Years ago I stumbled upon an article about Volkswagen which, amongst other things, referred to a letter written by a disgruntled senior VW exec to the company’s supervisory board. This chap was annoyed.
The then new boss, Ferdinand Piech, was making a bit of a nuisance of himself. A bit more than a nuisance, actually. ‘This company,’ the annoyed exec claimed, ‘is being run by a psychopath.’
Now that’s not a nice thing to say about someone. A psychopath is someone with a mental disorder, a person of abnormal behaviour. A Bond villain, perhaps, or some crazed historical army general. But the bloke who oversees, amongst other vehicles, the VW Polo? Surely not. Mind you, Piech did green-light the Bugatti Veyron. And the VW Phaeton.
Anyway, turns out that being even just a bit psychopathic isn’t necessarily a bad thing when it comes to running a big company. In fact it’s quite useful because, as the bosses of the world’s biggest banks have been discovering this week, you need to be made of pretty strong if not abnormal stuff to survive. In other words, I like my world leaders and chief executives to be slightly – how can I put it – ‘special’.
Which brings me onto Dr Uli Bez and Luca di Montezemolo. The BBC’s lawyers would like me to point out that I am not claiming that either of these high achievers is in any way shape or form psychopathic. But spend a bit of time with the CEO of Aston Martin (Bez) or the President of Ferrari (Montezemolo) and you quickly realise that they are not made of the same stuff as the rest of us. These men have aluminium skeletons and carbon fibre limbs.
Montezemolo is fascinating. I attended a little soiree hosted by him recently. This is a man with a recognition rating in Italy on a par with the Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi; in fact, many Italians would like him to actually become Prime Minister.
Having said that, running Ferrari is far more important.
Anyway, in he swept, presidentially, and proceeded to work the room like the consummate politician that he is. Find yourself caught in the Montezemolo tractor beam and you’ll be reeled in as surely as the Death Star reels in the Millennium Falcon in Star Wars, though the effect is rather more pleasant.
Montezemolo recently admitted to Michael Schumacher that he would throw things at the television screen if he was watching a GP at home and the result hadn’t gone Ferrari’s way. He must be getting through a lot of TVs at the moment. Oddly enough, though, he has a quicksilver sense of humour, and can clearly see the funny side.
‘Formula One, Formula One!’ he wailed, ‘Eet is making me so depressed. Fortunately, I have my psychiatrist with me at all times.’
The President of Italian business federation Confindustria until recently, he compared the experience to being in prison, before declaring himself ‘a free citizen once again’. Then he slated the Singapore GP (and the Valencia street circuit) as fit only ‘for a Disney event or a circus. These are races won under safety car interventions, and Ferrari wins by racing. One Monaco Grand Prix is enough…’
Then a nod to Schumacher, but no mention of Raikkonen or Massa. Funny that.
All delivered with the timing of a seasoned stand-up comedian. Having said that, Montezemolo is clearly not a man you would want to get on the wrong side of.
Isn’t that new California gorgeous or what?
Bez is no less impressive, though for completely different reasons. Far be it for me to characterise this Swabian (that’s in Bavaria, the bit of Germany that, er, Bavarians regard as the country’s engine room) as lacking in humour, but Dr Bez doesn’t generally kid around.
Some might say that the million-pound One-77 (on the Aston stand in Paris, looked mighty to me) suggests otherwise, but this is a man who takes his business very seriously indeed.
Possibly too seriously.
Bez likes a good argument, and if you suggest that his cars are anything other than wondrous in every way then a good scrap is what you get. His cars now come with an ‘emotion control unit’ (or ‘key’), but he doesn’t. I like that: a car boss who will happily roll up his sleeves and get stuck in.
Good job too. The way the economy’s going, looks like we might be getting 612 Scagliettis and Aston Vantages free with our Cornflakes before long…
my school bus is really slow and i want to know how fast a bus wouild go round ur track
This ^
Piech needs to be more careful when determining what projects he throws into production. VW/Audi can’t continue producing cars that lose them money! Why does VW have a Phaeton? Piech has decided that the A8 doesn’t sell well enough, so let’s rebadge the Phaeton with Audi logos and call it the A8! People who can afford to shell out that money aren’t going to buy a Phaeton, they’ll buy an A8. I know they are the same car, you know they are the same car. The only person who doesn’t seem to know that they are the same is Piech. Piech wants the Phaeton around and he can have it, but throw out the idea that it can be a VW and even more so throw out the idea it can be called a Phaeton and just let Audi sell it as the A8. I am an American so here’s what I’ll relate it to. GM and Ford use the same cars and rebadge them here under 3 different “makes” and “models” and we all know how well the American car industry is doing. If Piech is aiming to bankrupt Audi/VW, keep selling Veyrons that lose $3M for each one sold and Phaetons that can’t be given away.
Ferrari and Aston play with a different market. Each company can be crazy with design and price and will sell extremely well as long as people think the car looks like it’s above the rest. Ferrari and Aston can afford to be crazy, because their customers don’t mind paying for it.
You seem to know as much about geography as the americans.
Bez was born in Bad Cannstatt, near Stuttgart, Baden Württemberg. And that isn’t Bavaria.
And the bavarians are as german as the irish are english.
Being a swabian myself, i somehow feel the need to clear this up with a little lecture. des is right, the region of Swabia is in the state of Baden-Württemberg, only a very small part of Swabia lies in the neighbouring state of Bavaria.
Bad Canstatt, home of Bez, also is the home of Mercedes-Benz. And they’re proud of that. Ask a Swabian, and he’ll tell you that Benz’ and Porsches are swabian cars (which they are), BMW and Audi on the other hand are bavarian. So if you’re saying that Canstatt is bavarian, you’re taking Benz away from the swabians. In Germany, this will result in a raging mob of swabians armed with unhealthy food and horrible accents. Careful!
I can understand why Montezemolo is quick to nod at Schumacher with no mention of Raikonnen and Massa, both of them do not have the potential that Schumacher had, Massa is only good if he is on pole he can’t race under pressure and Raikkonen seems to be bored with Formula 1. Yes Montezemolo is a psycho, cause he decided to sign Massa and Raikkonen for another year. They should have taken Alonso
please help mr boring buy a car without your sarcasm
rra
kosovo
Yea, I would like to know how fast a double-decker bus would go round the track. And this one as well just for a laugh…
http://www.hereinreality. com/more_funny_pics/album s/userpics/10001/pimp_sch ool_bus~0.jpg
Dear Top Gear I think Ive got a brilliant idea for an episode.
Why dont you get the Stig to race the self raced bmw. If the engeneerers could get the car to maximum thrust around the circuit then we could see what is quicker, the engeneerers machine or that one you call the STIG
Jason, for your own well-being, don’t ever dare calling a Swabian (like Dr. Bez) a Bavarian! Never ever! Both regions are in the southern part of Germany, yet they’re hardly the same. Bavarians like Weissbier, Bretzeln and Weisswurst, while Swabians like to work and noodles the call Spaetzle. A Bavarian would pronounce Aston Martin as ‘As-tonn Mo-artin’, a Swabian would try his luck with ‘Esh-ten Mardinn’,
The other point I have to make is regarding Dr. Piech: it’s my distinct opinion that the man is a psychopath indeed. Have you ever seen him holding a speech? He’s got a truly mad pair of eyes and that Austrian accent is oh so very Bond villainish. And then there’s his way of conducting business: back in the 70′ he used to stop the clock to see how long it took his engineering department underlings to perform their duties on the loo. Seriously. And then there’s that nasty affair concerning the bribing of labour union leaders at Volkswagen… which, incidentally, greenlighted all his pet projects, such as the Phaeton (which, except the engines, shares very few parts with the Audi A8) or the Veyron.
The man is a mad engineering fetishist who sees VW as his own personal playground. He definitely has an astonishing technological expertise, but he’s said to be almost comically anti-social and used VW funds for his large-scale sandbox games. And now he wants Wendelin Wiedeking fired, the man who made him very wealthy indeed.
You wouldn’t wanna work for Herr Piech.
Why oh why ?
Schwabia is not in BAVARIA. It is the state west of it, where Stuttgart lies. The base of Mercedes, Porsche, Recaro and others…
The M1A1 Abrams Tank has a rifled cannon, why does Jeremy say it doesnt, is this one small example of British arrogance. I agree the SUVs over here are all ridiculous though, on another random note- all the roads here are straight! Thats one reason for Muscle cars, and big SUVs and Trucks are safer.
Thanks to the review by the long haired one on the Mitsuoka Galue, I went out and bought one. Interesting build, I never realised that the early Galues were really Nissan Taxis.
with a new front end and rear. Very pleased that the car was shown on the programme.
anyone who builds the phaeton is a great man if you ask me.
Did you know you can pick up a 4 year old 6.0l W12 model for only 16 grand!?!?! anyone who doesn’t want a bentley with a VW badge for less than 20k is far more unhinged than Piech could ever hope to be.
The trick to becoming the chairman of a multi-billion euro company is to either be a stand up comic, or a scrapper who won’t take no for an answer?
Awesome.
WOWWWWWWWW!!!!!! I WANT A CARBON-FIBRE SKELETON TOO!!!
Jeremy C. I have been trying to get in touch with you regarding AIG. Please google AIG enhanced fund victims. There are over 200 members. My member name is fighterforjustice. We are going after the banks that put us into this stupid investment. Meeting on October 23rd 6pm. Anyway we are in the same situation and are looking to get it fixed.
Sorry to blog on this site but did not know any other way!
Love cars…hate bankers (at this moment)
U r gay
Nice to know there are still interesting people out there in the world of business and the motor industry. All that i’ve met have been dull bespectacled nerds in suits…people who know the cost of everything but the value of nothing (except their massive pension fund and “oops i made another mistake” severance package)