What a great time to announce a European IPO.

Well, our friends at VW were really forced into telling everyone that they were planning to list 25 per cent of the Porker company because everyone knew anyway. Investor relations is not one of VW or the Porsche family's key skills.

But you can see the problem of trying to keep things shtum when the Porsche-Piech family own 53 per cent, the state of Lower Saxony (helmed by Ministerpräsident Steve Weil) owns 20 per cent and the nation of Qatar (with His Excellency sheik Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani in charge) hold 10 per cent. And despite Herbie Diess, the boss of VW, saying that an IPO of Porsche "would give us additional flexibility to further accelerate the transformation (to electric self-drive)", the explanation is really much simpler.

VW has a market cap of $136bn. If Porsche was a standalone listed company it would have a market cap of $140bn. In other words, one of the world's smallest carmakers is worth more than one of the world's biggest (which owns it). Let's put it another way. VW turn out nine million cars a year. Porsche only makes 300,000 but that 3 per cent of cars generates 35 per cent of VW's pre-tax profit for the whole group. That's why VW shares are selling at a discount. Specialists outperform generalists over time.

So when what is now Stellantis, the multi-car conglomerate, listed its 10 per cent of Ferrari for $76 a share in 2015 the market laughed. Recently the stock touched $370. Feezer is more valuable than most of the luxury purse, sparkling French and perfume brands and sells at 39 times earnings versus Merc at seven times.

Anyway, the Porker float will be up against the McLaren and Lotus IPOs, which will probably be as successful as the Aston Martin float.

In October 2018 when the James Bond carmaker was listing in London, then Aston Martin chief executive Andy Palmer told the media: "We don't make cars, we make dreams." Those dreams included electric flying cars, Aston Martin-branded houses, a submarine and making money.

The float valued the company at $9bn which was a nice little earner for the owners who had paid $1bn for it a few years earlier. But as you know, in business history doesn't count and dreamy punters paid $33 a share that then wallowed around $2, going as low as 40c before closing yesterday at $11. Anyway, what's a loss of $8bn between petrol heads for a company that's gone belly up seven times in 106 years.

But, if you really want to cry, think about what is now the world's most valuable company. Get ready to vomit. It makes electric cars (and rockets). It listed in June 2010 offering shares at $20. For three years you could buy as many as you wanted for between $3 and $10. Recently they hit $1500 making Tesla, the silent car and noisy rocket company, worth over $1 trillion. Toyota and VW are the second and third most valuable carmakers.

Still, if you buy one – or any iPad-holder on wheels – get ready for trouble. Our favourite consumer organisation, Which? in the UK, reports that electric cars are more likely to develop a fault than petrol or diesel models. More than 30 per cent of electric car owners reported a problem with their vehicle in its first four years compared with 19 per cent of petrol car owners and 29 per cent of diesel drivers.

Now, while Hamo, Mad Max and all your other favourites from the F1 reality TV series are testing their new non-electric vehicles in the desert of Bahrain today, the real star of world motorsport, Shane van Gisbergen, has been testing rally cars in Canberra (the Bahrain of Australia). Like many other famous Australians (Russell Crowe, Sam Neill, Keith Urban, Greg Murphy, Jim Richards and Ned Kelly) Shane is actually a Kiwi.