Tyre straits

Italian tyre-maker Pirelli unveiled its 2003 calendar the other day, its 35th. As usual there are beautiful women, some with more clothes on than others. But this time Pirelli threw some men in the mix, including middleweight American boxer Richie La Montagne and actors Frenchman Stephane Ferrara and Italian Alessandro Gassman. The calendar was shot by American Bruce Weber. He said: "I keep seeing all these women looking at the Pirelli calendar and I think it would be really nice for women and men to be able to look at the calendar and see a guy once in a while. It is a modern theme today - men love women; women love men." Long way from the calendar's home in the lube bay, that sort of thinking.

Raising the sales

Looks like Toyota has wrapped up its 15th year in a row as new-vehicles sales leader in New Zealand. Going into November, Toyota had sold 14,343 new vehicles for 20.4 per cent of the market, over Holden's 11,702 sales (16.6 per cent) and Ford's 11,196 (15.9 per cent). October was a big month for Toyota. It sold 2271 cars and commercials for a 27.1 per cent share, against Holden's 14.6 per cent and Ford's 14.1 per cent. Sales of new vehicles to the end of October are 16.1 per cent ahead of the same period last year. October sales alone were up 17.4 per cent over last year.

It's a Chuck wagon

American Chuck Pelly, founder of Designworks, BMW's design studio in Los Angeles, dropped in for lunch at BMW in Mt Wellington the other day. Pelly and his team penned the 3-Series and X5 four-wheel-drive. He is excited by the untapped design talent in New Zealand and would like to set up an international design centre here. "I have been waving a flag for it for some time - I don't see anything stopping it."

We are the world

* Formula One champion Michael Schumacher got a call from his bank manager to say that $19 million was missing from his account. Schumacher's British banker Stephen Toth was later jailed for fleecing him.