Larry Ellison, inventor of Oracle and now a self-made millionaire, is a Silicon Valley legend whose life has been full of colorful episodes that have grabbed the attention of the media. Ellison’s outrageous behavior and antics frequently drew more attention to him than his actual accomplishments to the field of technology did.
Within the industry as well as the media, his activities have been the subject of controversy and debate for a considerable amount of time. The computer tycoon is also well-known for the opulent way he lives his life.
Ellison is the owner of numerous superyachts, a fleet of private planes, a Mig-29 fighter jet, and a collection of rare and expensive automobiles. In addition, he is the owner of an island in Hawaii.
However, there was a specific sports car that Ellison adored so much that he not only possessed many versions of it, but he also ended up gifting several of them to his friends and acquaintances. This particular sports car was the Ferrari 250 GTO.
Ellison’s personal automobile collection includes featured rare exotics such as the Ferrari Enzo, Lexus LFA, and even a McLaren F1, which was sold at auction for a staggering $3.6 million just a year ago.
The collection has been built up over the course of many years. When the billionaire tried to get a phony smog certificate for his McLaren F1 sports car, the local authorities confronted him and took him to task for his actions.
According to the Oracle CEO’s biography titled “The Difference Between God and Larry Ellison: God Doesn’t Think He’s Larry Ellison,” he wanted a more reliable replacement for his Ferrari.
The following is an excerpt from the biography written by Mike Wilson, in which the author discusses how the millionaire decided to purchase the Japanese sports car: “Ellison’s Ferraris kept catching fire on him, so he took Adelyn Lee, who was working for Oracle at the time, with him to test drive an Acura NSX sports vehicle.
It was a low-slung two-seater that was capable of reaching seventy miles per hour before you even got out of the garage. Because he had such a strong affinity for the NSX, he ended up purchasing not just one but two of them in quick succession.
Larry Ellison reportedly owned 7 different Acura NSX sports cars over the years. The most notable of them was the 1996 NSX-T. It was a unique factory custom-built edition finished in Sebring Silver, which was not officially available in the US back in those days.
The car was sold in 2001 with under 13,000 miles. Interestingly, Ellison also gifted a few of these $80,000 sports cars every year of the model’s 15-year production run to his friends and his best-performing employees, according to a report by Complex magazine.
The sports car originally came equipped with an all-aluminum 3.0 liter V6 engine that produced 270 horsepower. However, this engine was later swapped out for a larger 3.2 liter V6 engine that produced 290 horsepower. In comparison to today’s high-performance sports automobiles, the vehicle’s power output may not have been very impressive; yet, the vehicle’s acceleration and braking times were astounding.
The precision handling of the Acura NSX was one of its most impressive features, which is not surprising given that it was designed with contributions from the late Ayrton Senna, who won the world championship in Formula One. In contrast to contemporary European and American sports vehicles of the same era, the NSX was renowned for being both user-friendly and reliable.
This set it apart from its competitors. Because of the overwhelming demand for the Japanese sports vehicle, Honda was compelled to release a second generation model in 2015, which made its premiere.
25 years later, Larry Ellison seems to have moved away from an Acura to a Lexus supercar. He has been spotted numerous times behind the wheel of a $400,000 Lexus LFA. Limited to just 500 units it is powered by a thunderous V10 engine developed with Yamaha, it delivers 553 horsepower at 9,000 RPM and goes from a standstill to 60 mph in just 3.6 seconds.