The Auto Industry Could Use More Unpredictable Maniacs

From the April 2017 issue

You probably never noticed, but a lot of the power-pitching Machiavellis in the auto biz have not necessarily been persons you’d invite into your home. If you had wanted to discuss politics with, say, Enzo Ferrari, you’d best be carrying pepper spray. Alejandro de Tomaso would steal your wife’s underwear and maybe two ashtrays. Carroll Shelby was always about 19 inches from the flaming-hot door of a federal district court. Henry the Deuce once ate a bag of puppies. John DeLorean, studying 59 pounds of cocaine, famously uttered, “Good as gold!” And I’m not even going to say a word about former supercar builders Jerry Wiegert and Warren Mosler, because I’m afraid of them.

But I will say this: Those guys actually, you know, built stuff—crazy, eccentric, nonsensical mobile fascinations that often went straight to nowhere yet delighted nearly everyone, particularly me. Compare their no-fear accomplishments with the inane wallflower sanity of, oh, say, GM’s Roger Smith, who couldn’t even hold his own against Michael Moore.

Which brings us, indirectly, to our latest automotive bad boy, Lapo Edovard Elkann. He is the grandson of Gianni Agnelli and the brother of John Elkann, the chairman of Fiat Chrysler. Our man Lapo was once a personal assistant to Henry Kissinger; he was Fiat’s director of marketing for the launches of the Punto and the 500; and he created Garage Italia Customs, a salon in Milan that can digitally camouflage your Ferrari (adding a few peace symbols along the way) and upholster its cockpit in velvet with a carbon-fiber instrument panel wrapped in marble, plus a handbrake that imitates a samurai’s sword handle. Japanese denim is also available. Lapo refers to the company as an “atelier,” which means it’s a store you and I can’t afford.

Needless to say, 39-year-old Laps—that’s his nickname—was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, which he immediately had gold-plated and diamond-­encrusted, then filled with cocaine (hello, Mr. DeLorean!) and later heroin. That last adventure in chemicals landed Laps in Vanity Fair, where I learned this: “[Elkann] had been found naked and unconscious in the apartment of . . . a 53-year-old transsexual prostitute.”