On Saturdays I go market hopping: local/organics at the Vanderbilt Collection, crepes and crafts on Third Street, cheap and hot off the truck at St. Paul’s, wannabes in a North Naples church parking lot.
This past weekend I stumbled across another experience entirely: The Naples Ferrari Club annual car show.
Tens of millions of dollars worth of Ferraris, Lambourghinis, and Rolls Royces lined Fifth Avenue and ironically shut down traffic. The club assessed a $5 suggested donation (I wonder how many realized their $5 went to benefit the Special Needs Childrens Fund and the Von Liebig Art Center.) that the swarms gladly paid for the opportunity to oggle these icons of twentieth century lust.
My sense was that this show was so twentieth century. With the exception of the Tesla, whose first generation electric battery is only expected to last eight to ten years and the cost of the second generation still in development is expected to be $10-35k and the environmental impact of its production and destruction has yet to be truthfully assessed, most of the technology on display was decades old, very passe.
What would it take to get this many people this excited about technology that is truly innovative? It could/should still be sexy, but it’s time call the old hag – the internal combustion engine – out on her bad habits. A new red dress might catch the eye, but but the innards have been around the block a few times.
(Also, I’m sure there are lots of Jews who would like to be able to drive to temple on Shabbat without lighting fires.)
Goat anyone? 