An Asturian is setting up a garage with dream supercars in Monaco: Fernando Alonso

That a Formula 1 driver like Fernando Alonso buys a sports car is not something that should attract attention. However, when these purchases occur over time and refer to some of the most iconic classic cars or the most spectacular hypercars on the market, the result is one of the best collections of cars. Alonso has surprised everyone with his latest acquisition: a Lamborghini Sián FKP 37the Italian brand’s most extreme hybrid supercar, of which only 63 units have been manufactured in the world. This car, which costs more than 4 million euros in the current market, has the license plate number 14, a personal nod from the Asturian driver to the number he wears on his helmet. The Lamborghini supercar joins the two-time world champion’s spectacular car collection in Monaco, where he lives and can be seen behind the wheel of these jewels. Lamborghini Sian FKP 37: the newcomer Alonso has been seen on the streets of Monaco at the wheel of one of the most technological bulls that have come out of Sant’Agata Bolognese: the Lamborghini Sián FKP 37. Lamborghini’s limited edition hypercar combines a 6.5-liter, 785 HP naturally aspirated V12 engine with an electrical system based on supercapacitors that raises total power to 819 HP. It accelerates from 0 to 100 km/h in 2.8 seconds and exceeds 355 km/h maximum speed. There are only 63 coupes of this model, a number that is not coincidental since it pays tribute to the year 1963, when Lamborghini began manufacturing sports cars. This model began production in 2019 and its selling price was 3.3 million euros. However, its exclusivity and appeal to collectors have caused its price to skyrocket to well over 4 million euros. Tap on the image to go to the original message The Instagram account @monaco_luxurystyle captured the moment in which the Asturian pilot he got off of the exclusive Lamborghini with the 14 on its license plate on the streets of Monaco. Classic vintage Ferraris In recent months, Alonso has expanded his garage with classic cars such as the Ferrari 512 TR as the one Michael Jordan drove in the 90s, which represents his taste for the Italian classics of the firm Il Cavallino. The 512 TR was the evolution of the Ferrari Testarrosa powered by a V12 engine that delivered 428 HP of pure fun. Shortly after, was seen driving another legend through the streets of Monaco: a Ferrari F40 with its license plate F014, a beast from the 80s known for the brutality of its V8 biturbo engine that delivered 478 HP with just over 1100 kg of weight, and for being the last one that had the approval of Enzo Ferrari. There are not only Ferraris: also exclusive Mercedes-Benz and Fords The two-time champion’s garage is not only nourished by the Italian automobile industry. Among its latest additions we also find a Mercedes-Benz CLK GTRone of the most extreme and exclusive cars of the German firm, of which only 26 units exist. Again, the spotters were witnesses of Alonso’s rides behind the wheel of his supercars through Monaco. Mercedes manufactured these units with the sole objective of complying with the regulations for the FIA ​​GT Championship, which is the natural habitat of this hypercar from the late 90s. That is, contrary to what usually happens, the competition unit was first designed to participate in Le Mans, and was later adapted to circulate. The CLK GTR has a 6.9-liter naturally aspirated V12 engine that delivers 600 HP with a six-speed sequential gearbox. In their day, these limited units cost between 1.5 and 2 million euros. Currently, this gem is valued at about 10 million euros. Ford GT Holman Moody Edition He Ford GT Holman Moody Edition It was another of the Asturian pilot’s whims. This limited edition is a tribute to the 1966 Le Mans-winning Ford GT40 Mk II, a version that was developed from an exclusive prototype that was auctioned a few days ago. Aston Martin: playing at home In addition to the great racing classics and classic sports cars, Alonso does not neglect the interests of his team, and it is common to see him at the controls of an Aston Martin model. The most spectacular is the Valkyrie that sports the colors of Aston Martin Racing and its distinctive 014S license plate that identifies it as the property of the driver. The Valkyrie is a brutal hypercar for the track, but which is allowed to circulate on the road, not without drawbacks. Recently the brand gave him an imposing Aston Martin DBX S in black, a powerful SUV with more than 700 HP to get around in your daily life. However, the car with which Alonso feels more comfortable It is an Aston Martin Valiant, with a 745 HP biturbo V12 engine, manual transmission and configuration customized by Alonso among the 38 units that will be manufactured of this model. In Xataka | In Dubai they don’t know what to do with so many abandoned luxury supercars: the less shiny side of getting rich Image | Aston Martin, Ferrari

that of closed garage controls and owners

Paul Wieland is a restless computer scientist. A few years ago he wanted to try control your garage door with your smartphone. There were interesting commercial options such as the MyQ platform, but what he wanted was to be able to open and close it while having access to home Wi-Fi, without depending on the servers of MyQ or any other company. In 2022 he managed to develop the first prototype of his solution, which he called RAGDO (Rage Against the Garage Door Opener, or Rage Against the Garage Door Opener). Users could use home automation platforms such as HomeKit or Home Assistant easily and for free without depending on third-party servers. Depending on third parties is usually a bad idea It was just then that Chamberlain Group, the company responsible for MyQ—a service with 14 million users—decided to cut off access to third-party solutions. The connections people had set up to use their MyQ port with home automation apps from Apple or Google they stopped working. Additionally, Chamberlain began promoting subscription services with external partners, thus breaking the user experience for existing customers. A RAGDO device installed on the garage opener. Source: Ratcloud LLC. These changes were highly criticized by thousands of users who saw how their hardware products lost functionality, although the basic door opening seemed to continue working in the free version of MyQ. At that time, sales of RAGDO – which offered a great solution to the problem – skyrocketed. From believing he would sell 100, Wieland found that he was selling tens of thousands of his devices. This expert commented in The New York Times How RAGDO’s success is due to a widespread frustration: companies sell Internet-connected hardware, but once they get a large enough user base, they modify or use it to “squeeze” customers with forced subscriptions that tend to take control away from users. It’s something we’ve seen numerous times in the recent past. Google announced in April that its first-generation Nest smart thermostats they would become “dumb” thermostatsand the controversy with absurd subscriptions is famous for example in the field of cars: BMW charges extra for heated seats and Mercedes for offering a larger turning radius for the wheels of some of its models or, simply, to run more. The truth is that in an ideal world you should be able to do whatever you want with the digital products you buy, but that doesn’t apply in the US. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which was created in the late 1990s, had the goal of fighting content piracy but also made it illegal to try to overcome the digital barriers that companies create to prevent their applications from being used illegally. A quarter of a century later that law remains controversial. Garage controls are the new walled gardens The problems that Wieland and the users of this type of systems have suffered in the US are not very different from those that we suffer in Spain, for example. Garage doors have been able to be opened with a remote control for decades, but this market has become a complex framework of standards and closed and proprietary solutions. While at first the controls were simple and were based on a transmitter and a receiver, the problems of that simplicity—anyone could open or close any door—led to the appearance of several iterations, such as controls with DIP switches with which it was possible to configure fixed combinations different from those of other garages, but which were also easy to end up copying. Currently the most common thing is to have control solutions with “rolling codes” or variable/evolving codes, which ensure that each signal transmitted by the remote is unique and cannot be used for unauthorized access. Security has certainly increased, but this method made numerous companies They will create their own variants of rolling codes for two reasons: one public and reasonable (to protect its users, there are no widely accepted universal standards) and another hidden (to protect the business and generate income). These designs make garage door openers, which are relatively cheap and simple to build, typically expensive for end users. The controls are not compatible between manufacturers even if they use rolling codes, because each one uses its own frequencies and modulations and proprietary code generation protocols. In some cases it is feasible to clone them with “universal remote controls”, and in fact there is a parallel industry in which locksmiths and specialized stores offer the cloning service, or we can purchase these remote controls and then program them ourselves. However, there are, for example, communities of owners in which the managers They are programmed from the switchboardnot from the remote, which prevents cloning the remote without an administrator registering the code on the receiver. The queries in various discussion forums They show that there are many doubts about what works and what doesn’t, and there are not many trivial solutions beyond buying the “official” remote control for each garage. There are, of course, systems that offer the alternative of using mobile applications and Wi-Fi or BLE modules connected to the garage motor. MyQ is the best example of this, but the inertia of the sector and the garage door regulations themselves They do not provide these types of solutions. It may be that the progressive adoption of home automation interconnection like Matter sooner or later I managed to propose a valid alternative, but today we continue to depend on these solutions. Image | Dushawn Jovic In Xataka | “Garage squatters”: there are people parking their cars every day in parking spaces that are not theirs

also a garage crisis

Housing is not the only real estate asset that It is more expensive In Spain. Although the garages remain in values ​​much lower than those of the houses, their sales prices have been growing at a good pace, even revaluing more than 10% (even 14%) in a matter of one year. It stands to reason. After all, they are a caramel for small investors in search of good profitability and their market is closely related to two others that said goodbye to 2024 in positive, that of The cars and Housing. Fotocasa has launched A report With some clues. A percentage: 10.2%. That is what garages have been increased on sale in Spain over the last year, 10.2%. At least according to The last report of Fotocasa, which takes as a reference the prices of December. His study is just that, a study, with his strengths and weaknesses and in which stockings that can move away from the specific values ​​of certain neighborhoods are handled; But it helps to understand how the prices of parking spaces have evolved. Especially because until not the trend ago it was the opposite: its value was in Free fall. One year: 2021. The study It shows that the turning point in the sale of garages was recorded in 2021. Until that year the market recorded prices in fall, with annual decreases ranging between almost 13% and 3.5%. In December 2021, however, Fotocasa technicians found a first year -on -year price increase of 3.4% to which uninterrupted increases have followed. The greatest of all was in 2022, with 14.5%. In 2023 it stayed at 7.5%, several points below 10.2% of last year. A value: € 13,770. In addition to showing interannual variations, the Fotocasa report recludes the prices that, on average, had the garages of Spain at the end of each exercise. And according to his accounts in December 2024 that amount was € 13,770. The fact is just that, a state average in which very different realities are combined, but it is interesting for several reasons. The main one is that according to the records of Fotocasa the cost of the garages is at its highest level since at least 2015. At that time 13,762 euros per place was charged. A region: Basque Country. There, in Euskadi, is where Fotocasa He has noted The highest average price in the country. Its technicians estimate that at the end of 2024 almost 21,100 euros per garage was charged, which places it at the head of the communities despite the fact that this amount descended slightly in recent months, with an interannual drop of 1%. The Basque Country is still at the Balearic Cost (€ 18,683) and Cantabria (16,644). In the opposite pole are Castilla-La Mancha (9,786), Murcia (9,150) and La Rioja (11,112). The highest price increases were recorded in Castilla-La Mancha, with an increase of 34.2%, followed by Murcia, with 20%. CCAA Average price 2023 (€) Average price 2024 (€) Annual variation Castilla-La Mancha 7,293 9,786 34.2% Murcia region 7,628 9,150 20% Andalusia 13.007 15,057 15.8% Cantabria 14.410 16,644 15.5% Aragon 10,994 12,684 15.4% Valencian Community 9,976 11,404 14.3% Galicia 14,016 15,673 11.8% Estremadura 13,220 14,763 11.7% Balearics 16,817 18,683 11.1% Asturias 13,571 15,046 10.9% Madrid 11,934 12,746 6.8% Navarre 12,832 13,664 6.5% Castilla y León 13,890 14,448 4% Catalonia 13,523 13,852 2.4% the Basque Country 21,320 21,097 -1% Canary Islands 13,111 12,887 -1.7% Rioja 11.318 11.112 -1.8% Spain 12,495 13,770 10.2% A capital: Gualajara. If more in detail is lowered, the real estate platform shows that last year the parking spaces were more expensive in 73% of capitals from province. Although there are two cities in that upload map that stands out on the rest for its drift: Guadalajara, with an interannual rise of 37.1%, and León (32.3%). That in percentage terms. If what we are talking about is of euros and sounds, the palm is taken by Cádiz, with an average of 26,552, followed by Donostia (25,775) and Granada (23,895). The data must be taken in any case such as what they are: references, overall photographs. Within cities there are considerable differences between neighborhoods and districts. For example, in Madrid in December, 11,500 euros were requested for a space to park in Villaverde while in the center that same value was approaching 28,000. There are even extreme cases, such as 185,000 euros They have come to ask for a place in Mallorca. One question: Why? It was not always the case. Not so much does the value of the garages accumulated collapses of almost 30% In a matter of a five years. That now its price rises even more than that of housing (Fotocasa Calculate That at the end of 2024 8.4%had been increased) is due to several factors, including their attraction for investors in search of assets that are profitable and comfortable. After all, the data of 2024, their rentals already They have been going up. “The garage places have established themselves as an attractive alternative for small savers or investors because it involves low maintenance and high profitability,” María Matos commentsof Fotocasa. “The garage purchase demand has also been strengthened due to the increase in vehicle sales, which makes them a demanded good.” A word: regulation. There are more factors that come into play, as they recognize from the real estate platform. “The regulations of recent years, restricting access to vehicles in certain areas, makes having a private square a more valued asset,” Add María Matos. She points out that the “strong interest” in the squares “contrasts” with the current level of the offer. The picture is completed with The growing demand of housing and the increase in the sale of cars, which closed 2024 with A 7.1% rise. Images | Tim Smurf (UNSPLASH) and Juan M8 (Flickr) In Xataka | “Garage Okupas”: There are people parking their car every day in parking spaces that are not theirs

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