What is My Ideal Track Day Car?

Following up on a recent video I did about my ideal daily drive car, I decided to jump into the deep end of the fantasy pool, and choose which ultra rare, ultra performance car from Assetto Corsa I’d own if given an unrestricted choice.

Welcome to another episode of me living vicariously through video games.  Not exactly how I imagined my adult life would be, but whatever. So in this fantasy, I’m incredibly rich with access to a racetrack on weekends.  For a few hours I leave my  house cleaning staff to their own, and head to the track with my grown man toy in tow.  Let’s assume that I can only have one, that money is no object, and that you could actually buy one of these.

Obviously this is a subjective choice, so I should let you know my criteria for choosing.  First, I’m a fan of apologetically purpose designed vehicles.  Smooth lines be damned, give me something that you take one look at from the outside and say yeah, that thing is fast.  Second, the interior needs to be something that says high performance, but with at least some effort put into comfort and styling.   Also, I need something that can carry a passenger.  I just have a feeling that if I owned a car worth $2,000,000 that my friends would want to come for ride, so let’s eliminate race cars for now.  It doesn’t need to be road legal, but the interior of a race car is a little too spartan for this showcase.

And lastly, it needs to be fast.  Really fast.  I need something that justifies the outrageous cost when it’s on the track.  A few seconds gained around the Nordschelife won’t be a deciding factor, but I need a car that would decimate something that you could just walk on to a car lot and buy.  So here are my three finalists.

The Ferrari FXX K is the track focused factory tune of a LaFerrari.  It’s horsepower figure takes 4 digits to write out, and it even has active aero to keep it planted.  The exterior looks exactly like it should, like the fastest Ferrari ever available to a limited number of consumers.  The interior of the car is a similar story.  It’s refined like a Ferrari should be refined, but subtle details like the KERS status and the fact that Ferrari fixed the seat position to help lower the driver’s centre of gravity dispel any notion that you’re in a regular car.  Your passenger would be surprisingly comfortable in this car as well.  And finally, the speed.  Even against other extreme Ferrari’s such as LaFerrari and the 812 Superfast, the FXX K appears other worldly.  300 km/h seems like a banal feat, and in fact you pass the 300 mark without even using the final gear.

Next, the Pagani Zonda R.  To car and racing enthusiasts, the looks are the epitome of the extremes of performance car design. To the untrained eye, it looks more like an unfinished engineering project.  The interior, however, is not up for debate.  It seems that every knob, dial, level and gauge has been hand selected and perfectly crafted to create an interior unrivalled in any other brand.  It seems to have as much in common with a fighter jet as it does with a production car.  Your passenger might complain about banging their knees on the exposed roll cage, but thankfully you won’t be able to hear them whinging over the roaring AMG V12.   In terms of performance, 6:47 at Nordschleife, and 1:08 around the Top Gear test track.  End of conversation.

Our last car is the Lamborghini Sesto Elemento. It’s the most unapologetic of the lot. How unapologetic?  If you thought that not being able to adjust your seat position in the FXX K was a bit extreme, how about having no seats at all in the Lamborghini.  Your butt will need to be content with some strategically placed pads over carbon fibre.  And speaking of carbon fibre, this car has a lot.  A lot.  Inside and out.  So much so that the total dry weight of the car came in a hair under 1000kg.  The carbon fibre exterior with red accents makes this an absolutely striking car.  It looks like a weapon more than a sports car.  And the same with the interior.  Car buffs can appreciate the unrelenting dedication to weight savings, down to the shift levers.  It’s as sparse and purpose driven as Lamborghini could make it. And because of that, the acceleration of such a light car is staggering. And arguably no car looks as sharp at high speeds.  It looks like what Tony Stark would drive, in or out of his Iron Man suit.

So what’s my choice?  I choose the car that best represents an unapologetic exterior, with a purpose built but stylistic interior.  A rocket on the track, but with enough room for a friend.  It’s not an easy choice, but I choose the Pagani Zonda R.

The Zonda’s design looks like the engineers won the conversation for the exterior looks, and the stylists held their ground for the interior looks.   It’s incredible performance is legendary.  In 10 years of automotive development since the Zonda R was released, a few cars have surpassed its on track capabilities; but not many, and not by much.  Only 15 Zonda R’s were ever made, and if someone were to sell theirs it would likely be for around $3,000,000.

So it won’t be in this lifetime that I get to drive one, but thanks to sim racing, we can make a dream come true, even if it’s only virtually.  Please let me know in the comments what you would keep in your fantasy garage.