Dream Car Lottery

Sometime in October 2018, when the Philippine Lotto 6/58 grand prize exceeded a billion pesos, I had a dream that my wife Shawie won it. She gave me P50M to spend on cars and I immediately went on a shopping spree. I always wanted a Porsche so I went to the PGA Cars showroom along EDSA in Greenhills, San Juan, and ordered a brand new 2018 911 Porsche Carrera S (991.2) finished in Guards Red with black leather interior (the 8th-generation 911/992 hasn’t been launched when I had my dream) and paid P15M for it.

I always wanted a Ferrari so I then went to the Autostrada Motore showroom in Bonifacio Global City (BGC) and ordered a brand new 2018 Ferrari 488 Spyder in Corse Rossa (Ferrari Racing Red) for P35M. I was about to take delivery of my two luscious red sports cars when I was rudely awakened by my alarm clock. Darn…

Once I was back to reality, I asked myself: What would I do if I really had P50M to spend on cars? Would I immediately spend all of it on a new Porsche and a new Ferrari? Or would I be practical and just restore the cars that I already have, and then with the rest of the money, buy my childhood dream cars instead?

Our son Chevy called dibs on my 1971 Chevrolet Camaro RS project car so I should allocate funds for its complete restoration. I also want to do a no-expense-spared, nuts-and-bolts restoration on my 1986 Mercedes-Benz 500SE project car.

And I want to buy back my fully-restored 1977 Mitsubishi Celeste 1600ST that I recently sold to fund the continuation of the restoration of my Camaro. I guess that around P3-4M will be needed to properly restore my two project cars and to buy back the other one.

Spending P3-4M will mean that I will go over these project cars’ current market values. However, the Camaro will be my inheritance to my son, the Benz is the car that I plan to grow old with, and the Celeste has been my high school dream car. Thus, no expense should be spared for their restoration and reacquisition. Besides, this is my dream, so there.

Since we nicknamed our daughter Vette, I guess that I must buy her a Corvette. Vette wants a 1970 C3 Corvette that costs around P4M. I would also like to have a 1952 Chevy Styline Deluxe 2-door sedan like what my dad used to drive. I found one online at Gateway Classic Cars, so I guess I would have to ship it from the US to here and pay all the requisite taxes and Customs duties, which would set me back around P2M.

When I was a teenager, I fell in love with Tom Selleck’s 1977-83 Ferrari 308 GTS/GTSi, the one that he drove in his Magnum P.I. TV series. A quick search around the internet showed me that I could have one for $80,000 or around P9M landed cost plus shipping and taxes.

While I’m dreaming of European sports cars, I guess I should include another childhood supercar dream, a Porsche 930 Turbo from the same era. I could source locally since I know where to find a nice one in Guards Red, and I estimate that it would cost me around P10M, more or less.

Thus, I would have seven nice dream cars – ‘52 Chevy, ‘70 Corvette, ‘77-‘80 Ferrari, ‘77-‘80 Porsche, and three fully-restored cars (‘71 Camaro, ‘86 500SE, and ‘77 Celeste) – instead of just two brand-new supercars. I would have spent just P29M for all the cars and would still have P21M left over, with which I could buy a large property and build a 10-car garage to park these cars in, as well as our 2002 Chevrolet Tahoe LS and our 2016 Suzuki Ciaz 1.4 GLX A/T daily drivers!

But alas, this was all just a dream. My wife Shawie has not won the lottery yet nor have I. We still have some accounts to settle, some loans to pay, and some creditors to appease. Whatever limited funds we have cannot be spent just on dream cars.

Just when reality begins to bite hard, the Lotto 6/55 grand prize soars up to more than P170M. So, I think I’ll just go back to sleep and hopefully dream about acquiring my dream cars again. Like the refrain of an old song, “I can dream, can’t I?”

Or was it “A dream is a wish your heart makes”?