The Boy Racer Surprise
Whether it’s family dinnertime or a Sunday outing, kids these days seem to be forever glued to their pocket-sized, touchscreen gizmobots. It’s little short of a miracle they aren’t constantly running smack, bang, wallop into lampposts really.
Calvin, 48, certainly knew what he was up against. The salt-and-pepper-haired dad wanted to spend some quality father-and-son time with his 13-year-old Kye, without the usual Morse code of text and Facebook pings hijacking the boy’s attention.
As the spell of the smartphone would be difficult to break, Calvin had to bring out the big guns. He needed a special something to make an impression; something slicker and flashier that the iPhone; something that would give 5G super speed a run for its money and boast oodles of high-tech wizardry to boot.
But who to turn to for help? After much cogitating, Calvin concluded there was only one legendary team capable of giving a floundering father a hand, and that team went by the name of AutoXotica.
ENTER GODZILLA
Since launching in 2016, the AutoXotica supercar club based at the historic Donington Park has made it its mission to bring supercars to the masses. So when Calvin contacted them, asking for assistance in planning a little supercar surprise for his son, the team jumped at the opportunity.
As Calvin explained, Kye took supercars quite seriously. The boy certainly knew his Bentleys from his Bugattis. So if they were going to impress him, they’d need a real beauty to capture his imagination, possibly his all-time favourite even – the ultra-cool Nissan GT-R.
The Nissan GT-R is a Japanese motoring beast and every boy racer’s dream car. From its spoiler-clad tail to its snarling front splitter, the GT-R bristles with muscle, intent and technology. This is a car that packs unbridled power, egging whoever is fortunate enough to sit behind its carbon fibre steering wheel to push it harder and faster. No wonder it’s nicknamed Godzilla. As luck would have it, AutoXotica had the very thing in their fleet, a twin-turboed V6 monster sporting a dragon-fire red paintjob.
The easy part was sorted. But they couldn’t just pull up right outside Kye’s doorstep. Where would the fun be in that? As with every great surprise, half of the impact lies in an expertly engineered build-up. So Calvin and AutoXotica put their heads together and got busy planning.
DREAM CAR, DREAM DAY
It’s a Saturday morning. Calvin and Kye are walking down their local Coventry high street, dad professing to have some errands to run. They take a turn, head down a quiet side road, and as they walk past the parked Ford and Vauxhall hatchbacks, they spot something a little more enticing a few yards away. It’s red. It gleams. It is unmistakably the one and only GT-R.
‘Wow, look at that,’ dad points out. ‘That’s nice, isn’t it?’
Kye merely nods, not quite understanding why a superstar sports car is parked in a humdrum lane in his hometown. Dad whips a key fob out from his jacket pocket. With a push of a button, he deactivates the central locking.
‘No!’, Kye says.
Dad nods. Points to the carbon-fibre door.
‘Nooooo!’ Kye repeats. The boy tentatively clutches the pristinely polished handle of his dream car. He tugs gently. Open sesame!
‘Niiiiice.’
Father and son spend some time gawping at the sleek, cutting-edge bodywork, before hopping inside. The interiors are akin to a fighter-pilot cockpit, a galaxy of controls laid before them and an infotainment system designed by none other than Polyphony Digital, the very same studio behind the Gran Turismo video game franchise.
Dad fires Godzilla up and revs the 3.8-litre engine a couple of times for good measure. Impressive. They leave Coventry in the rear view mirror and enjoy a silky smooth ride to the AutoXotica HQ in beautiful Derbyshire, where more surprises lie in wait. Upon arrival, the pair are greeted by one of AutoXotica’s pro drivers who spends some time with Kye, showing him the ins and outs of the car, before taking him for a white-knuckle spin on the Donington track to demonstrate what the GT-R is truly capable of. Given the infectious smile on his face, Kye can’t quite believe how this day has turned out.
‘It’s been amazing!’ he enthuses at the end of a jam-packed afternoon. ‘Just the fact that I get to be in my dream car and spend the day with my dad. It has been fun.’
As for the smartphones… well aside from taking a few pictures with the GT-R and the rest of the supercar club’s fleet – how could he not? – Kye’s phone was a faint blip on his radar that day.
So it appears it’s another job well done for team AutoXotica. But the mission is far from over. As always, the search continues for more supercar moments to share with great people. If you know someone who deserves a surprise of a lifetime, then get in touch with the team at [email] and help make another supercar dream come true.