Words by Marcus Boothby
If you cast your mind back a few years, you will remember that Top Gear did a cheap supercar challenge which consisted of a Maserati, Ferrari and a Lamborghini. These cars were bought for apparently less than £10,000 in 2005 money. Problems and many breakdowns occurred as you would expect.
Fast-forward to 2020, Top Gear is still alive but not quite the same as it was all those years ago. However, there is a new series on YouTube called Car Trek and it’s almost the exact same as the old school Top Gear challenges but with younger and arguably cooler hosts in the form of Tyler Hoover, Ed Bolian, and Freddy “Tavarish” Hernandez.
The point of the first episode of Car Trek is for the trio to buy a useable supercar for less money than the latest Corvette, which offers serious levels of performance at a starting price of just under $60k for the 2020 model year.
All the cars were bought with their own, hard earned money and fixed with the same money. The cars are fairly interesting as they are a Lamborghini Gallardo Spyder, a Ferrari 360 Spider and an Aston Martin V12 Vantage S. All three were purchased at prices between $50k-70k but with repairs and other bits, the prices quickly rose to $60k-80k. This is to be expected from cheap supercars.
Technically, all three were individually cheaper than a brand new Corvette. I say technically as there was no detail on the actual value of said Corvette. The latest and greatest Corvette starts at just $59,995 for a 2020 model but the average Corvette C8 realistically costs in the region of $75,000, which was Tavarish’s argument for his beautiful V12 Vantage S which was the most expensive of the three.
Contrary to his reputation, Tyler actually made the most sensible purchase of the three. Yes, his 360 Spider has the infamous F1 gearbox but, the car seemed fine other than needing a new soft-top which was estimated to cost $8000…so the same price as a used Toyota Camry. Honestly though, the 360 is a good choice here and goes to show that they can last a lot longer than some people think.
However, Ed Bolian from VinWiki bought the cheapest Lamborghini Gallardo Spyder in the world. It was so cheap because it turned out to be flood damaged but seemed to work fine other than having a lying fuel gauge and stains on the passenger seat. Oh, and it’s a manual Gallardo Spyder too which is pretty rare in Europe let alone America.
Part 1 of Car Trek is a bit slow but gives the audience a good look at the cars the three have bought for the challenges ahead. The first challenge is just a standard inspection but also goes to show how expensive these cars are when it comes to maintenance. Cars aside, the three all work nicely together and reminds us of how Clarkson, Hammond and May used to be when they were doing the cheap car challenges on Top Gear.
Car Trek has had a good start, with Part 1 pulling in 600,000 views on Tavarish’s YouTube channel within the first 9 hours of it being published. It’s almost guaranteed to hit a million views within it’s first 24 hours and we think it deserves that and then more.
Motordiction Score: 8/10