Reading some messages on another forum they consider an Aston Martin an exotic car. There isn't much difference between the XKR and the Aston Martin. The AM has a 6 speed manual, the XKR an automatic. The AM uses the same Jaguar engine only they jumped it up to 4.3L. The AM's exhaust sounds better but the XKR has a rear seat just to hold your jacket!!

They are made out of the same material and both are hand built and bonded the same way and they body styles are 98% the same. As for the price the Aston Martin is several thousand dollars more.

Does the price of the car make it an exotic or the country that it comes from or ????

 

According to Websters

ex ot ic : foreign.........Yes
strangely beautiful.......Yes
enticing.......Yes

So I'd say the answer is YES!

 

The fact that I own one = Not exotic

 

By today's standards I really believe that to be an "exotic" one requirement is that the vehicle is obtainable only to the very highest end of the social/financial scale and that these would be very limited production offerings. They would also need to have a "one-of-a-kind" quality. Alternatively, I would consider a car an "exotic" if it took some guts to drive and be seen in one.

So cars in excess of the $100,000 mark could be in that category but not necessarily. For example, I would not consider any of the Bentley cars really to be exotic but merely high-priced luxury cars. On the other hand, even though the Lotus Elise is in the maybe $50,000 range I would tend to consider that an exotic.

Just my opinion.

Doug

 

Ha, ha - You and me both!

Since I own three of them, I'm now triple sure they're NOT!

 

I agree with SeismicGuy. My wife and I were looking at the Lotus Elises before we bought the Jag. They are awesome cars, but used ones are in the $25K range (just check cars.com) I really wanted the Elise, but is just isn't practical for our needs. We wanted something for taking long trips. My wife preferred the XK's so we got an XK8. I think to be considered "exotic" it also has to be very impractical. The Lotus fits that bill, but the XK doesn't.

By the way, we were also looking at a couple of Maserati Spyder convertibles. I think they are borderline exotic. They are very similar to the XKs, but they don't have a back seat. There were a couple within 500 miles of me selling for about $27K. Here's one in California selling for $23K. See the similarities with the XK?

 

Bingo--you nailed it. What gets me is when you see a bunch of these types of cars together at unlikely places. There is a Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf near my house that I sometimes go to on the weekends. Almost every Saturday there is a group of 3 or 4 middle-to-upper aged guys who meet to sit outside, smoke their cigars, and shoot the s**t. One of the guys shows up in one of several uber-expensive sedans (one of them is some Bentley that is painted like the Stealth Bomber--matte black) and the other 2 guys have super-exotic sports cars. One has a bright orange Lamborghini Murcielago and the other was a Porsche Carrera GT. In both cases I believe these are in the $400K range. The strange thing is that all these guys look like average slugs that you would not look at twice, and they just sit there for hours shooting the bull about who knows what. It is a mystery to me what "club" these guys are in to afford toys like that but, in Los Angeles, you pretty much have to have a car like that if you want to turn any heads due to the plethora of other "standard" model Mercedes, BMW, Porsche, Ferrari, Maserati, etc. cars that most ordinary folk would consider exotic.

Doug

 

My definition is some sort of quasi-combination of extremely low production numbers, somewhat price (yes, you can buy a Lotus cheap--but what do you pay to maintain it?), and lack of practicality or a limited audience to purchase.

At one time Jaguar toyed with the idea of producing the F-type. It would have been a true roadster with no top, neither hard top nor convertible top. To those that can afford to put a toy in the garage, it's not impractical, it's exactly what they were looking for.

 

gotta agree with the above, it's not in the same category as a car that only a few hundred or maybe a few thousand people can own, so that pretty much exludes them, though as stated the AM's look very similar, however cost more and more limited production

 

Last year when I hit a rock and did 22K+ Damage to the underside of the car. I submitted the accident to my carrier AAA. The AAA inspector was from the exotic car division. We had a to wait a couple of days for him to get to the area. He only inspects their Exotic Insured Cars. They were a seperate department of AAA and they handled my claim well.

So per AAA our XK8's are exotic.

I think the last couple of years the number of XK's imported into the US have been under 2500 cars per year. That makes it a pretty unique car.

Dave B

 

I want to thank everyone for their reply. One person submitted this:

Any vehicle manufactured by a company whose name ends with a vowel and, typically, located within approx 100 miles of the Alps.

Ferrari
Lamborghini
Maserati
Bizzarini
Iso Rivolta
Ducati (sorry, couldn't resist)
Bugatti
Etceterini
Alfa Romeo
Porsche (The Boxster is made in Finland. Not sure about the Cayman)

and a reply to that was:
ChevY

 

And so goes the pronunciation of the name of the car. If you can't say the name correctly it has to be an exotic.

JAGWIRE

 

I looked at a Maserati Spyder over the winter as a potential replacement for my XK8. It is similar in many respects but smaller - it's a true 2 seater. In my view the Jaguar is "interesting and unusual" while the Maserati is "exotic" mostly by virture of it's small build numbers. In person, the Maserati just didn't do it for me, it was a bit "flat" I guess and looks better in pictures. The XK8 is a much better looking car to my eye.

 

I guess we also need to add another parameter--depends on where you are located. In Stockton California a BMW 3 series might be considered an exotic (no offense to Stockton). In Los Angeles not so much.

Doug

 

In our metro area (350,000) the Jaguar dealer who is also Audi, Mercedes, Porsche, Lexus and a dozen other makes, may have three or four on the lot. Usually there is one XK in the show room. Since I purchased mine I've seen five XKR and XK8s in the last year and one was at a dealer who was loading it up to take to auction. We have a British car show in August and there has never been a XKR or XK8 entered out of about 100 cars. The Jaguar dealer will bring two of his new cars to display.So in the Quad City area you could consider the XKs an exotic.

 

If build numbers are part of the equation then are coupes more exotic than convertibles?

coupe owner

 

So true. A blond haired busty girl is not exotic in Switzerland, nor is a beautiful Asian girl in Tokyo or San Fransisco.

Exotic is in the eye of the beholder?

 

In my opinion the coupes are much more exotic because they have a much sexier line to them...and because there are so few of them in them in the US. I get tons of comments on my car, many followed by a "Wow, I've never seen one of those" when I tell them what it is. I actually had a guy in an XK8 ask me what kind of Jag it was in a gas station one day...go figure!

 

They have various car categories for "luxury" now... maybe we should call these cars "near exotic" or "entry level exotic"

 

That's hilarious. And kind of sad at the same time. I guess it confirms that the new Jaguar designs have no continuity from the old ones.