Imagine $2.3 million... John Lennon with son Julian and his Rolls in 1968.


We all know that "one careful owner" can boost the price of a used car, but what about "one celebrity owner"? That appears to depend both on the celebrity and the car. An Aston Martin DB5 once owned by Sir Paul McCartney sold at auction this week for about $470,000, which, it seems, is the going rate for a former Beatle's DB5, as one owned by George Harrison sold for $450,000 in 2005.

But as former Beatles' cars go, it's a bit of a fizzer alongside John Lennon's psychedelic Rolls Royce Phantom, which sold for a lofty $2.3 million in 1985.

And it doesn't come anywhere near the record price paid for a celebrity car, which - according to Wikipedia - goes to a Ferrari 250 GT California Spyder owned by actor James Coburn.

That fetched about $10.5 million at auction in 2008. But the astronomical price may have had just as much to do with the car - one of the world's most desirable collectables - as the star.

The same can't be said of a humble 1975 Ford Escort that was snapped up for almost $800,000 in 2005, nor the 1999 VW Golf that fetched about $240,000 in the same year. The owners? Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI.

Seems the Vatican seal of approval carries more weight than star power when the hammer falls.

Bad cop routine

The producers of Channel Seven's reality television show Highway Patrol must have been rubbing their hands with glee when the Victorian Police bowled up Bendigo cop Mick McCrann as talent for the latest series. But you have to wonder which bright spark thought McCrann would be a good ambassador for the boys in blue.

McCrann comes across as having a cocky roadside manner, which makes for excellent TV but surely the police PR department - and a lot of serving officers - would cringe every time he's on the big screen. In his scenes McCrann manages to personify everything motorists dislike about the highway patrol - rude, inflexible and patronising. Every good reality TV show has a villain - but you don't expect him to be wearing the uniform. 

Losing power

If you're thinking about snapping up a new Nissan Pulsar, we'd suggest you order quickly because the car seems to be losing power. When it was launched last month it had 102kW, which is respectable for a small car. But as of this week, the power output for the car's 1.8-litre engine dropped to 96kW, according to the Nissan PR department.

If it keeps dropping that much every week, it'll be hard pressed to pull the skin off a rice pudding by the time it arrives in February.

In a jam

Here's a depressing thought. It seems that one in five commuters in our busiest city, Sydney, spends more than two hours a day in the car - that's the equivalent of 12 working weeks a year - or triple the time we spend on holidays. And it's making us sick, too. Journal Preventative Medicine says studies show that a long commute contributes to obesity, high blood pressure and heart disease. And that's not the really depressing part - transport experts say Saturday traffic in major cities is now as bad as the weekday peak hour.

Out to pasture

It seems Volkswagen is finally ready to sever links with the past and stop flogging old cars as new ones. Last week it announced it was ending production of the Kombi next year, just 63 years after the first one arrived. VW is still selling "new" 1970s model Kombis to Brazilians, in much the same way it used to sell them "new" original-shape Beetles.

Up until a couple of years ago it also used to sell "new" Mark 1 Golfs in South Africa. Now it seems the last of the old "new" cars - the 1990s Passat they sell in China - is headed for retirement.

An all-new (no really this time it is all-new) VW Santana will arrive next year, and the current rebadged old Passat, the Santana 3000 Vista, will be pensioned off.

Now if we could only do something about pensioning off that other Santana.