For want of the supercar
They’re stunning to look at, not to mention murderously powerful. And their social leverage is sure to crank up your likes
We see them slowly rolling down the JBR boulevard, valet-parked outside five-star hotels on a weekend, and even queued up at Al Ijaza Cafeteria, that shawarma shack immortalised in Ali Mostafa’s City of Life.
Supercars represent the pinnacle of capital accumulation, objects constructed for performance and savoured as art, though their exhibition takes place not in galleries but across the Emirates and London’s Knightsbridge district every summer. Look at the Rimac Concept One. As far as we know, two models of this 1,224-horsepower Croatian hypercar live in the UAE — a quarter of the total made by Rimac. Just picture the stares as you speed down the E11 in this thing, with its large wheels set in an incredibly low body packing ridiculous torque. People will guess and guess, but it takes a true petrolhead to recognise the One.
In Mythologies, his 1957 collection of essays, French philosopher Roland Barthes wrote, “I think that cars today are almost the exact equivalent of the great Gothic cathedrals: I mean the supreme creation of an era, conceived with passion by unknown artists and consumed in image if not in usage by a whole population, which appropriates them as a purely magical object.”
The semiotics expert penned these words in reference to the Citroën DS, which was the first production car to feature disc brakes on its release in 1955. What would Barthes have to say about the magic in today’s high-performance sports cars?
A generation raised on a diet of Gone in 60 Seconds before The Fast and the Furious has birthed another who are inundated by influencers selling the dream.
One need only to look at the mindboggling numbers behind the likes of YouTuber Mo Vlogs — Paying CASH for a New Ferrari !!! [sic] is the title of a post with 9.6 million views — and it’s clear that society’s lust for these monstrously powerful vehicles knows no bounds. A comment under a @ Supercarblondie Instagram post reads: “I want to be you and do this just for a day !!!!! ”
In a time when social engagement is its own form of currency, one that acts as a quasi-effective measure of a person’s popularity, we all live in a perpetual playground and everyone’s vying to be the cool kid. An easy way to do that is by having the shiniest toy.