Ferrari FF sells out in 50 minutes

Every year, the US department store’s Christmas catalogue features a special car among its range of fantasy gifts for the obscenely overindulged – and similarly wealthy.

This year it was a Ferrari FF priced at the equivalent of $390,000, or $90k higher than the standard one (although don’t expect to see it here at that price, given our import duties and LCT which are likely to push it to twice that price). 

The NM Fezza comes in a special ‘Grigio Caldo’dark grey colour, and includes matching custom luggage, seven years of maintenance and a snow driving experience in Aspen. 

Only 10 of the cars were available, and they were all snapped up in less than an hour.

Pretty quick but nowhere near the three minutes that disposed of last year’s Chevrolet Camaro catalogue car.

The Neiman Marcus fantasy gift section also features an annual watercraft, and this year’s is a handbuilt 27-ft Hacker speedboat for $250,000 – or a bit under $10,000/ft.

Buyers can feel a warm glow knowing that $3000 from each sale will go to the Double H Ranch charity – cofounded by Paul Newman – for children affected by life-threatening illnesses. 

Also on the ‘gift with a social conscience’ list is the WET dancing fountain, which for a mere $1,000,000 will deliver “a personal scale fountain showcasing two of its amazing underwater robotic nozzles dancing as a couple”. 

Personally, we’d prefer to drink ourselves cross-eyed and just stare at the kitchen tap – which should be dancing pretty well by about the first $100 worth.  

However that would deny Water.org the $10,000 Neiman Marcus will donate from each fountain towards providing safe drinking water and sanitation to people in developing countries.

Most of whom could probably find a better use for the million than blowing it on a stage-struck garden feature. At the $420,000 level you can opt to tour the flower shows of Europe, dragging along nine friends – presuming that floral nerds have that many.

Or any. From that price, $5000 goes to the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center for the preservation of stuff that would be considered weeds here.  And for what seems like a much more down-to-earth $75,000 you can get into a tent full of garage sale crap.

Admittedly, the catalogue’s flowery language  describes it as a canvas ‘Dream Folly’ filled with “pièces de résistance: one-of-a-kind, down-filled pillows, linen wall coverings and a custom, handcrafted crystal chandelier”.  Gold Coast caravan park, then.