Yes, because this is the business section, I am obliged to report on important corporate events like last week’s Daimler annual general meeting where a shareholder, Wilm Diedrich Mueller, got stuck into chairman Manfred
Bischoff for not allowing shareholders to attend in the nude.
As usual, the Daimler AGM was huge. More than 6200 mainly well dressed people packed into Berlin’s CityCube convention centre. This was 1000 more punters than last year. Perhaps in this era of reality being more exciting than fiction, shareholders were hoping to see a repeat of the action last year, when the wurst happened and the police had to break up a blue between two shareholders because one of them, as Bloomberg reported, was hogging all the sausages at the free buffet.
As part of Daimler’s cost-cutting, Bischoff allowed only two sausages per attendee. In an exclusive interview with The Weekend Australian after the 2016 punch-up, Manny said “either we need more sausages, or we’ll have to get rid of the sausages entirely”.
Clearly this ploy didn’t work because Wilm Diedrich Mueller brought his own last week. In an official resolution, Wilm put to the meeting that “each person attend the annual shareholders’ meeting in species-appropriate clothing …. I mean nakedness … purely for reasons of hygiene, each naked person should naturally carry a sauna towel with him at all times, upon which the same person sits when the same person then sits down — on a chair for example”. The resolution was surprisingly defeated.
Talking of police but not sausages, the persons in blue in Milan have confiscated a Ferrari 458 Spider from the Mafia and will use it to educate the youth of this great city on why crime doesn’t pay. Yes, I get that story.
“Listen, boys and girls, get a nice job down the road at Banca Popolare Di Milano and if you work hard, one day you can buy a Fiat Panda that goes 0 to 100km/h in 14.2 seconds. Or you can join the Mafia and within a few weeks own a Ferrari that will hit 100km/h in 2.9 seconds and attract more members of any sex than you’ve had hot espressos.” Yup, that’s a winner.
Of course, Milan is way behind Rose Bay in Sydney’s eastern suburbs where the local constabulary have been driving a BMW i8 for years. In the Australian capital of smashed avocado, the hybrid, three-cylinder with dihedral doors and a 0 to 100 time of four seconds is perfect for catching bad guys running with their hauls of quinoa, acai berries, solar panels and old coal.
Talking of bad guys, the British insurer Halo Insurance Services has worked out the Fast & Furious film producers have done more than $700 million worth of damage to cars, building and assorted assets. On the way, the gang have damaged 169 cars, destroyed 142 more and demolished 37 buildings.
“Our research proves that each movie did, in fact, get faster, more furious, and a whole lot costlier, with a grand total of £419,446,914 worth of colossal damage. Surprisingly, Jason Statham’s character, Deckard Shaw, caused the most damage out of everyone, even though he only played a major role in Furious 7 (seeking vengeance after his brother, Owen, was thrown from a plane in Fast & Furious 6)”, Halo said.
Talking of demolition derbies, F1 this weekend is on the sweet Shanghai track (that’s in China) where it will still be a Ferrari/ Mercedes battle. Virgin V8 Supercars are on the very tough Symmons Plains Raceway track just outside Lonnie (the Shanghai of north Tasmania) and a few weeks away, all around Tassie is Targa Tasmania.
In the Targa, keep an eye on perpetual winners, Jim Richards and Barry Oliver in their GT3 RS, pet food and lolly maker Tony Quinn and Naomi Tillett in their Porsche, and our choice Stuart McAuley and Philippe Etienne in their 1985 Porker.
Talking of Porkers, classic car values have stabilised. The heat in the market has moved from big ticket older collectibles to the last of the air-cooled Porsches and more recent Ferraris. On the other hand, India’s Tata has moved into the collector market: restored first generation Range Rovers (a really crook car) start at $20,000 and early E-Types at $450,000.
And following the editor’s directive last week to be more smashed avocado reader friendly, this week we are backing the controversial campaign by Lotus Cars to get racing helmets on every pet. Lotus boss Jean-Marc Gales said “after extensive and hair-raising time trials, Lotus has developed its new lifestyle range of stylish helmets for cats to be both practical and desirable’’.
This is a shortened version of the original article – read the rest at The Australian
