Knuckleheads, electric-vehicle madness and VW's bid to make Porker sporty

Three boring things about the worst mechanical combination ever invented – two wheels and one engine; cars that will last you 300,000km or more; Porsche buys some of Bugatti from VW, which owns Porsche (but will list it separately soon) and then sets up a joint venture between Bugatti and Rimac, which is a technology powerhouse in Croatia focused on designing, engineering and producing electric hypercars; is Melbourne stuffed?

OK, it's that time of the year where I have to write something nice about two wheels and the temporary Australians (like my boss and the even bigger boss) who sit astride them dressed all in leather thinking, well desperately hoping, they look like James Dean, Marlon Brando, Angelina Jolie or more likely Cher.

Bonhams in Los Angeles is finishing up its collectors' motorcycles online auction where a couple of Knuckleheads (Harley-Davidsons) from the late 30s and 40s are looking for $70k each. The Knuckleheads stayed in production for 12 years, were good for a bit over 200km/h and were said to be the bikes that saved the company.

Sorry if I lost you in the Porker promo earlier. Here's what's happening. VW owns Volkswagen, Audi, SEAT, Skoda, Bentley, Bugatti, Lamborghini, Porsche, Ducati and some truck companies. Like the others, VW is rushing headlong into electric, driverless, digital mobility which is going to cost billions as they close down real engine plants, lay off real workers and buy billions of extension cords.

So the VW bosses looked at how Fiat Chrysler (now commonly known as Stellantis) had floated off the Feezer company and thought "if we make Porker a separate sporty looking company, we could rake in $100bn and pay for all those extension cords". So, they are putting the sporty brands like Bugatti and Rimac together in a company run by Mr or Ms Porker. In a stroke of genius only a very highly paid marketing person could come up with, they are naming the new biz Bugatti-Rimac.

I have nothing against SDL or NZ or Melbourne. But you can judge a place by its people. And the people of Melbourne have taken to the scourge of electric vehicles like starving souls to a souvlaki. TheDriven.io tells us that there are 150,000 of the silent assassins (SAs) wandering around the streets of suburbs like (no prizes here) Toorak, Burnley and Hawksburn. In fact, Victorian suburbs occupy seven spots out of the top 10 suburbs for SAs. Thankfully the rest of Australians are not being sucked in by the battery brigade and only about 0.7 per cent of new vehicles sold are SAs.