That time when I slept outside of a Lamborghini dealer

Have you ever done things when you were younger that you regret when you get older? I’m sure that lots of us regret things we did because I know I have. However this is not one of those times. I slept outside of a Lamborghini dealer in my car in Vancouver one evening and it was one of the greatest nights of my life.

Back in the summer of 2008 I was on summer break from my first year of university and the job I had held a retreat for a weekend in Vancouver, BC. I had planned to share a hotel room with some friends of mine, however that didn’t pan out and so I decided not to book a different hotel room. I was extremely frugal and didn’t want to bear the full cost of a hotel room in Vancouver, which is expensive enough as it is. Luckily it was summer and so it was nice and warm so I decided to head just sleep in my car. I’d done it before, like I described in That time when I went to an IndyCar race! and several other occasions throughout my late teens and early 20’s while travelling, so I didn’t think much of it. I wasn’t very familiar with Vancouver at the time and so I knew that I’d need to leave downtown to find a good place to park for the night.

I decided to head out towards Yaletown and Granville Island, one of the areas I was familiar with at the time. Much to my delight, as I crossed the bridged onto the mainland out of downtown Vancouver I came across an area of the city that made my heart skip a few beats. I had come across the area where the supercar dealerships are. Just south west of Granville Island is an area of the city where Rolls Royce, Ferrari and Lamborghini all have dealerships.

Now, as someone who had been born and raised in Saskatchewan the most exotic car dealer I’d ever seen was a Lexus or BMW dealer. And while I had seen a few supercars from my time in Calgary and from traveling throughout the world I had never had a chance to be up close and personal with so many and once. I felt like a kid in a massive candy store! I hadn’t planned on it but I instantly decided to spend the night parked up outside of one of these supercar palaces.

After driving around for a little while trying to figure out what my best option was I made my choice. And while I am a HUGE Ferrari fan I decided to park up next to the Lamborghini dealer. The reasons I chose Lambo instead of the prancing horse was because (A) the parking was better next to Lamborghini and (B) I got this weird feeling about trespassing at the Ferrari dealer.

Truly I had a hard time sleeping that night. Not only was I jittery from excitement from seeing so many of the cars I lusted over, but I was also really uncomfortable from sleeping in my 1998 Honda Civic coupe. I fell asleep after midnight and woke up just after dawn at around 5 am. I spent much of the next 2 hours wandering around looking through the glass windows of the dealerships imagining what it would be like to drive one of those cars. This was the are of the Lamborghini Murciélago and Gallardo and the Ferrari F430 and 599 GTB. Since I was already a massive Formula 1 fan this I was in full on fan boy mode.

I spent 2 nights sleeping there, the next night much the same as the first. After the weekend was done my friends and I packed into my car and drove home to Saskatoon. I feel as though I was fueled by the adrenaline of spending time near the objects of my desire that we almost drove all the way home in 1 go, nearly 20 hours of driving.

While I haven’t slept in my car outside of any supercar dealerships since then I have had a lot more opportunities to spend time around sports and supercars. This has continued to fuel my drive to one day own a supercar of my own.

Do you have any interesting stories to tell about your passion for cars? Let me know in the comments!