The top 8 quirkiest motoring moments of 2019
Seized supercars of corrupt politician sold
A collection of supercars worth R557m was seized and sold at a Bonhams auction in Cheserex, Switzerland this year. The stable of ultra-rare cars belonged to Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue, vice-president of Equatorial Guinea.
The 25-car collection, confiscated by Swiss authorities in 2016 after allegedly being paid for using state funds, included a Bugatti Veyron, Ferrari LaFerrari, Koenigsegg One: 1, Lamborghini Veneno Roadster and McLaren P1.
Paris has declared war on loud exhausts in the city and surrounding suburbs, and is testing new noise radars able to pinpoint the source of sound by combining existing CCTV traffic cameras, directional microphones and detects, targets, and tickets owners of vehicles with loud exhausts.
“We have nothing against Ferraris or Harley-Davidsons, but their owners sometimes like to demonstrate their vehicles’ power and the noise really troubles residents,” said an official of the town of Villeneuve, south of France, where the first such radar will begin a two-year trial period.
“I am down to six miles of battery on the Tesla so I may lose it here in a sec,” Officer Jesse Hartman said when radioing in during his chase. “I’ve got to try to find a charging station for the Tesla so I can make it back to the city.”
These were the words of a US police officer who recently had to abandon a high-speed highway chase after the batteries ran down in his modified Tesla Model S.