New car news

15 May 2009 - 11:00

It’s raining cash…

This week's Important Lesson in Car Stupidity comes from Hannover in Germany. It's a good one. Get ready.

A 23-year-old man turns up at an Audi dealership in Lower Saxony, intending to buy a new A3 Convertible. He is carrying with him 23,000 pounds ($46,400) in cash. In an open envelope.

Our hero - described as ‘an inexperienced convertible driver' - asks if he can have a test drive in said cabriolet. The salesman agrees. Our hero drops the roof on the A3 and puts his cash on the back seat. Alarm bells ringing yet?

He takes the A3 out onto the motorway. The A2 motorway, to be precise, between Garbsen and Hannover-Herrenhausen. He eases up to motorway speeds and - yep, you've guessed what's going to happen here, haven't you? - the cash swirls merrily into the sky before raining down on the motorway. Oops.

At least there's a happy ending of sorts. After closing the motorway for a full half-hour, the police manage to recover almost 20,000 pounds ($40,000) of the notes. It's not clear, however, whether our red-faced hero decided to buy the A3 cabrio.

Anyone got any similarly embarrassing cabrio stories to share with us? Anything as bad as this?