Personal Velocity

Price: $185,000

[Top Speed: 250 mph Price-To-Speed Ratio: $740/mph]

History: In 1998 MTT decided to put an engine from a Bell Jet Ranger helicopter into a two-wheeled frame. Jay Leno heard about the bike on Speedvision, called the company and said, "I belong to the more-money-than-brains club. Send me one."

Hidden Maintenance Cost: Negligible. Turbines are designed to operate at full throttle for thousands of hours. Flat out, the Y2K sucks in 52.63 cubic feet of air per second (that's 52.63 cubic feet of pollution if you live in Los Angeles). Periodically you have to do a turbine wash--spray the rotor with 409 cleaner.

Numbers To Drop Casually Into Conversation: 320 hp at 52,000 rpm, That's right, 52,000 rpm. Goes from zero to 227 mph in 15 seconds 425 foot-pounds of torque at 2000 rpm, almost equal to a Viper. One owner claims he was clocked at 217 mph through a speed trap in Oregon. The posted speed limit: 55. Price of ticket: $10,000.

Nice Details: Clients can order front and back radar detectors, plus jamming devices.

Sour Grapes: This is the only bike that shuts the Harley guys right up. of course, if you're on a budget, a Kawasaki Ninja ZX-12R will give you 185 mph for about $11,000.

Road Test: "This is unlike any other ride. With most vehicles, the faster you go, the slower the acceleration. Zero to 60 is fast, 60 to 90 a little less, and so forth. The Y2K just keeps getting faster. Roll it on. You hear the fire down below, the turbine spooling up. The sound doesn't change. You never hit that 5000 rpm ceiling, that growl, like you would with a piston engine. You pass someone, they go, Whoa, what was that? At 175 mph you think you're doing 80. This is not a machine where you think, Just because I can afford it, I must be good. There are things you have to learn that are unique to this motorcycle. There's no compression braking. You enter a corner you have to disengage the engine with a button. The exhaust comes out of the pipes at 800 to 1200 degrees. An Infiniti owner once tried to crowd me at a stoplight. I watched his front bumper melt."

Jay Leno, comedian and motorhead

Price: $750,000

[Top Speed: 191 mph Price-to-Speed Ratio: $3927/mph]

History: Hand-built beauty. Simply the fastest production pleasure boat in the world. Skaters have won more than 1000 offshore-racing titles, the kind of events that journalists describe with three sentence fragments: "Skull-rumbling noise. Whooshing rooster tails. Really flashy paint jobs."

Waiting Period: Ten grand will reserve a start date; a $50,000 deposit is required once production starts. The boat is in the mold for eight weeks; there's a wait of six to eight months for delivery.

Maintenance Shock: Douglas recommends having the higher-bred motors freshened after 75 hours of use. Cost $25,000 to $30,000.

Numbers to Drop Casually into Conversation: Two 1450 Sterling engines. Slam the throttle and the boat goes from 60 to 170 in 10 seconds. These boats will go 130 to 150 all day, but if you operate at 6000 rpm for more than a few minutes, you are putting your life at risk. Offshore racing may be the most grueling sport, subjecting the human body to up to 10 gs. These are spinal compression, NASA rocket-sled figures.

Nice Details: The boat comes with three speedometer readouts, including a GPS unit plus a gauge for the passengers. Seats five or six. Some models offer front and rear TV cameras for better visibility, as well as separate oxygen supplies for each passenger. The full race version uses a canopy from an F-16 fighter.

Sour Grapes: What, no tow rope for the water-skier? If $750,000 is too steep for you, Douglas makes a full line of Skaters. You can get one that will run 130 mph for between $200,000 and $300 000. These are not the kind of boats you take bass fishing. And one owner noted this downside: You can't leave a million-dollar boat hitched to a buoy or to a dock. You'd better trailer it over to the bank vault.

Road Test: "I drive cars at 200 mph all the time, in a controlled environment with flagmen and barricades. It's my office. I don't get excited by cars. This boat, on the other hand, gets my attention. The only place left where there are no speed limits is the water. At 160 mph it's pretty hair-raising. It's like 200 in a car, but with a greater sensation of speed. A car has a tiny contact patch, the four tires, but the motors have to push the whole boat through the water. It takes two guys to sustain 150--one to watch the throttle and trim and keep an eye on the gauge package, the other to steer and watch for swells or wakes. I like to take the boat down to Lake Mead with my girlfriend and let people look at us all day."

--Paul Tracy, Cart driver

Price: $1 million

[Top Speed: 240 mph Price-to-Speed Ratio: $4167/mph]

History: McLaren technical director Gordon Murray wanted to build the ultimate road car. He succeeded. When orders for the million-dollar missile failed to materialize, he converted the F1 to a track car and dominated the GT circuit for years. The company closed the production line in 1998, after making only about 100 vehicles. There are seven of these cars in the U.S. Jay Leno has one. Ralph Lauren has two.

Waiting List: So, you have something against buying a used car? McLarens do change hands--about two a year. The company will completely refurbish a used F1 (custom-fitting the seat to the new owner, changing the color and trim, etc.), for about $160,000.

Numbers to Drop Casually into Conversation: 627-horsepower V12. Zero to 60 in 3.1 seconds. Zero to 150 in 12.8 seconds. Zero to 200 in 28 seconds.

Nice Details: The McLaren comes with a titanium tool kit, custom luggage and a lightweight sound system. The driver sits in the middle, passengers on either side. This is a babe magnet for ménages à trois.

Maintenance Demons: You don't take this baby to Jiffy Lube for an oil change.

Sour Grapes: Yeah, it's a used car. But the closest contender, the Enzo Ferrari, costs $675,000, only goes 220 mph, and all 400 production cars were presold to clients who already own two or three Ferraris. The Enzo looks like an anteater. All the other car show concept vehicles--the Bugatti Veyron, the Porsche Carrera GT--are yet to be tested. None will match the McLaren.

Road Test "This is the greatest car ever built or likely to be built. It's the kind of car you make a date with, set aside special time, like Sunday night after midnight. As for the sense of speed, there isn't one. I have a tape of a guy driving the F1 at 240 mph. I continually find myself going 100, 110 on the freeway, when the car feels like it's doing 50. I own a lot of cars that feel faster. I have an old Morgan three-wheeler, low to the ground, that has a sound like you're driving a Gatling gun. I once came around a corner and saw a cop with a radar gun and thought, Gee, there's a ticket. How fast was I going, officer? Thirty-five miles per hour. The only downside to the McLaren is a sense of uninvolvement. It's made of carbon fiber. I can't tinker with it, like I can with my 200 mph Corvette. The shop doesn't have an autoclave."

Jay Leno

Price: $20 million

[Top Speed: 606 mph (Mach 0.92) Price-to-Speed Ratio: $33,000/mph]

History: In 1990 Cessna announced plans to build the ultimate corporate jet It delivered one to Arnold Palmer in 1996. More than 200 are currently in the air, piloted by guys like director Sydney Pollack and financier Steve Fossett. This is the fastest airplane not paid for by the taxpayer Unfortunately, the X is a Roman numeral 10, not a logo for an extreme sport vehicle.

Waiting Period: Not too bad, but the price includes training for one crew. You're required to have logged 2500 hours before you can even afford to get in the cockpit.

Numbers to Drop Casually into Conversation:

Mach 0.92 is 10.1 miles per minute, 888.87 feet per second. Most .45-caliber bullets travel 870 feet or less per second. According to Ed Parrish, company spokesperson, "The Citation X literally is faster than a speeding bullet. Not to mention, .45-caliber bullets don't have anywhere near the Citation X's range or passenger capacity."

Maintenance Demons: Cost of operating a Citation X is about 70 cents a mile. Main problem: The FAA requires a second pilot. Who do you know who would sit there and watch you fly the plane?

Nice Detail: The telephone number you call for service? 1--800-MACH-PT9. You can fly from San Francisco to New York with a dozen of your friends and be back the same day. of course, then your girlfriend will expect you to be back the same day.

Sour Grapes: Are you kidding?

Road Test: "People mistakenly think I'm a thrill seeker, but that's not on my agenda. I fly for the sense of accomplishment. Airspace is regulated completely; when you climb into the cockpit of the X you enter a highly professional environment. When I first saw the plane, I thought it was ugly. Then they told me what it would do and I fell in love. There's no real sense of speed in the Citation X. When I take off, I'm eager to get up to altitude, to get into the wind pattern. For the transcontinental record we hit 726 mph with the jet stream. It's more an awareness that you're eating up the ground, how fast you approach air traffic control areas, how quickly your destination comes up on the horizon. You feel the pressure."

--Steve Fossett, adventurer and world record holder

Where and how to Buy on Page 148.