The Powerball jackpot has grown to $1.9 billion, the biggest ever in a national lottery according to the Guinness Book of World Records. For the winner the possibilities will be endless, quite likely in several life-ruining fashions. You could build your dream garage several times over. Or open the world’s greatest car museum. You could even buy a controlling stake in Mazda and force them to restart the RWD straight-six sedan project and put a rotary engine sports car into production. It’s such a huge amount of money it’s hard to wrap your brain around it.
What automotive dreams would you fulfill with $1.9 billion?
The most entertaining comment by next Monday will receive a prize. Scroll down to see the winner of last week’s QotW, “What’s the most sinister looking JNC?”
Sinister looking cars run the gamut, according to you, dear readers. RamenEater3000 came out of the gates with the Mitsuoka Orochi, a Lovecraftian automobile if there ever was one. Other apex predators of the automotive kingdom included Michael K.’s Lexus LFA, エーイダン‘s Toyota Century with tinted windows, j_c‘s evil-eyed Prince Skyline Sport, and Lakdasa‘s Y60 Nissan Patrol.
Art chose the general category of Japanese hearses, understandably, while 555jay called out dekotora. Anything that needlessly ornate has got to be sinister in some way. Jeremy A.‘s pick of the Nissan Z31 seems to be completely out of left field, but we can’t always explain our fears. Ultimately, the winner this week was f31roger, who nominated VIP cars:
Definitely VIPcars before Americans followed. That’s because they had a mystique to those builds and the people behind them.
I remember my friends took me to a Parking area in 2006, we saw these VIP cars and my friends were scared to because those guy had “serious attitude” and they might fight. But I was so intrigued because I never seen a Diamante and 929/Sentia done before.
https://www.f31club.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/DSCN3781.jpg
https://www.f31club.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/DSCN3777.jpg
Omedetou, your comment has earned you a set of decals from the JNC Shop!
Holy Powerball batman, that’s a lot of money!
No wonder the US is so messed up. I know there are a lot more people in USA compared to AUS, but that’s a nonsensical amount of lottery… I think we’ve only ever had $160M as the largest amount. Whoa!
But, for the sake of the game here’s what I’d do lol:
1. Start a car building company – employ someone like The Kyza or Jonsibal and churn out some amazing machines, but based on my interests of old Japanese cars. I’d reskill and make sure I had a hand in the design/building process where possible too (not that far from my wheelhouse though).
2. Start a huge personal collection of old Toyota’s with a focus on the kind of stuff you see on the Izanami blog.
3. Create my version of the Goodwood FOS in Australia, just like Rhys Millen did in NZ.
4. Share the winnings.
There are quite a few details missing, but these are the main points for the QOTW. I’d really want to focus on positively adding to the JDM car culture.
Just throwing this out there…
Powerball jackpots quite a lot because of the crazy odds involved with that particular “ball game”.
1.9 is crazy for Joe Average, but Twitter just sold for 44, 13 of which was supposedly financed.
In answer to the QoTW and automotive dreams:
I’d deliver as many Bushmaster vehicles to Ukraine as US 1 billion would allow. My government is delaying exports for some reason, and I’d circumvent that by private arrangement.
The 900 mil should cover a modest track purchase, along with a few runners to keep there: Miata, Teg-R and possibly NSX. I can be unfussy on their condition, to afford to adjacent to live on-site. Sorry, the track will close at sundown unless an under-lights event is scheduled.
To that end, I’d use whatever (if any) remains to run the place as a business, get car people on board and hold events!
You know, the usual.
Despite the 1 in 292.2 million odds, a SoCal $2.04 billion winnah!
https://www.oregonlive.com/news/2022/11/1-ticket-wins-204-billion-powerball-jackpot-here-are-the-winning-numbers.html
Comments Ben?
Changing my name and going into hiding…
I wish.
First thing that I would do would be to BRING BACK the Forum here on JNC.
Then I would distribute stickers to all that participate with good discussion.
Maybe I would have some money left for another GTX.
“First thing that I would do would be to BRING BACK the Forum here on JNC.”
Yes, please!
I will add a stipulation that kuroneko’s thread of photography on Japanese roads/streets should also be funded for regular updates.
Honda reboot !!
To make it even more interesting: for the $1.9 billion jackpot, the winner can choose between getting 30 equal payments of about $63 million per year (about $48 million after federal taxes) or receiving a lump sum cash value of about $929 million (or $706 million after federal taxes).
Personally I would go with the $63 million a year as I just don’t trust myself with a lump sum. That way after I spend the first years allotment on JDM cars, a private racetrack, and a fully equipped restoration shop (just like Jay Leno), I will still have 29 more years to do more stuff, like build my own road car, or build the first race track on the moon, or…
Fully restore my MS75 and get a hold of a mid ’80’s Soarer
I think I would establish a series of “auto shop” schools in large cities for students between 16-21. Mechanical, paint and body, restoration, modification, basically a hands on experience with a passionate faculty to inspire and encourage a new generation of motor heads. There is a serious lack of new talent to replace the retiring folks. Low tuition or a tuition cost that could be worked off by trading the student labor for tuition forgiveness. The cost would be huge but the rewards could also be great.
I would pattern it after the McPherson College of Auto Restoration but on a grander scale.
1.9 billion might just barely be able to cover all the patch panels it seems my S30 Z needs, so I guess I’m going with that
It’s insane that it’s gotten that high!. If I won, I need to make sure my family and good friends are taken cared of ( not always giving money). Definitely my kids will not get it easy some like spoiled kiddos, but they will be covered for education and what not.
I would start a heritage program, have a campaign of “Save your clunkers” and invest a ton of money into making conversion kits that isn’t to outrageous so consumers are put off (I don’t know how, I’m just saying).
My focus would be 70s-90s Japanese cars. I would forgo the popular/mainstream platforms like Skylines, Supras, 240sx…. you know, the cars that are highly sought. They already have tons of businesses looking out for them.
I would invest into an automotive trade school and programs. I would have a program to help troubled youth, help them be dedicated and focus (I was a troubled teen).
Can’t save every car in the world, but it would be cool to have something that helps every day people that can’t afford to get a new car and help keep their cars going and on the road.
Mazda HQ in Hiroshima, I’ve been there!
That was the first place I saw an MX5 RF in 2016 as they were driving them around inside the campus and that’s where I got to watch them put the interiors together on MX5s and 124 Spiders. Plus I got to see the 787B up close. It was a pretty cool tour (except for the fact that they still had Zoom Zoom as part of the video presentation at the beginning reminding us of the old Mazda).
I’m ready to go back to Japan.
With $1.9b I’d be standing in my warehouse gazing upon my Skyline collection wondering what the heck happened to my $1.9b.
1.9 billion? I’d just do my own YouTube channel in the style of Top Gear mixed with Jay Leno’s garage. I’d be collecting plenty of cars as well. Although I’d have to refrain from during the reviews of cars doing my impressions of the Top Gear presenters, May, Clarkson and Hammond. Especially, Clarkson.
Otherwise people would say you were the worst plagiarizer…
…in the world.
While 1.9 billion wouldn’t really let me start a successful car company, it’s very tempting to say damn the torpedoes and do it anyway.
But, there is an even crazier idea that I have, which is definitely an even dumber way to spend 1.9 billion dollars. Start my own racing series. But not just any series. I want the glory years of sepia-tinted nostalgia, and the hell with manufacturer relevance.
I’ll borrow the carbon-neutral fuel and tires that Indycar and Super Formula are playing with, but that’s it. I want fat tires, low downforce, SMALL CARS (no stretch limo monsters like modern F1) and NOISE, GLORIOUS NOISE. I will get Cosworth to build a copy of the 1990 Honda RA100E, and shove it in the back of something low, wide, with tunnels, small wings, and looking like something between Senna’s classic MP4-5 and a star fighter; with a manual gearbox. Then I’ll build 20 of them and we’ll do a 10-race schedule of Suzuka, Fuji, Spa, Hockenheim, Silverstone, Mosport, Road America, Laguna Seca, Imola, and Interlagos. I’ll pay a bunch of F2, Indycar, and Super Formula drivers to do it, and we’ll throw all the races on youtube for free. I’ll go bust after the second season, and won’t care because it’ll be one last chance to see how good racing could be, if someone put all the best parts of it together.
I’d build my Gran Turismo garage in real life!
Let’s see if I can land this dream on a $1.9B runway…
I’d start with a dealership. Mazdas to be specific. The lot is full of only MX-5s at first. Is it profitable? Doesn’t have to be, right now. Start a dealer-specific modification package a-la Don Yenko, so my last name becomes as recognizable to speed-thirsty Mazdafarians as Zoom-Zoom. Within 3 years we start buying junkyard rollers: RX-3s, 4s, 7s, NAs, NBs, Cosmo APs, MX-3s, B2200s, you name it. The factory restorations begin. We need unobtanium trim pieces? We start making them. Owners the world ’round can come to us for high quality repro parts at the service center where we service any model, any year, properly. Eventually our own like-new restorations get placed on the showroom floor like any other car and we become the worlds only Mazda Universal Dealership. It becomes so popular, SevenStock moves to our dealership, we host JCCS in 2032, and eventually Mazda Corporate absorbs us into their factory restoration program. With a mountain of humility and years of Mazda faithfulness, I humbly ask for a drive in the 787B…It’s a beautiful say in Sarthe as I don my period-correct race suit and helmet. Men and women in light blue pour over the internals for one final check before it’s newest pilot attempts a flight. Strapped in, the last though before takeoff is “It may have been an elaborate plan, but it worked!”
I’m about as late to the party as I can be, but my answer is to buy a plot of land to put a BIG skid pan/ lot on for autocross, drift events, and just to have a dedicated car meet spot that’s less likely to be shut down than the standard parking lot. Then I’d build a 4-6 Car garage with living space attached. After that, I’d see about car purchases, and maybe helping my parents with whatever student loans and mortgage pays that they have left.