THE FAST AND THE SPURIOUS

Ohio GOP Senate hopeful Bernie Moreno built an empire selling cars-and stiffing workers.

- ABBY VESOULIS

THE 2015 Aston Martin Vulcan can go from zero to 60 in 2.9 seconds and maxes out at 208 mph. Only 24 of the two-door, two-seater carbon-fiber British speedsters were ever made, each with a $2.3 million price tag.

They also aren’t street legal in the United States. Since the car doesn’t comply with the Clean Air Act’s emissions standards, importing one requires an epa exemption. Aston Martin was granted just nine between March 2015 and February 2017, on the condition they be used “solely for competition.”

But on a sunny day in November 2015, Bernie Moreno took a shiny new cherry-red Vulcan—part of his “personal collection,” a local reporter noted—for a spin outside Cleveland. At least three police cars escorted Moreno down usually busy suburban streets.

At the time, the flashy outing helped publicize Moreno’s massive portfolio of car dealerships in Ohio, where the multimillionaire is currently the Republican nominee for US Senate. Those dealerships, along with others in Florida, Kentucky, and Massachusetts, helped make Moreno a very wealthy man. So far, he’s loaned his own campaign $4.5 million of its $10.9 million war chest, according to Federal Election Commission reports.

Moreno’s campaign did not respond to questions about the legality of the joyride. Public records from North Olmsted, the suburb Moreno spun through, provide no indication Moreno ever paid it or its police for the escort or road closures. And while the campaign says Aston Martin was responsible for importing the car, and the company insists it did so legally, Moreno once said the opposite.

“Nobody’s here from the epa, right? Good,” Moreno winkingly asked a crowd gathered to admire the Vulcan at a 2016 event