Perils of driving a $500k car in Sydney

Developed with the input of Michael Schumacher, this weepingly beautiful drop-top retails at $459,650, though with on-road costs and an options list that's bound in a book 1cm thick, the price of getting one out of the showroom easily surpasses the half-million mark.

 

The California, says Edward Rowe, spokesman for the importer Ateco, "is a top-end grand tourer that you can also take shopping". Would you, though? We toyed with the idea of negotiating a Westfield carpark, but the very idea of exposing this chunk of auto erotica to rogue trolleys and blindly reversing 4WDs was simply too horrifying.

This is the model in which a Fairfax journalist was busted doing 231km/h, resulting in a loss of licence and job. It's capable of 310km/h - 200 more than the legal limit.

 

Though driving this car in Sydney's choked and crumbling streets is like reigning a wild horse (or 460 horsepower), it would, Mr Rowe said, fit a McDonald's drive through. And so it can - just so long as you're cold sweatingly wary for the 20-inch alloy wheels, the four of which can cost almost as much as some new cars.

Those humble devices won't draw an audience while you order a Sausage McMuffin, but then you can't so much as reverse park the "Fazza" without uninvited scrutiny.

Speed bumps give you pause, as do most driveways - you'll have yours purpose-built to avoid agonisingly costly scrapes.

Leave the Ferrari on the street, and it'll be festooned with gawkers taking phone snaps. You might want to delete a few options and buy a lesser vehicle - ie: almost anything else - for doing the daily grind.

All due caution won't prevent your joy toy being grazed by resentful glances. Wealth this conspicuous needles Sydney's inherently hostile drivers.

Let you merge? No way. Cut you off? A pleasure. In Italy, this aristocrat is greeted as it roars by. Here, it's saluted with middle fingers. You're widely assumed to be a "banker" - or so it sounds. It's part of the price you pay, but if you can afford a Ferrari and have a trophy girl in the passenger seat, you won't much care.