Sammy Hagar's $1.3 Million Dollar LaFerrari, A Year Later

http://www.forbes.com/sites/joshmax/2016/07/05/interview-sammy-hagars-1-3-million-dollar-laferrari-a-year-later/#5d37de0f4af6

Interview: Sammy Hagar’s $1.3 Million Dollar LaFerrari, A Year Later
Josh Max , CONTRIBUTOR

Josh Max

Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.
hands in pockets-head turned

Rock stars still can’t get no satisfaction, apparently, even when spending $1.3 million on a LaFerrari. Former Van Halen lead singer Sammy Hagar was itching to take possession of his world-class, custom-made jewel last year, intending to display it at Quail, A Motor Sports event.

“The LaFerrari was ready to go but I didn’t get it in time. Can you believe that?” the Red Rocker said in a telephone interview. “It came while everyone was at Quail and everyone was down at Concourse. All the Ferrari guys were there and my car arrived while they were there. And I was on tour. I was screaming and yelling at people on the phone and saying, ‘Are you kidding me? You mean my car is in a box sitting at the docks somewhere at the airport, I guess it was flown in, sitting at San Francisco airport in a box and you guys aren’t gonna get it?’”

Mr. Hagar has always been a high-energy fellow, from his early solo efforts like “I Can’t Drive 55″ and “Your Love Is Driving Me Crazy” to his 80s/90s heyday belting out “Why Can’t This Be Love?” “ When It’s Love,” “Poundcake” and beyond with Van Halen. At 68, the famous voice barrels over the line like a-ringin’ a bell, and it’s clear his frustration over the late delivery of his ride was more a case of enthusiasm than a rock star hissy fit.

Here, then is our conversation.

in the cockpit

SH: So I didn’t get to see my car for a week after it got here. I couldn’t even see it. I didn’t even get to see it. I was gone and when I came home, they were gone and man, I was freaking out. I was almost, like, ready to go punch people and stuff.

Josh Max: You don’t seem like that kind of guy.

SH: Wait a minute, you wait a year and a half, two years for a LaFerrari and then it comes and nobody’s there to get it? That’s frustrating! Heads will roll! And that Quail will be hunted down! (laughs) Anyway, long story short, it’s here now and I have been driving it almost a year now. I have got almost a thousand miles on it. I love it to death. It is the most amazing piece of machinery I have ever touched, looked at, sat in, especially drove or owned in my life.

JM: That’s nice to hear, because a lot of guys, they become the top of the rock star world and they just buy the car. The heart is not there. It’s like a guitar. I can tell it means something to you.

SH: It does. It has nothing to do with status. It has nothing to do with ego. I have got mine. I’m not like “Hey everybody, look what I got!” And when I am driving it, I am actually a little embarrassed because everybody is coming up to you and looking at you and then the stupid cars come up next to you and want to take a picture. The guy’s trying to drive and take my picture. I go “Get away from me!” I drive it pretty hard because it pretty much will do anything you can think of. It’s an amazing handling car, so far beyond my abilities that I feel like I can drive it really, much harder than I can drive my Daytona or even my 512 Boxer because their abilities aren’t the same, you know? I could lose one of those cars. But this car, I wouldn’t ever drive it to its full potential because of the possibility of wrecking it. I would be crying. It’s not the kind of car you would take down to the local body shop and say hey, fix this thing, you know? I am sure it would have to go back to Italy and I probably wouldn’t see it for another year.

JM: Have you had it on a track yet?

SH: I haven’t done it yet but I want to. I actually I feel more comfortable on a track where people aren’t coming up next to you and you are not flying up behind somebody at 60 miles an hour, you know. I just haven’t had time.

JM: The car has 950 horses and is a hybrid; how did you pick the paint? The first thing I thought was, this guy is not painting his LaFerrari red, so he’s smart. What’s the name of that color?

SH: It’s cream. It’s cream and black and I call it my cappuccino. Originally I was actually gonna have the carbon fiber. I was gonna leave it that other color which is kind of a root beer looking color and I was gonna make it a root beer float, you know, cream and root beer. And then I got nervous about the root beer thing, thinking, you know, it may be a little bit too flashy and I may get tired of it. I have had so many cars in my life. I mean I have had 50-60 cars and like 25-30 Ferraris and I think you learn after a while. You go, “That color is gonna get old to me.” And I’m the “red rocker” and everything and I got enough red things, you know?

I got a couple of red Ferraris and I am all good but there is no standard-law Ferrari. You have to go to the factory and you have to sit down with the designer and you pick every color right down to the stitching on the interior. They go, “What do you want this to be?” You go, “Oh, I don’t know.” And somebody will help you out and I spent a whole day doing it. And then I called up the next day and changed my mind on the root beer. That was the only change I made but they have, you know, like a theatre with the full-size screen where you see the car in full, life-size, with the computer person, and they’ll show you anything you say.

You know, how would it look black? And they show you a black one. And it’s pretty cool. I was gonna do black. I was gonna do silver. I had all these ideas and fortunately when I got there, there were five cars being made on the assembly line and they were a black one, a yellow one, a white one, a silver one and a red one. And I went “Well, uh, I am gonna go cream.” And it was a trip because there was, on the wall in the design room, they had Ferraris from all different years, you know. Like really, some very cool-looking Ferraris. And there was an old, I wanna say it was like a 340 on the wall that was in sepia. It looked like it was cream and it really looked cool and I said, “I want that color.” And that was it.

JM: Good, that’s the way it should be. That’s very exclusive.

SH: Yeah, it looks very classy, you know. When I picked it up from the Ferrari shop, they had a red one in there. It just, in my opinion, didn’t bring out anything the way the white, the cream does on that car.

JM: That’s what I most liked when I saw the footage.

SH: You sit so low in that car it’s ridiculous. Your butt is something like 4 or 5 inches off the ground.

JM: I wanted to ask you if you own any ordinary cars, how many and what kind? What are you partial to?

SH: My wife has a couple of Mercedes, like the 550 C or whatever it is, a 4-door one. The kind that’s like a bubble. Very nice car for a family car. A 4-door and a Mercedes 550 SUV and really nice SUV. And she has a Tesla. Not the fastest, newest one but the second one and it’s badass. I mean I told the other guys and I will tell you the same thing, the way I feel about Teslas and electric cars, it is the future. The way we all should commute and go to the grocery store and take kids to school and all those kind of things.

It’s what the whole planet needs to be doing because it is the way to do it and it’s amazing and they are fast and they are luxurious and quiet. They don’t put out emissions, what more do you want? And our Ferraris and R-4, weekends, holidays, special occasions, take out on the track and have a good time where there are not commuters. So I have those kinds of cars. Then I have some muscle cars, you know, like a 1967 427 Shelby GT 500 and I have the first remake of the Ford GT, which is a badass fast car. I mean that’s right up there. Not quite a LaFerrari but it’s something else, you know. I have seven various Ferraris, I have a 512, a 456, a 365 GT Daytona, a 599 Fiorano, what else do I have? I got a little 308 GT B4.

JM: Any motorcycles?

SH: Nope. I don’t ride motorcycles. I have children. That’s a short version of when my wife got pregnant 21 years ago with our first daughter, I stopped riding. We sold the motorcycle. We just parked it and never rode it again.

JM: I get it. I feel about bikes the way I feel about exotic cars. Arghhh, love it, yeah but it is very dangerous.

SH: Yeah, not good. I love them too, though. Hey man, I would have a Ducati in 5 seconds. I used to have a Norton Commando and, you know, I like Triumphs and Nortons and Ducatis. Once again, like exotic, I like exotic motorcycles. You couldn’t give me a Harley Davidson.

JM: The Ducatis are the ones.

SH: They are the ones. It’s a Ferrari on 2 wheels.

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This interview was edited for clarity and space.