Mayan Apocalypse: 10 Cars To Lease (Just) Before The World Ends

If the Mayans were correct, the world will come to an end in just 17 days.

Though the specific event is open to interpretation, colliding with a planet called Nibiru, being swallowed by a black hole or suffering through a sudden loss of gravity will all produce the same results, and none of us will need to worry about packing on extra holiday pounds.

There’s a very good chance that the coming Mayan Apocalypse was nothing more than a rounding error, or a simple we’ve-run-out-of-space-in-the-calendar kind of thing, because let’s be honest: none of us would do well planning events a thousand years in the future.

We’ll be at our desks on December 21, keyboards in hand, banging out the steady stream of automotive news that you’ve come to depend on us for.

On the off-hand chance that we’re wrong about the whole end-of-the-world thing, we’ve compiled a helpful list of cars we’d lease over the next two and a half weeks if we truly believed the world were ending.

We’ve got good credit, and money certainly isn’t a concern if you’re not around to make that first lease payment. In no particular order, below are the rides we’d be shopping for.

Rolls-Royce Phantom: Because no other car on the planet says “conspicuous consumption” quite as well as a Rolls-Royce Phantom, we’d be content to head on into the last sunrise behind the wheel of Goodwood’s finest. Since most Phantoms are built to order (and we simply don’t have that kind of time), we’d gladly settle for a used model, as long as it was tastefully appointed.

Ferrari 458 Italia: To be honest, most Ferraris simply don’t do it for us these days. Sure, we recognize their appeal, but long for the days when going fast behind the wheel of a prancing horse was more about the driver than sophisticated electronics. The exception to this rule is the 458 Italia, a car we find as beautiful as any to ever come out of Maranello. The ability to listen to its sonorous 4.5-liter V-8 on song for a final few weeks would allow us to go gently enough into that good night.

Lamborghini Gallardo: Sure, we’d rather have an Aventador than the Gallardo, but the Aventador has an 18-month waiting list, and that’s 17.5 months more than we’ve got. By default, then, we’d take the Lamborghini Gallardo, which should be available from most dealers’ inventory, and spend our final time on earth learning how to drive in a manner that would make Valentino Balboni proud.