Kief Cars

Aston Martin is not a very huge brand in my home country, South Africa. One can find other sports cars here though. I’m not a big fan of British auto manufacturers, but this car is far superior to previous models out of Britain. James Bond (Pierce Brosnan) drove the Aston Martin Vanquish in the movie, Die Another Day. This car was designed by Ian Callum and was manufactured by Aston Martin between 2001 and 2007. The Aston Martin V12 Vanquish is capable of doing 315 km/h. The car was based on a 1998 GT Concept car called the Project Vantage which was first introduced in 1998 at the North American Auto International Auto Show and had its debut with a V12 engine. A production model was introduced in the year 2000 by Aston Martin and production started on the Aston Martin V12 Vanquish in 2001. From it’s introduction it was considered as Aston Martin’s flagship vehicle. This car was the successor to the Aston Martin Virage / V8 Vantage. It’s highly unlikely that one would find a bunch of these vehicles advertised in the classifieds. The Aston Martin Vanquish definately is, in my opinion, a very high quality vehicle and one of the most stylish ones ever produced.

Related Link:
Aston Martin – Official Website.

The Audi R8 is a sports car with a longitudinally mounted mid-engine and uses the trademark “Quattro” four wheel drive. The Audi R8 is based on the Audi Le Mans Quattro Concept car which was presented at the International Geneva Auto Show in Switzerland and the International Frankfurt Motor Show in Germany in 2003. The car is also derived from the Lamborghini Gallardo. The Audi R8 was officially released in September 2006 at the Paris Auto Show. By the end of 2008 almost 10,000 units had been built. The Audi R8 was exquisitively designed, developed and manufactured by Quattro GMBH, a private sibsiduary of Audi. Audi upgraded its plant in Neckarsulm, Germany for €28 million where 70 workers fit 5,000 unique parts by hand. The plant is capable of producing 9-15 cars per day. 95 lasers inspect the entire car in 5 seconds to ensure that over 220 measurements are within 0.1 mm of the programmed plans. If you ever watched the movie Iron Man and wondered which car Tony Stark (Robert Downey Junior) drives in the movie, this is the car.

This car is priced between R1.4 million and R2 million ($175,000 – $250,000) in my country, South Africa. This is completely out of my price range. I suppose I’ll look around in the classifieds for a cheaper 2nd hand car. For now I’ll continue dreaming about owning a car like this one day, or maybe I should just buy a car bed instead.

This car is best-known for being featured as Bumblebee in both Transformers movies. The 5th generation Chevrolet Camaro is dirived from the 2006 Chevrolet Camaro Concept and 2007 Camaro Convertible Concept. Production was approved in August 2006 but has only started in March of 2009 and the car is marked as a 2010 model. When the car was used in the first Transformers movie in 2007 it was still in concept phase. A modified fifth-generation Chevrolet Camaro was used in the sequel, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen in 2009. As far as I know this car will not be released in South Africa by Chevrolet. It would probably cost a ton to import a car like this to my home country. I will probably find it easier to buy a 2nd hand Chevrolet Camaro in the classifieds, otherwise I’d simply have to go on living without ever owning one.

Related Link:
Chevrolet – Official Website

A modified version of the DeLorean DMC-12 sports car was the car used to travel back and forward in time in the 3 Back to Future movies in 1980s. This original car was manufactured in Northern Ireland by the DeLorean Motor Company in 1981-1982. The first prototype of the DeLorean DMC-12 appeared in 1976, but production of this car only started in 1981. The DeLorean DMC-12 is commonly referred to as the DeLorean since it was the only model ever produced by the company. About 9,000 vehicles were built before the company stopped production in late 1982. About 6,500 DeLorean DMC-12 vehicles are believed to be in existence today. The DeLorean Motor Company went bankrupt in late 1982 shortly after the company founder, John DeLorean, was arrested on drug trafficking charges. The company stock was bought up by the DeLorean Motor Company of Texas in 1997 and production of an updated vehicle has begun. The company announced in 2007 that the DeLorean DMC-12 would be going back into limited production (20 cars a year). These cars are to be built with 80% old parts and an updated Stage 2 engine. Optional extras like GPS will also be available.

Since this car is now back in limited production I strongly think that one would not find DeLorean DMC-12 advertisments in the local classifieds paper. You could probably pick this up from a collector, but the price tag would be nasty. Sometimes it’s cool to be in retro mode, but it’s not cool spending a fortune on something retro if you could get something new for the same amount of money. I would suggest buying a die-cast model of the DeLorean DMC-12 to satisfy your retro craving instead, that would be less pricey.

Related Link:
DeLorean Motor Company – Official Website

This was the Ferrari model driven by Will Smith in Bad Boys 2. The Ferrari 575 M Maranello was produced by the Italian car maker between 2002 – 2006. This model was an update for the Ferrari 550 Maranello. This sports car boasts a 5.7 litre V12 engine and is capable of reaching 327 km/h (203 mph). The car can reach 0 – 100 km/h (62 mph) in 4.2 seconds. In my opinion, this is probably not a car for the faint-hearted.

This definately is one of my favorite Ferrari’s. This is thanks to the car chase scene in Bad Boys 2. I can imagine that there’s probably nothing on earth like putting pedal to the metal in the driver’s seat of a Ferrari 575 M Maranello.

Related Links:
Ferrari – Official Website