Your daily surreal: the Maestro
And no, we’re not referring to El Maestro. Rather, we’re talking about the equally legendary Herbert von Karajan— longtime principal conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic, champion of cutting edge recording playback technology (von Karajan was instrumental – no pun intended – in the development and early commercial success of the Compact Disc), and petrolhead par excellence? Strange, but true. Karajan.co.uk documents:
He bought his first car in Aachen in 1934 and by 1938 he had a brand new BMW sports car which he raced in private motor rallies. He had a passion for fast cars and in 1966 owned a Ferrari although his name will always be mainly associated with Porsche. Other cars in his ownership over the years included an Austin A90 Atlantic, a Rolls Royce, a Mini, a Mercedes 500 SEL, a Volkswagen Scirocco and a Renault GT Turbo.
When this is your day job, whodathunkit? Certainly not us.
If you can top this (a Nobel Laureate with a taste for vintage Ferrari, perhaps), let us know. Please— no actors, popular musicians, or fashion designers (already well-documented).
Hat tip to Gaby for providing the idea for this post (Gaby had recently photographed the ex-von Karajan Carrera RS 3.0, prompting the idea).
(Images via)
Motoring Con Brio 
Ultimate badass.
Automobiliac said this on May 18, 2011 at 9:55 am
how about Carl Sagan, he had two Porsches (a 914 and a 911 targa)
N8 said this on May 18, 2011 at 9:27 pm
@NB— not bad. here’s a shot of the man with his 914 courtesy of none other than our friend tamerlane:
motoringconbrio said this on May 18, 2011 at 9:50 pm
more like ultimate tin-ear !
thanks in no small part to his involvement/meddling, the compact disc ended up severely compromised. it’s only now in it’s twilight that the cd has delivered the musicality of high quality analogue formats.
wm said this on May 19, 2011 at 12:52 am