The Good Oil: When the taxman chases supercars

Italian taxation cops are targeting luxury car owners in a tax crackdown. We're sure the Lamborghini Gallardo LP560-4 Polizia is exempt. Photo / Supplied

Italy's tax police are going after supercar owners who declare only a portion of their earnings.

In a recent swoop at a ski resort, police noted the licence plates of roughly 150 Lamborghinis, Ferraris and other high-end cars and gave the registrations to the tax office. It found that almost 50 per cent of the registered owners claimed incomes of less than $65,000 a year.

Authorities discovered that of people reporting earnings below $26,000 were owners of some 188,000 Lamborghinis and Ferraris - and over 40,000 yachts.

The focus on expensive cars has since spread to other Italian hotspots and owners have responded by selling their cars at massive discounts.

Tax cheats are estimated to cost Italy $190 billion a year.

VW chief pockets $28m

Volkswagen CEO Martin Winterkorn's pay nearly doubled last year as Europe's biggest carmaker notched up record profits and deliveries.

Winterkorn earned $28 million in fixed salary, bonuses and profit incentives, compared with nearly $15 million a year earlier.

That's more than any other chief executive among Germany's top 30 companies.

Tata's cat out of the bag

India's Tata Motors reckons its "Mini Cat" air car will be the next big thing. It was developed by a former Formula One engineer and uses compressed air to push its engine's pistons and make the car go.

The fibreglass-bodied vehicle is expected to cost around $10,000 when it goes on sale in India in August. It has a top speed of 100km/h and a range of about 300km.

Tata says special air compressors at gas stations can fill the car's tank in minutes. Or it can be filled at home in three to four hours using its on-board compressor. A microprocessor controls the car's electrical functions, like lights and indicators. The extremely low temperature of the clean air expelled by the exhaust pipe is re-routed and used as air-conditioning. Tata says oil for the car's moving parts needs changing only every 50,000km.

Mad wheels

This is the Gigahorse, the "hero car" in the movie Mad Max: Fury Road. It's a double-bodied 1959 Cadillac with two supercharged V8s connected by a planetary gear and dumptruck-type four-wheel-drive differentials, sitting on a monster-truck chassis and sporting a four-bladed cow catcher.

With Charlize Theron as Furiosa alongside Tom Hardy as Mad Max, it's a secret which hero the Gigahorse might serve. Production is setting up in Namibia - because the Aussie Outback has become too green, says director George Miller, who plans to film Fury Road and Mad Max: Furiosa (Mad Max 4 and 5, essentially) back-to-back. A stuntman said the movie would feature "130 cars and bikes and 198 stunts".

We are the world

* A "gentlemen's club" in Cape Town has been selling an "Alibi" line of fragrances for men who need excuses for coming home late. "I Was Working Late" splash-on reeks of coffee and cigarettes, and "My Car Broke Down" smells of petrol, burned rubber and grease.

* Brazil-born American Sheyla Hershey, the Guinness Book record-holder for the largest artificially enhanced breasts (38MMM), ditched them in favour of slightly smaller implants, 38KKK. Now she is crediting them with saving her life. Driving home from a party in Houston, she lost control and crashed into a tree, and - with no seatbelt - was thrown forward into the steering wheel. She says her breasts cushioned the impact and saved her from injury. Hershey, 32, was charged with drink-driving.

One giant roll for mankind ...

Goodyear says the "Spring Tyre" it developed with Nasa could be used to explore space and the toughest terrain here on earth.

The Spring Tire is made of 800 load-bearing springs and is designed to carry heavy vehicles over much greater distances than the wire mesh tyre previously used on the Apollo Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV), which Goodyear also helped design and build in 1971. "This tyre is extremely durable and very energy-efficient," said Joe Lettieri, Goodyear's lead researcher on the project. "The spring design contours to any surface ... All of the energy used to deform the tyre is returned when the springs rebound, so it will not generate heat like a pneumatic tire."

And it won't go flat, either. Nasa and Goodyear say solar radiation degrades traditional tyres, which can easily deflate on the moon.