Lamborghini owner gives 2 fingers to environmentalists.

Rowley Birkin QC

From BBC News.

A green campaign group has expressed its anger over reports that a car owner flew his £190,000 Lamborghini from Qatar to London for a service.

Reports have suggested the 6,500-mile round trip for the two-door, Murcielago LP640 model would have cost its owner more than £20,000.

Friends of the Earth said the flight was "taking climate-wrecking behaviour to new heights".

Lamborghini Club UK accused green campaigners of over-reacting.

Qatar Airways has confirmed the vehicle, which is the type driven by Batman in current blockbuster the Dark Knight, was flown out of the country on Monday.

Friends of the Earth Transport campaigner Tony Bosworth said: "With rising fuel costs and concern about climate change, most people are likely to find this type of wasteful and damaging activity outrageous.

"The pollution from driving a Lamborghini is bad enough, but flying one thousands of miles for a service is taking climate-wrecking behaviour to new heights."
Lamborghini Murcielago LP640
Lamborghini Murcielago LP640

However, a Lamborghini UK spokeswoman denied the car was serviced by any of its authorised dealers in the UK.

Juliet Jarvis said: "With a network of 114 dealers around the world, everywhere we sell cars, we make sure there is no need to take them out of the local area to service them.

"However we are aware, in line with lifestyles of our clients worldwide, they may decide to transport their car to other countries when they are required for short periods or on holiday.

"Should that happen, we will provide service support."

David Price, of Lamborghini Club UK, said a car with similar black and gold paintwork to one pictured in a national newspaper in front of a Qatar Airways plane, had been seen around London.

But he added he did not believe Friends of the Earth's argument was "relevant to anything".

"If someone owns something and wants to do something with it, what does it matter?" he said.

"If [the owner] wants to hire a plane and service it, it's his business. There are far more serious things to concern ourselves with."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7535149.stm

This guy that owns the Lambo is my new hero!

Hagar

I saw one on the A8 Motorway near Nice last Wednesday. It was draw-droppingly beautiful.
Sod the tree-huggers.

Gregor Samsa

I always wonder how stories like this end up in the press.

Did Friends of the Earth somehow find out about the Lambo being flown over, issue a press release expressing outrage, and the press picked up on it, or did someone tell the press about it, and they get on to FOTE and look for a reaction. Which, given their remit, was obviously going to be critical.

Given the fact that the Murcielago LP640 also just happens to be in the new Batman movie, I suspect the latter, and the possible involvement of a savvy marketing person.

Edit: there's nothing about it on FOTE's website, which leads me further to believe that this story is nothing to do with environmentalism and all about marketing.

unkel

Hagar wrote: »

I saw one on the A8 Motorway near Nice last Wednesday. It was draw-droppingly beautiful.
Sod the tree-huggers.

Hear, hear!

Wit a few more Murciélagos on the road, the word would be a better place

qz

BBC News wrote:

"If someone owns something and wants to do something with it, what does it matter?" he said.

"If [the owner] wants to hire a plane and service it, it's his business. There are far more serious things to concern ourselves with."

+1

G Luxel

I bet that someone in FOTE owns the lamborghini:D:D
They arent all tree hugging, jesus shoes and cycling to work as they make themselves out to be.

Run_to_da_hills

I would have flown it to Italy and have got the factory to service it, I wouldn't trust some unauthorised shady back street dealer in Saudi Arabia or the UK that dosn't speak Italian to work on it

cyclopath2001

phutyle wrote: »

Edit: there's nothing about it on FOTE's website, which leads me further to believe that this story is nothing to do with environmentalism and all about marketing.

+1

astraboy

^^^Nice Sig, imitation appears to be the best form of flattery. Who are you quoting BTW? It appears to be pretty much common sense once you drive safetly.....

On topic, maybe FOTE just commented on this, and did'nt put it on their site? Bunch of eco-twits anyway, its the owners business if he wants to spend the price of a car on his lambo transporting it to a service.

antodeco

Ryanair have missed a genuine opportunity here!!

bazzachazza

Considering the bloody plane was still going to fly the route irrespective of whether the Lambo was onboard anyway, a point which seems to have been missed.

They fly flowers from South America to europe everyday on dedicated 747's nothing else is carried on these flights so what will they say about this. How about we grow them here?. For that we need everyone to be driving bloody Lambos to warm up this feckin country first.

As my wife has just said surely flying it over was cleaner than him driving it all the way to London.

One of my work collegues wife is into politics big time and told me of one night they were having a debate in Malahide to which a very Famous Irish green Politician was debating they passed him a mile from the venue where he was taking his bike out of the boot of his car so he could be seen cycling to the venue. After this i taught that all Greens are shams.

Oh our recent work newsletter also told us that Air traffic over Ireland only produces less than 0.5% of Irelands Co2 everyyear maybe we should tackle something else first like getting more trucks off the roads and more freight on trains

Sqaull20

Climate-wrecking.

How ignorant can you get, the planet is like 4.5 billions years old and will be here long after we are gone.Its not dying and there would be **** all we could do about it, even it was.That crap must stop, it wont be long now till they enforce the new tax law on used cars.

What a car though, drives like a dream on GT

VH

bazzachazza wrote: »

Considering the bloody plane was still going to fly the route irrespective of whether the Lambo was onboard anyway, a point which seems to have been missed.

It was probably a charter flight and wouldnt have flown otherwise. to be fair best would have been to fly in the lambo engineers (ie people) as those flights fly anyway

astraboy

Relisix wrote: »

I did a bit of research on FOTE and it turns out they actually own Labourgini, Ferrarri and most big sports car manufacturers! FOTE is actually a joint ownership/firm founded by EGM (European General Motors)and AE (Awareness Europe)..I looks like the whole event was just a big publicity stunt to boost awareness of the company. FOTE and EGM's share's make up for 11.4 %(thats what Wikipedia says anyway) of the european motor/industrial stockmarket in 2007 and boards.ie is totally gay.

I wish to sign up to your newsletter and buy shares in said company. Here are my bank details..........:D

bazzachazza

Very much doubt it would be a charter as Qatar airways only have A300's cargo planes and they would cost at €60000 just to fuel for the one way trip.

More than likely it was carried as belly cargo on one of there A330/A340-600 passenger flights.

Sam Kade

G Luxel wrote: »

I bet that someone in FOTE owns the lamborghini:D:D
They arent all tree hugging, jesus shoes and cycling to work as they make themselves out to be.

Just like al gore he flies around the world in his private jet to promote his film about stopping global warming :rolleyes:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2006-08-09-gore-green_x.htm

cormie

I'm doing all I can now to reduce my carbon footprint so I don't feel guilty when I have my own Lambo

some day...

Zube

bazzachazza wrote: »

As my wife has just said surely flying it over was cleaner than him driving it all the way to London.

No. If we all drove everywhere in Lambos we'd produce less CO2 than air travel produces.