Take six hot cars on a cool 150-mile drive

Fort Lauderdale, Fla.— A joyride on the Florida Turnpike in a Ferrari F430 is a hassle.

For starters, there are state troopers on patrol. Then there's the engine. It's loud.

OK, so the ride is actually pretty sweet.

But when Mahesh Neelakanta recently got behind the wheel of the $200,000-plus Italian sports car, he noticed a problem right away.

"Nobody wants to race you," Neelakanta said. "They know they don't have a chance."

Neelakanta, 41, of Boca Raton, Fla., was among a group of people who took a $900 "research" tour recently to find out first-hand the woes of driving some of the most expensive vehicles in the world. His buddy, Simon Leung, rode shotgun for free.

New York-based Gotham Dream Cars provides such adventures on the streets of South Florida through its monthly "Dream Car Tour." Participants take turns driving six uber-luxury cars on a 150-mile sightseeing trip. They stop every half-hour to exchange vehicles.

"We're basically renting out dreams to people who wouldn't otherwise be able to drive these types of cars," said the company's operation manager, Jon Ferretti.

Ferretti's company has been offering the tours throughout the country for six years and opened an office in Dania Beach, Fla., three years ago. Drivers don't need special training but must provide full-coverage insurance, he said.

Spectacular accidents in spectacular speed machinery are unusual but not unheard of. In 2005, a customer in New York raced a Ferrari in 2nd gear, causing the car to catch fire.

Speeding tickets? Let's just say breaking the speed limit is officially discouraged.

Along with two different-model Ferraris, drivers on the recent South Florida tour took turns maneuvering cars that included a Lamborghini Gallardo and a Lamborghini Murcielago. They also took the wheels of a Bentley Continental GT and an Aston Martin DB9.

The four- to five-hour trip begins with a brief safety talk and an overview of each vehicle. Then it's off to the races, so to speak, from the North Miami Beach entrance to Florida's Turnpike northward toward Pompano Beach. Then the expensive caravan circles back, with pit stops in Sunrise, Weston, on Alligator Alley half-way toward Naples and finally North Miami Beach.

Most of the drivers who took part in this month's tour got their rides as gifts from loved ones. Pirina Mirabal of Miami bought a ride through Groupon for her husband, Mitchell, a self-described "car nut."

"We're pretending like we are shopping for our next car," she said.

Lee Knoeble, a 71-year-old snowbird from Illinois, got his ride as a birthday gift from his two sons. The owner of several Corvettes, Knoeble was looking forward to something less powerful in horsepower, but just as powerful in prestige.

"I am really liking the Bentley," he said. "It's the four-door car for the old guy."

But he wasn't looking too disappointed when he got a chance to hop in the Ferrari.

"This is pretty wild," he said, his wife Donna as his passenger. "There's nothing to complain about."