Jay-Z may have been the biggest celebrity booster (certainly TTAC wasn’t) of the Maybach line, but the brand’s demise is going to leave Hov high and dry for new wheels. So will Hov go back to the Lexus GS that he started out with? Probably not. It’s up to the Best and Brightest to determine what will take Maybach’s place in the whip game. Perhaps something British?
Among the next candidates variously mentioned were Bentley and Rolls-Royce. But as Gucci Mane rapped this year “I coulda bought a Phantom and rolled four deeper/but I’d rather pull up solo in the yellow two-seater.”
Even though two-seat Italian exotics are growing in popularity among the hip-hop set, they lack the ability to carry a crew of your boys; or an equal number of shapely video girls. A regression to the S-Class or the 7-Series won’t do either, with such cars being the minimum required to be taken seriously as a “baller”. The Chrysler 300 had a stint as a low-cost alternative to a six-figure European sedan, but ultimately lost out to more expensive hardware. No amount of panache can withstand the stigma of a sub-$100k sticker price.
I’d like tohumbly suggest the Jaguar XJ as a possible alternative; the Maserati Quattroporte seems to have found favor among a number of rappers, and I personally think the big Brit barge is exponentially better than the Maser. Alex Dykes already evaluated the XJL Supersport, but as TTAC readers know, what we enthusiasts like doesn’t always mesh with what the rest of the world thinks. Back in August, I had an XJL Supersport for a week, and the Jag won praise from my friends Hyghly and Lamar, who have shot two of Drake’s most recent videos and done the artwork for The Weeknd’s trilogy of albums. The mahogany/mirrored rear-seat tables (for picnics, natch) and purple-velvet lined rear armrest with integrated cigar holder were big hits with the two, but neither have their drivers license yet. Over to you, Best and Brightest.