Even after acquiring a Mercedes-Maybach S680, on Italian supercar continues to elude King James.
(Wally Skalij/Getty Images)
LeBron James loves his new Mercedes-Maybach, but there’s still one collector-grade car for which the NBA great longs. The Los Angeles Lakers star recently picked up an S680—the 6.0-liter twin-turbo V12-powered performance leader of the already luxurious S-Class, featuring a huge executive cabin that would make a member of the British royal family feel right at home.
Through Mercedes’ Manufaktur Made to Measure bespoke program, James made his S680 a one-of-one. Selecting a non-metallic ivory exterior over a blue leather for the interior, he added his “King James” crown logo on the exterior front quarter, seat headrests. seat pillows, and the dash, where it’s likely laser-engraved. A metal plate listing the birth dates of each of his three children—LeBron “Bronny” Jr., Bryce, and Zhuri—appears on each doorsill, and an etched plaque on the console between the front seats featuring Akron’s latitudinal and longitudinal coordinates, beneath the letters LLTK, for “Long Live the King.”
As Vanity Fair points out, James and Maybach produced a similarly styled S680 that will be auctioned off later this year to benefit his LeBron James Family Foundation and the I Promise educational initiative for at-risk students in his hometown of Akron. “I’m just trying to change the landscape of my community for the better,” James told Vanity Fair. “And for the Mercedes-Maybach team to want to partner with me and to help me continue to make strides on impacting my community means everything to me.”
The S680 is the latest in James’ positively kingly garage of automobiles. Since his early days in the NBA, the four-time champ has indulged in fine roadgoing machines, including a BMW 7 Series, the first car he bought after entering the league. His inaugural no-holds-barred supercar was a Lamborghini Gallardo, the Italian marque’s V10-powered predecessor of the recently retired Huracan. “It was a stick shift, and I had no idea how to drive manual back then,” James told Vanity Fair. “I had to buy another car to learn how to drive stick before I was able to drive that car.”
Today, his fleet is a respectably diverse collection that’s known to include a GMC Hummer EV; a Rolls-Royce Phantom and Cullinan; a Bentley Continental GT; a Ferrari 599 GTO, 458 Spider, and F430 Spider; a Lamborghini Aventador Roadster, and a Porsche 918 Spyder. But one ultra-rare driver’s hypercar has proven elusive.
(Ferrari)
“It’s a LaFerrari,” he told Vanity Fair. Ferrari’s first electrified car employs a hybrid powertrain anchored by a 6.3-liter naturally aspirated V12 to expel 950 angry horses through a seven-speed dual-clutch transmission. The efforts of F1 engineers are apparent throughout, from the Kevlar and carbon-fiber tub to the front wing, which was designed specifically to increase downforce by eliminating the negative effects of pitch sensitivity caused by the pronounced splitters.
Of all its electrically enhanced hypercar nemeses (e.g. McLaren P1 and Porsche 918), the LaFerrari is the most desirable, according to a Top Gear verdict that came at the end of an extensive 48-hour real-world road test. Looking at more quantitative evidence, the LaFerrari established itself as the fastest Ferrari road car to date in 2013 when it slashed five seconds off the Enzo’s lap record at the Fiorano test track. At auction, James could expect to spend $4 million to get one of 499 series-production examples or $6 million to get one of 210 LaFerrari Aperta spiders—.4 and .6 percent of James’s reported $1 billion net worth.
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