A dream garage

Your ideal garage, the one you have always dreamed of, filled with cars that once hung on your bedroom wall as posters, your place of worship, where beauty and engineering come together across different generations of models, vehicles that are 50 years old and others that are brand new. The garage you have always wanted, full of four-wheeled passion, your passion, your life, simply you.

Five cars, what more could you want? Enough to own a little piece of history in your home, where you can admire it, get behind the wheel and discover the true pleasure of driving. Something out of reach for most people, who can only appreciate these jewels in museums or through images on a computer screen.

Dreams that are part of you, of your imagination. Cars that, as they pass in front of you, make you think of what you would be capable of doing to have them in your possession, in your beloved garage. You ponder everything that jewel has done throughout its history, you review its technical specifications again and again, while recalling the videos or films in which it has appeared.

Every person, every lover of motoring, engines and everything that involves speed will have their own choices. Some will say that five cars for a dream garage is too few, others will say it is too many; for me, it is the perfect number. In truth, if we could have enough money in the bank to cover both the purchase and the maintenance costs, many of us would end up with cars we don’t need and would hardly use. Nor am I referring to owning a collection of more than five thousand vehicles like the Sultan of Brunei; that is already greed.

Five is the ideal number, neither few nor many. Enough to house in a corner of the home, whether the living room, the garage or a purpose-built room, from classics to 21st-century supercars.

A Rolls Royce as the family car, a MINI John Cooper Works for the weekly shopping, a Ferrari 458 Spider for driving, showing off and turning heads wherever you go, a Porsche 911 GT3 for the track, and a Range Rover for going to the countryside in the most elegant way possible. Do you think I’ve lost my mind? No. This could be the choice of someone who simply “likes cars”, practical and quite useful purchases, but we must remember that we don’t just like automobiles, we adore them, we love them.

Now let’s get to the real list, my dream collection. Deep down we all know it would be impossible to settle on just five units. Of all the vehicles built over more than a century, which one would you keep? I couldn’t decide, but we have to try.

We love track days. Occasions that come along, with luck, once every two or three months, when you can take your track supercar out and enjoy it. A GT3 and not a GT3 RS? The answer is simple. I’ll make sure it behaves like an RS. Remember, we love cars, and I’m sure many of you would love the chance to prepare a Porsche GT3 for the track, by you and for you.

Elegance in the purest English style. James Bond’s supercar. A completely passionate car with no practical use day to day, but one to enjoy from inside and out, from the moment you turn the key until you switch off its engine. A vehicle for which there are no words to describe it; we can only say that it is a Aston Martin, the Aston par excellence.

Perhaps we have a family, or from time to time we have to take a trip, and I don’t think the rest of the collection is the most suitable for that task. The RS6, the estate capable of carrying the luggage and the dog at over 300 km/h. Surely with its 560 CV, all-wheel drive and twin turbos it will entertain you like no other can. What’s more, it’s the one that consumes the least, a detail that is irrelevant given our fortune.

A 911 Turbo, the flagship of Porsche. The supercar that has adorned the bedroom walls of more young people, and not so young, than any other. A car to take you along every mountain road in the country while you listen to the turbos roar in the six-cylinder boxer engine. Which generation would I choose? I don’t know. Each has its charm, none has been the same as another, although the essence is always the same, passed down from generation to generation. A 930, a 964, a 993, or do we wait for the future 991? Doubts that, at this moment, have no answer.

No collection can ever lack an Italian car, and a Cavallino Rampante represents the country of the boot in the best possible way. Why a Ferrari 360 Modena? Because of its concept. For me, it is the last supercar of the marque. Now everything is pure electronics. The 360 was the end of Ferrari with a mid-mounted V8 engine to feature a manual gearbox. Shifting above 8,000 rpm while the exhaust pipes crackle must be pure glory.