Italy sells luxury cars

The Italian Government has tried all kinds of ways to claw its books back into positive territory and now the slashers have discovered the country’s national garage.

New Prime Minister, Matteo Renzi, has put 170 luxury and prestige cars owned by the government up for sale through eBay, with the first wave of 19 cars being auctioned last week.

The cars being offloaded by Renzi’s hatchet men include Maseratis, Jaguars, Alfa Romeos, Audis and Lancias (which is neither a prestige nor premium brand these days, but it’s a job lot), all trimmed from the fleets of the Justice, Interior and Defense ministries.

The first batch of cars sold included nine Alfa Romeos, one of the 40 BMWs on the chopping block and a Lancia Thesis, with offers of up to €18,150 pushed through the on-line auction site.

Renzi declared the cars to be “no longer useful” and will all be moved off the government books by April 16, with the catch that all the cars must be picked up in Rome.

Though it’s not likely to make a dent in the country’s €2 trillion (A$2.99 trillion) debt, it’s a neat political trick that Renzi has played before, when he sold four cars through eBay shortly after he unexpectedly became the Mayor of Firenze (Florence).

The most prestigious cars involved in the auction belong to the Ministry of Justice, which owns a fleet of more than 800 chauffeured cars last year. It is providing two XJ Jaguars to the auction books.

The country’s Defense Department has also had its upper echelon of chauffeur-driven models wiped out. The department came under intense criticism when, in the dying days of the last Berlusconi government, it ordered nine Maseratis (eight of which were Quattroportes), which are now in the auction pool.

One of his main political rivals, the populist Five Star Movement leader, Beppe Grillo, has mocked the auction, saying that while 170 cars were moving out the door, another 210 were being ordered.

Yet most Italians regard the auction as a good thing, signaling a slap to government departments that preached austerity and lived ostentatiously.

For starters, selling the luxury cars isn’t just about raking in money, but stopping the bleeding. Each chauffeur-driven limo costs the government around €70,000 ($A104,500) a year in driver, fuel, tax and insurance a year. Most are also high-mileage cars, with at least 100,000km on their clocks.

Renzi, who has been seen getting around Roma in a blue smart mini-car, could not have had better timing for a display of austerity from the government he inherited last month, with unemployment reaching 13 per cent last month.

The worst since records began in 1977, the figure gives Italy the eighth-highest jobless number in the 28-member EU zone. Still, it seems paltry alongside Greece’s 27.5 per cent and Spain’s 25.6 per cent figure.

But don’t fear that Renzi’s public service will be forced to use public transport. The government still owns more than 60,000 cars which cost more than €1 billion ($A1.49b) a year to run.

Cars at auction: