I don’t know if you’ve ever strapped yourself into a Lotus Evora, or one of McLaren’s vehicles – say, the 720S, or something even more maniacal like the Senna – and given it a bit of a push. But let me tell you, when you do you’ll be feeling the effects of it for days afterwards.
If, like me, you are not built like, well, a McLaren F1 driver, you’ll have a stiff neck (especially if you’ve worn a helmet), sore shoulders and for good measure have given your core a good workout. In other words, it’s about as luxurious as a slap in the face. But feeling like you’ve been worked over by one of Kim Kardashian’s bodyguards must be what our politicians believe passes for a cushy time, judging by the fact that the 720S, like any car valued at more than $66,000 or so, is subject to the federal government’s “luxury” car tax (LCT).
The muppets in Canberra have long conflated the concepts of “expensive” and “luxury”. Luxury and expensive are not always or even necessarily the same thing. And we can see in places other than the car market where this is true. A dilapidated three-bedroom fibro box that sells in Sydney for $1.85 million is expensive, sure, but it’s certainly not luxurious. The Oxford Dictionary (just so I’m not relying on Wikipedia here) defines luxury as “a state of great comfort or elegance, especially when involving great expense”.
I SPENT a Saturday morning just over a fortnight ago going car shopping with my niece. She’d decided she needs a car of her own and she thinks I know a bit about the subject, so she asked me to come along.
COVID-19-induced travel restrictions look like they’ll remain part of life for some time to come, especially by air. That’s bad news for those of us in Melbourne, particularly, still enduring months of enforced local isolation.
I THINK most of us can agree that evolution is a pretty good theory. You might prefer to believe a divine entity created every living thing, all in a hurry, about 6000 years ago, in which case all power to you, even though you quite possibly regard