Based in Qatar, serviced in the UK

Yesterday there was a story on the front page of The Sun about a wealthy Sheikh who jetted his Lamborghini LP640 from Qatar to Britain for an oil change. Apparently the 6,428-mile round trip cost in the region of £20,000 (there’s something vaguely ironic about a car being shipped from Qatar to Britain in a quest to find oil).

Of course there were the standard “this car doesn’t have a carbon footprint, it has a crater” comments in the story, but apart from that – there was nothing revolutionary about it, or at least interesting enough to warrant a front page space.

I agree that sending a car that distance for an oil change is a little punchy, in the same way that flying to New York every three months to get your hair done would be considered borderline unhinged. However, once you have accepted that money for some Sheikhs is counted in billions rather than £1 coins down the back of a sofa, you get some way to understanding why he did it. The car is now a lot more famous than it was a week ago and its service record will say: “serviced in the United Kingdom”.

Don’t let that fool you into thinking this is a shifty way of raising its resale price. Sheikhs don’t sell cars. They buy. It is, in many parts of the Middle East, considered just ‘not the done thing’ to sell a car. It looks like you need the money and your public image plummets faster than someone’s heart rate while watching primetime British TV.

Of course there are the environmental issues surrounding the little sojourn for the LP640 concerned, and that isn’t such a rosy picture. But before anyone jumps on their high horse and claims the man should be hung, drawn and shot with a wodge of his own cash, bear in mind that if you have traveled to the States on more than one occasion for any reason other than to save a rare species of bird, you have probably damaged the environment a fair amount as well.