Idle Threats

I WOKE UP ONE MORNING IN LATE 

- St. Antoine

March to the preposterous news that Italian authorities had foiled a plot to abscond with the body of the late Enzo Ferrari and demand a ransom from his namesake company for its return. The report I read said the scheme involved some 34 suspects, helicopters and paratroopers, and (one has to assume) a whole lotta lambrusco. At any rate, the bad guys lost, and in his above-ground tomb near Ferrari’s headquarters in Maranello, Il Commendatore’s remains remain. Besides, had the body snatchers been successful, I’m not at all sure Ferrari would’ve paid up anyway. You can empty the coffin, but Enzo’s bones, his life blood, his soul are still right there for anyone to admire and venerate in every road and racing car ever to wear the Prancing Horse.

The whole idea was as dumb as fat-free cheesesteaks. But the news got me thinking. Maybe those would-be tomb raiders simply cooked up the wrong angle. What sort of mayhem might miscreants wreak on the auto biz if they had, you know, an actual good idea? I can imagine the headlines …

Thieves Steal Blueprint of Cadillac Cimarron, Threaten “Dirty Bomb”

Police in Warren, Michigan, reported today the theft of the last remaining unburned rendering of the 1982 Cadillac Cimarron premium-mountebank sedan, along with the discovery of a ransom note threatening its release into the atmosphere.

“We thought we had that monster safely contained,” a GM spokesperson confided from her bunker beneath the Tech Center. “It was locked up somewhere down in the Ransom E. Olds catacombs, along with the endurance tests on the ’70 Chevy Vega and the archive of unflattering Nader photos. And now if we don’t cough up $10 million, that sketch might actually be dispersed! Do you even realize how long it took us to contain the original Cimarron spill?”