Inside Apprentice winner Joseph Valente’s car history including ‘spaceship’ Ferrari – & why he’ll never buy a supercar
APPRENTICE winner Joseph Valente has revealed his stunning car history, including a ‘spaceship’ Ferrari.
Speaking exclusively to Sun Motors, the entrepreneur and TV star also revealed why he would never buy a supercar.
Joseph, who won the BBC competition in 2015 and now runs a multi-million pound business empire, explained that, after driving basically everything on the market, he doesn’t see as much value in high-end cars as you might imagine.
He told The Sun: “I’ve driven every single supercar there is, bar Bugattis.
“The supercars that I’ve hired over the years have been Lamborghini [Huracan] STOs, Ferraris, Rolls-Royce Cullinans, G-Wagons.
“The fastest one I would say was the Ferrari Stradale.
“It was like driving a spaceship, you put your foot to the floor and you feel like you’re launching into the atmosphere.”
However, the business mogul made clear that he always leases or rents his supercars to “treat like toys” and was sceptical about the prospect of actually buying one.
He explained: “These supercars are great for a short period of time.
“They are just so impractical for everyday use.
“They’re hard to get into, they’re a little bit clunky inside, they’re never the smoothest of drives.
“My advice is not to get one…you don’t want to be in the position of trying to flip these cars.
“For every supercar you buy…you’re going to end up losing anything from £20,000 to £50,000 just by trading it back in to get the next one.
“You want to be hiring out, leasing, joining a supercar club…then you’re able to change them as and when you like.”
And despite his appreciation of ultra-fast motors, Joseph’s true motoring love is his everyday car – a Range Rover Sport SVR.
He added: “It’s fast, it’s comfortable, it looks good.
“I don’t think there is a practical everyday car out there in the market that matches that car.
“That’s the one for me.”
I fell in love with the car straight away
Joseph Valente
It wasn’t always £70,000 Range Rovers and £370,000 Ferraris for Joseph though.
Growing up in self-confessed “poverty”, he admits to seeing fast cars as “status symbols” and the trappings of the sort of “generational wealth” he wanted to create through business.
But the roots of his motoring passion run deep, all the way back to a surprisingly humble first car.
He recalled: “The second I turned 17 I wanted my driver’s licence.
“I think it was on my birthday I did my first lesson and I passed my test first time.
“I remember I had been saving up some money… there was this guy in my area who bought second-hand cars and did them up.
“We went and saw him and he had this little white [VW] Polo in his garage.
“I fell in love with the car straight away.
Joseph immediately coughed up the £600 asking price and, despite a broken heater and a brief time out of action when he blew up the engine trying to do a burnout, he treasured it as his “baby” for several years.
