Midlife Crisis? Forget the Sports Car

There's a cliche that some mid-aged men have a "midlife crisis" and go buy a big ticket item, usually the cliche sports car.  Before you put down that deposit on the new 2020 Corvette, let me tell you about the ultimate midlife crisis-mobile, a retired F-16 fighter jet!

A company in Florida had listed a 1980 F16 Fighting Falcon for the price of $8.5 million.  It's true.  You can actually buy an older version of the jet that the USAF Thunderbirds flew at the recent Sioux Falls Airshow.

To put that $8.5 million price into perspective, the new Bugatti Centodieci super car has a sticker price of over $9 million.

Sounds crazy, but a sale like this is legal in the US, but there are some loopholes that need to be worked out.  The most obvious is all the weapons systems have been removed.

After 9/11, the US government doesn't allow citizens to directly buy retired military vehicles, they can only be imported from a NATO member or other friendly country to the US.

One other thing to consider, the F16 can cost anywhere from $7000 to $24,000 per hour to fly.  Maybe that new Corvette isn't such a bad idea after all.