For many of us, spending extra cash on a bigger set of wheels can cause a financial headache.
In the grand scheme of things – and the world of expensive optional extras – such things barely scratch the surface.
Here, we run through the craziest of options as devised by Leasing Options, and tell you what you could have bought instead…
Ferrari 458 coloured seat belts
Ah, Ferrari: the champions of the extravagant options list. Nevermind the thousands you can wave goodbye to lavishing your car with carbon, Ferrari would happily relieve you of £700 for the privilege of having coloured seat belts. According to LeasingOptions, for that you could have 231 pints of beer, eight weekly food shops or 83 months of Netflix. But what would we spend it on?
We’d have…
A Mazda MX-5. There are plenty of MX-5s around for a three-figure sum. Topless fun certainly sounds better than red seat belts…
Porsche 911 painted air vents
Porsche might have stolen Ferrari’s crown for extravagant extras. How does £1,400 for coloured air vents sound? Enough for a top-spec iPhone, bought, paid for and in your pocket.
We’d have…
Or a Renault hot hatch. You can pick up a decent example of Renault’s early-2000s pocket rocket for four figures. That, or some body-coloured plastics in your new Porsche?
Mercedes-Maybach champagne flutes
It’s getting gratuitous and we’re only on number 13 out of 15. When optioning your Mercedes-Maybach limousine, you can spend the equivalent of 260 bottles of wine on some fancy champagne flutes. In fairness, £2,600 for a set of crystal flutes isn’t completely outside the realms of believability.
We’d have…
An EP3-generation Honda Civic Type R. Why swill champers in the back of your Maybach when you could be smashing the limiter at 8,800rpm in one of the coolest hot hatches ever made?
Rolls-Royce gold-plated Spirit of Ecstasy
When it comes to Rolls-Royces, if you have to ask… But since you are asking, gold-plating the Spirit of Ecstasy will set you back £7,500. For that, you could have a jolly long holiday on the other side of the world, or 2,307 pints of beer.
We’d have…
We’d go without the gold and stick £7,500 into a Jaguar S-Type R, for some supercharged V8 waft and skids.
Tesla Ludicrous mode
Here’s an interesting one. Short of anything you can touch or see, this next entry is purely software. Ludicrous Mode in a Tesla Model S will set you back £8,200. For that, you get a 20 percent boost in performance, with 60mph achievable in just 2.4 seconds. Or you could fly first class to Los Angeles and get a nice hotel room.
We’d have…
That said, we’d probably forgo the transatlantic trip in favour of one of the greatest performance cars ever made. Eight grand will get you in an E46 M3 in need of a bit of love.
Rolls-Royce Phantom starlight headliner
This is probably one of the most famous optional extras ever made. Even though it’s £10,000, it’s pretty cool. You could order around 3,000 pints of beer for that.
We’d have…
For ten grand, honestly, there are some real gems out there. For that, we’d get another stately limo: a Maserati Quattroporte. Cool as the headliner is, we’d take the Maser…
Lexus LS reclining back seats
Though Lexus isn’t quite the prestigious marque that Rolls-Royce is, you can still pile five figures into a single option. £13,500 buys you reclining back seats in an LS limo.
We’d have…
For us, however, it’d buy a 5.0-litre supercharged smoke machine from the Midlands. We’ll take a Jaguar XF-R over fancy back seats any day.
Rolls-Royce drinks cabinet
Luxury car manufacturers love providing ways for you to have a drink. For 16,000 of your hard-earned pounds, you could option a drinks cabinet for your Rolls-Royce.
We’d have…
Or you could have an entire Bentley.
BMW i8 Louis Vuitton luggage set
For £16,500, you could have a high-end luggage set for your hybrid sports car. That’s well over ten percent of the cost of the car.
We’d have…
Money you could spend offsetting the carbon saved in the i8, by doing burnouts in a Vauxhall VXR8.
Aston Martin Jaeger-LeCoultre Transponder Watch
Unlock your Aston Martin with the world’s most expensive key. It’s also a very expensive watch. £25,000 lets you unlock your Aston with this blind piece of wristwear.
We’d have…
Or you could use the conventional ‘emotional control unit’ and have the choice between the Aston you’ve got and the Vantage you could buy with the £25,000 saving…
Rolls-Royce Phantom rear seat divider
To distance you from your driver, you can buy a divider to separate the front of your Rolls-Royce from the back. It’ll cost you £28,500.
We’d have…
Keeping it in the BMW Group, how does an entire BMW M6 sound? Exclude your driver, by driving yourself…
Mercedes-Maybach granite interior
We’re Bach in a Maybach, this time spending £49,500 on granite trim in a Mercedes-Maybach.
We’d have…
Or you could have an entire Mercedes-Maybach. Not a new one, obviously. Secondhand, for the price of a special trim in a new one, we can’t argue with that…
Porsche 918 Spyder liquid metal paint
We’re in the realms of hypercars now. On your £800,000 Porsche, you could option £52,000 liquid metal paint. Back on the beer analogy, that’ll get you 16,000 pints.
We’d have…
Or it’d buy you some other silver paint, with an entire Porsche 997 Turbo thrown in for free.
Bentley Bentayga Breitling clock
This one made headlines when the car was revealed. The Bentley Bentayga could be optioned with a £132,000 Breitling clock. LeasingOptions says you can pay a team of three people £35,000 a year, with change, just to tell you the time.
We’d have…
For the sake of the joke, we’ll say we’d spend it on an entire other Bentayga. Because you could.
Bugatti Veyron carbon finish
Finally, the winner. Of course it’s a Bugatti. If you wanted your Veyron hypercar to be finished in exposed carbon fibre, that’d set you back £250,000.
We’d have…
We’d keep the Veyron in a normal colour, and buy a McLaren 600LT Spider to park alongside it. Done, and done.