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Bentley Wishes, Ferrari Dreams Come True, at Least for a Day
James Kim, foreground, general manager of Capital Dream Cars, with CEO brother-in-law Eugene Kim and two of their cars, a red Ferrari and a Bentley Continental.
(Photos By Rich Lipski -- The Washington Post)
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Why rent an Explorer -- or anything else, for that matter -- when you could get a Ferrari for a little more than a grand, asks Matt Vondra, 27, a mining company executive in Chicago. He had come in April for a weekend with his buddy, and the Ferrari was "sort of a treat."
"It has a really clean sound to it," he says.
Kim knows all about that. This Ferrari has his heart.
This was one of the few days he had some alone time with the car. And he took the busy streets with ease, revving up and then drifting down the hills just past the western edge of Fairfax County.
"I never get tired of driving this," Kim says later. "Just the way all your senses are heightened."
He sounds like a man in love. And not that juvenile obsession, "I've got to see you every minute of the day" kind of love. It's the sincere "I care about you," "I understand you" kind of love -- from its underbody aerodynamics to the free-flow exhaust system to the Connolly leather.
"There's nothing like driving an Italian thoroughbred like this Ferrari," Kim says, rubbing his hand over the car's black dashboard.
They had spent months looking for a company that would insure the expensive cars they would buy for commercial use. Kim; his wife, Jumi Kim; her brother James Kim; and family friend James "BMW" Kim then pooled money from their personal savings and worked with investors to buy the vehicles. First came the Ferrari, which goes for about $200,000 these days, then the Maserati Spyder (recently sold because it wasn't popular enough) and then the charcoal gray 2005 Bentley Continental GT (about $170,000).
Factoring in the money for upkeep of the cars and the property tax that isn't "insignificant," Eugene Kim will tell you that getting the business off the ground wasn't easy. But the result was a business in which pragmatism isn't the priority.
Capital Dream Cars is one of at least two exotic car dealerships that serve the Washington metro area. The other, Pure Exotics, also opened this year. There are about 50 such car rentals across the country, according to the Exotic Car Rental Directory.
Firefighter paramedic Jamie Cooper, 35, found Capital Dream Cars while surfing the Internet in search of an alternative to renting a limousine for his wedding.
He stumbled onto "The Ferrari."
