our 10 hour drive down to Connecticut, we decided to head into the city to get some food and have a quick drink.
The town itself seems quite small, and a vibe that everyone knows each other. When some locals discovered that we were out-of-towners, they asked us what we were up to and that's when we mentioned staying at Sparky's house. Surprisingly, the locals actually did know about Sparky and had said they've seen some of the Pagani's roll around town now and then.
