The Collector
To this day I still sort of bristle when people say ‘You’re a car collector.’ I really don’t think of myself as a car collector. I prefer to think of myself as someone who has just never sold anything, which is, of course, what a car collector does. So, OK, I’m a car collector.
People who do not read this magazine seem baffled by the idea of having more than one vehicle. ‘You can’t possibly drive them all!’ they say. ‘Well, of course I can!’ I reply. Last Sunday was the perfect day for me.
The night before, I’d had a nightclub show to do so I drove something fun and reliable: my 2012 Cadillac CTS-V, a two-door coupe with six-speed manual transmission and a 6.2-litre 556bhp supercharged V8. The last time Cadillac offered a manual gearbox was 1949, and it won the Pirelli World Challenge GT manufacturers’ championship in 2012 and 2013 – the car’s basically a four-seater Corvette and a lot of fun to drive.
The next morning, I got up early, drove to my garage and pulled out my McLaren P1. I’ve owned this car for almost a decade now and it still never fails to impress. McLaren built only 375 examples because it wasn’t sure how many it could sell. McLaren needn’t have worried. A man named Paul Bailey bought a P1, a Ferrari LaFerrari and a Porsche 918, and took them all to Silverstone to race, using the same professional driver in each car. The P1 won and the 918 came second.
I love that it’s rear-wheel drive. People tried to caution me at the time on the unproven nature of the hybrid drive system, but it has proven itself to be very reliable. I keep hearing about owners of these hypercars constantly having to replace their expensive lithium-ion batteries, but it always seems to be from either lack of use or failure to keep it on charge when not in use. The worst thing with vehicles of this type is not to use them.
Whenever I drive my P1, the first thing I do is go through every function, from raising and lowering it in track mode to switching between full electric and hybrid drive. If you don’t use it, you lose it: mechanical things break but electrical things degrade. My P1 is still on its original battery, with no sign of degradation.
I took it for a spirited drive on the Los Angeles Crest Highway, which r
