The Salon Privé is a celebration of the most exclusive cars money can buy. Mark Nichol gets a taste of the finer things in life
WELCOME TO the credit lunch. On the menu today: lobster, obviously. We’re at London’s Hurlingham Club, and when this place has a barbecue, there’s no subprime steak on the menu.
But then, the Hurlingham Club doesn’t cater to just anyone. As the London cabbie who drove us through the security gates and into this haven of natural splendour explained: “Kids are on the waiting list for this place before they’re born. You have to know people. Someone has to die before you can get in here.” Probably an exaggeration, but you can see why it’s popular.
Set amid this crowded west London locale, the club’s security gates are like Alice’s rabbit hole into Wonderland, taking you instantly out of London 2009 and into a fantastical vision of London circa 1920. The Hurlingham Club’s vast green expanse of tennis courts, bowling greens, parks and clubhouses is filled to bursting with a collection of the prettiest and most expensive supercars ever made.
The Salon Privé is in its fourth year and it’s getting bigger all the time. A substitute for the London Motor Show this is not; the Salon Privé is essentially a three-day sales pitch to the other half of society.
As car shows go, this is about as far removed from the general public as it’s possible to be, despite ostensibly being open to all – if you’ve got the few hundred pounds needed for a ticket.
It’s not a motor show in the traditional sense. For a start, there are no big new model unveils. In fact, only one car – the very odd Veritas RS III – is making a world debut. The rest of the exhibition is a sort of show-and-tell for the most expensive cars on the planet, punctuated by the same thing for a host of luxury merchandise vendors: watches and yachts and the like.
The most striking thing is the breadth and contrast from one car to the next. Take the Eagle E-Type Speedster, which stands in a quiet corner of the concourse, looking lonely, while its creators wait to present it to the wealthy doctor who conceived it in his mind before going to Eagle and asking them to build it.
Jeremy Clarkson said the Eagle E-Type was his “car of the century”. It is the first open-top speedster the firm has done. This one took over 4,000 hours of painstaking restoration from a battered American donor car, including a custom fabricated windscreen, though it still maintains the look of the original. As its creator put it: “You can’t mess around with these things too much.”
By contrast, a few footsteps away stands a mirror-chrome-finished Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren. It’s literally dazzling with the sun beating down on it – and in this company it’s also completely tacky. Beside the discreet beauty of the Speedster, the SLR looks crude.
That accusation can be levelled at much gracing the greens of the Salon Privé: the monstrosity that is the Maybach Zeppelin, for one.
But parked next to it is the 800bhp-plus Sportec SPR1. Based on a Porsche 911 Turbo, only 10 copies of the SPR1 will be made, each costing more than €700,000. Five have already been sold and then Sportec will move onto something else. Asked if interest has been serious, Sportec’s man on the ground answers with a resounding “yes”.“The people this event attracts are the type of people who are in the position to proceed with this type of transaction,” says Peter Knivett.
At the ‘cheaper’ end of the spectrum is the IFR Aspid – a snip at around €100,000. Built by engineering consultancy IFR Automotive – essentially to showcase the culmination of its considerable talents – the Aspid is a genuine racing car for the road. Capable of 0-62mph in a terrifying 2.8-seconds, the Aspid is more difficult to get into and out of than a Lotus Elise, but it also has some very non-Lotus equipment, including a full touchscreen display (it keeps weight down) and Bluetooth for hands-free calls.
Then there came the appearance of motoring’s most famous fan: the cat in the hat himself, Jay Kay. The singer had rocked up to the Salon in his Dodge Charger and was taking part in the parade of selected classic cars, including a BMW M1, a Shelby Mustang and a Lamborghini Miura – all given express permission to sporadically tear through Hurlingham’s grounds in convoy.
The Jamiroquai front-man stopped next to us and revved his engine in a display of thunderous American muscle machismo. It was genuinely impressive: an aural history lesson of the loudest kind. Bravo Jay.
Then he zoomed through the concourse. Past a 1973 Ferrari Dino, a 1957 Ferrari 250 California, a De Tomaso Pantera and a Plymouth Road Runner, with its comically oversized spoiler – all the while chased by amateur paparazzi looking for a photo opportunity after he’d parked up.
Pop stars aside, the whole show has the distinct vibe of something aimed at a proportion of society unfazed by the fiscal woes affecting the majority of the globe today. Still, it’s an entertaining spectacle at least.
Fortunately, even on the credit crunched side of the fence, where diesel family hatchbacks and the like rule supreme, the automotive landscape is changing. In the same way that the appetite for expensive classic cars and bespoke exotica like the Eagle Speedster or Sportec SPR1 is increasing, so too is the appetite for extremity in the mainstream. Fords latest hot hatch, the Focus RS for one, is arguably all the car anyone will ever need.
The 301bhp Focus RS that provided our transport to the Salon Privé (well, to London anyway – there was categorically no parking in the club itself), is an impressive dual-natured car, as capable of calmly transporting a family of four as it is demolishing a winding back road. Itwas far from disappointing as a chariot home, despite being the follow-up act to some of the world’s very best cars. And at a fraction of the price.
The grass might be more luscious on the other side, but it’s still green here in terms of choice and value for money. Not that such a phrase was uttered in the Hurlingham Club.