An infamous automotive personality once said, “Cars are some of the most intoxicating, most beautiful things ever forged by mankind.” More often than not, such quotes are used to describe some of the most exotic cars ever created.
Cars made by Ferrari, Lamborghini, Koenigsegg, Mclaren, Gordon Murray Automotive, Aston Martin, W Motors, Rimac, etc, are all cars that fall into this category. These brands are some of the greatest car manufacturers ever, and the cars they created are all masterpieces.
There is one other thing that ties the aforementioned brands together — the founders of all of these brands loved the simplicity an ordinary car provides. They are all known to drive or have driven some regular cars for their everyday commutes, all while developing some of the fastest and most exotic cars ever.
Here’s a list of some of the ordinary cars driven by extraordinary founders of supercar brands:
Enzo Ferrari | Peugeot 404
Ferrari is one of the most powerful brands in the world and is the most recognisable car brand ever. Everyone knows Ferrari makes some of the most exotic cars in the world and they are also some of the fastest and sweetest-sounding cars ever. While the Ferrari brand is known for its fast cars, the man who founded Ferrari isn’t known to have driven any of his fast cars on a daily basis.
For a test or two, old man Ferrari did drive some of Ferrari’s faster cars. However, for his daily commute, he did prefer a few more comfortable and practical sedans. He certainly did have a penchant for Peugeot’s cars. While he was most often seen driving a Peugeot 404 in the Italian countryside on the way to the Ferrari factory, there are a few other cars he used that might interest you.
Peugeot 504, Peugeot 504 Coupe, Fiat 128, Mini Cooper, etc, were some of the other cars driven by Enzo Ferrari. Although, he did also use a Ferrari 330 GT for a while.
Ferruccio Lamborghini | Fiat Topolino
Lamborghini is yet another storied Italian car manufacturer. The story of founder Ferruccio Lamborghini is just as impressive as the cars made by Lamborghini, so impressive that it even recently led to an entire movie being made about how Ferrucio Lamborghini formed the Lamborghini brand.
In case you are unfamiliar with the story, here’s how it goes. Post World War II, Ferruccio Lamborghini discovers that there is a demand for more affordable tractors and to meet that demand, he started Lamborghini Trattori which manufactures lovely tractors even today. Eventually, after a conflict with Enzo Ferrari, he would go on to form Lamborghini Automobili.
In order to try and raise funds to start this new tractor manufacturing business, Ferruccio Lamborghini would race in the Mille Miglia race and try to win the prize money. The Fiat Topolino family car was used by Ferruccio as a race car. He used his mechanical knowledge to modify the small Fiat cars and gain more performance. Ferrucio Lamborghini would go on to own several of these little Fiats before he started driving fancier cars like Ferraris and Lamborghinis.
Ferdinand Porsche | Austro Daimler Sascha
Widely known for creating the much-loved Porsche brand and for creating the Volkswagen Beetle, Ferdinand Porsche is an automotive icon and is considered one of the best automotive engineers of all time. In 1999, he was posthumously named the Engineer Of The Century.
Today, Porsche is one of the biggest performance car brands in the world, recognised for their lineup of intense sportscars. However, when the company was founded in 1931, there wasn’t much demand for performance cars. So, Porsche ended up taking several contracts for the German government and he also worked for a few other companies.
Before he founded Porsche, Ferdinand worked for Austro Daimler where he designed and developed a car named the Sascha. The car was named after Count Sascha, a friend of Ferdinand Porsche. With a top speed of 144km/h, the Sascha was raced, and Ferdinand Porsche sometimes even used it for commutes.
Christian Von Koenigsegg | Mazda Miata (First-Gen)
Koenigsegg is a Swedish manufacturer of extremely fast and exotic hypercars. Koenigsegg’s cars are a rarity even in the fanciest of supercar showrooms even in a place like Dubai. It all started when founder Christian Von Koenigsegg founded the Koenigsegg Project in 1994.
Koenigsegg created cars like the CC8S, CCX, CCXR, Agera, Regera, Gemera, Jesko, etc. The slowest of these cars is the CCR from 2004 with a top speed of 388km/h! With such insane performance numbers, one would expect the founder of the brand to drive a fast car as well.
As it turns out, Christian Von Koenigsegg does have a few performance cars. The list includes Jaguar XJ220, Lamborghini Huracan Performante, Tesla Model S, Tesla Model 3, and Mazda Miata. In a recent interview, Koenigsegg mentioned that the 1992 Mazda Miata is his absolute favourite and that it would be his choice to take on a drive any day.
Gordon Murray | Lotus Elan
Gordon Murray is one of the greatest automotive personalities of all time. His career began in the fast-paced world of Formula One where he designed cars that won championships at the hands of drivers like Nelson Piquet, Ayrton Senna, etc. He then went on to lead McLaren Cars and headed the development of the McLaren F1, which is considered one of the greatest supercars of all time.
Gordon Murray then went on to form Gordon Murray Automotive, and in 2020 the brand launched the GMA T.50 supercar. Gordon Murray is automotive royalty and he certainly knows everything there is about car dynamics. However, when asked about one car that he prefers the most, it isn’t the McLaren or the T.50 that he talks about.
He goes on to say that the Lotus Elan is one of the best-handling road cars ever and that it is the car of choice for him. Needless to say, the Lotus Elan is only one among the many brilliant cars and motorcycles in Gordon Murray’s illustrious collection.
Mate Rimac | BMW E30 M3
Electric cars are taking the world by storm and Mate Rimac is one of the few people who know how to make electric cars fun to drive and extremely fast! Mate Rimac founded Rimac Automobili in 2009 and started developing its first car — Rimac e-M3. It was a specially developed electric car for racing and was based on the E30 BMW M3. This car was pushed to a top speed of 280km/h.
Rimac then developed its first production car called the Concept One. The electric hypercar accelerates from 0-100km/h in just 2.6 seconds and will go on to a top speed of 355km/h. Rimac then revealed the Nevera at the 2020 Geneva International Motor Show. This one is said to achieve a top speed of 415km/h!
However, when it comes to personal dream cars, Mate Rimac goes no further than the E30 BMW M3. He owns and cherishes a 1990 BMW E30 M3 Evo III that is immaculate and well-preserved. This M3 is one of those cars that delivers simplistic performance and it seems like Mate Rimac loves just that.
Rashid Al Attar | Nissan Patrol
The UAE is one of those countries that seems to have a never-ending thirst for fast and exotic cars. It is impossible not to spot a supercar or sports car every few minutes on the roads of Dubai. However, it is almost always a supercar or sports car that is manufactured in another country or imported.
Rashid Al Attar is one of only a couple of people in the UAE who decided to do something about this. Rashid Al Attar formed Devel Motors and then developed the Devel Sixteen. The name is inspired by its V16 engine that produces a whopping 5,000hp! It is claimed that the Devel Sixteen can go from 0-100km/h in just 1.8 seconds and that the hypercar will go on to a top speed of 560km/h.
It is impossible to use such performance on the road, and that is why Devel is working on two new road-legal versions of the Sixteen. Rashid Al Attar, as you may have already expected, is a bonafide petrolhead and owns several fast and fancy cars. The entire collection is massive but there is one car that stands out — the Nissan Patrol. Check out the history & various models of the Nissan Patrol.
Ralph Debbas | Audi A8
Priced at $3.4 million (AED 12.49 million), the Lykan Hypersport was the most expensive car in the world back in 2013. It instantly put the UAE on the world map in automotive manufacturing prowess. The Lykan Hypersport was made by UAE-based W Motors founded by Ralph Debbas.
Ralph Debbas is an award-winning Lebanese automotive entrepreneur and designer, who worked for the likes of Land Rover and Aston Martin before establishing W Motors. W Motors sold a total of seven Lykan Hypersport cars and the Abu Dhabi Police bought one of them. W Motors also went on to create the Ghiath SUV for the UAE police.
While the cars created by his company are very exclusive, Ralph Debbas drives around in a not-so-exclusive, but very comfortable and practical Audi A8.
Greatness is often rooted in simplicity and the founders of these companies proved just that. The machines made by these companies are incredibly complicated, but all of that greatness is still rooted in the simplicity of the raw emotions felt by their founders while driving some of these cars.
Also Read:
– All You Need To Know About The Mercedes-Benz G-Class
– Top 10 SUVs To Buy In The UAE
– All You Need To Know About The Toyota Land Cruiser
