throt:
I would leave it, Christian. Stripe removal was the correct decision too. Your R8 looks just right imo.
Yes and no. For my social environment, it looks right (I will post a summary of my neighborhood "block party" at the end of this post) but I am not in love with the look, especially the color. It looks acceptable though and I care more about the driving experience, which is fantastic.
Speaking of my social environment: Last weekend, we had a neighborhood block party. Usually, I try to avoid such parties because I do not care about closer social bonds with most people there and I also don't drink alcohol and there is a lot of alcohol there.
Well, I joined because my wife asked me to. Now guess what the first topic was? Right. My new R8. They saw it only once maybe parked in front of my garage and the whole neighborhood knew. We are talking dozens of people here, not just a few persons. Surprisingly, the tone was pretty positive, many drive themselves Audis and they love the R8. Then, the whole discussion shifted towards that McLaren I was talking about and while the general tone was positive, I realized that some were making ironic comments about the owner and how much money he spent on the McLaren.
Now here is an interesting fact: The owner of that McLaren meets the people in the neighborhood pretty often, he is a guy who loves social contacts (or to show off... ) and there is an ice cream parlor where everybody meets in the evening, kind of a meeting point for the whole neighborhood. This McLaren owner told people that his car has increased in value since he bought it and now he is selling it with a 50k EUR profit and this is actually the first car he made money with and didn't loose money, like with his former Porsches. He also told the neighbors that his car is a special edition out of 50 cars and very valuable. Also, he told them that he paid over 350k EUR for the car.
His McLaren is an ordinary 12C Spider, no special edition, nothing. Also, these cars are real bargains now, you can get them with low mileage for under 200k, even under 190k EUR. I don't have a clue why he told people what he told them but my guess is: He wanted to make them believe that this car costs him nothing and he even made money with it.
Now here comes the biggest surprise: Apparently, they believed everything he said (he is a doctor, so why would a doctor lie? ).
While talking about cars, I also noticed that our neighbors knew everything going on around our house, the repairs, the gardener, the water delivery service and so on. As if our house is under constant surveillance.
My wife joked again that we don't have to worry about burglars or criminals because our house is under constant surveillance.
Anyway, my wife was right to make me go to that block party, I learned a lot. First, people want attention and do not like it, when you avoid them. Second, it was interesting to learn what they think about you and yes, most of them were drunk and were quite open with their opinion. I also learned that they care a lot about the cars and the money and everything related to it but if you don't provoke them and they feel OK, no problem. That yellow color of that McLaren certainly played a huge role in provoking people, two of them even said "why did it have to be yellow, did he want to attract that much attention?".
Overall, I think that people in my neighborhood are OK and while they are indeed envious, they are willing to "accept" you if you don't draw to much attention to you. Showing off definitely doesn't pay off over here.
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RC (Germany) - Rennteam Editor Porsche 991 Carrera 4 GTS Cabriolet, Porsche Macan Turbo, Audi R8 V10 Plus (2017), Mini JCW (2015), Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT (2014)