Want to Roll Like a Cheap Billionaire?
August 9, 2010 by Mirko Reinhardt
How often do you get the chance to roll like a billionaire? Not like one of these ostentatious billionaires you all know and love, mind you – this is the serious stuff.
Theo Albrecht, who died on July 24th, was the founder of the Aldi discount supermarket chain and the owner of Aldi Nord and Trader Joe’s. (American Aldis are operated by Aldi SĂĽd, owned by his brother Karl Albrecht).
If you run one of the world’s most successful discount supermarket chain – 4,287 stores in all – you probably have to be a bit of a real-life Scrooge McDuck. Theo was known to scribble notes using two-inch pencil nubs in business meetings. When an architect showed him plans for a new store, he allegedly replied “The building looks fine, but couldn’t you have saved money by using thinner paper for the plans?”
New stores were outfitted with used freezers and used shelves if possible. After having been kidnapped for 17 days in 1971, he became obsessed with privacy. For decades, zero pictures of Albrecht were published.
2.5" thick bulletproof glass
So put yourself in the – probably cheap – shoes of this eccentric billionaire. What would Theo Albrecht drive (or be driven in)?
Luckily for us, this question has been solved, because an 1995 Mercedes-Benz S-Class. previously owned by Albrecht. popped up on the used car site mobile.de.
The seller is exotic car dealer “Fantastische Fahrzeuge Michael Fröhlich” in DĂĽsseldorf, and exotic it is.
First, let’s start with the engine. It’s not the ostentatious V12 S600 or the big V8 S500 – those would be a waste of money. Instead, the small 420 V8 powers this big Benz. Albrecht’s fear of kidnappers is clearly visible in the 2.5″ thick bulletproof glass, the full B6/B7 body armor and the run-flat tires.
Further 007-like features are explosive charges to open the doors in an emergency and a phone in the trunk – for when kidnappers somehow got their hands on the car and lock Albrecht in the trunk.
Now because Theo Albrecht was Germany’s second richest person at $16.7 billion, you’d expect him to sit on the finest leather recliners while being chauffeured around, watching movies on in-car screens. And you’d be terribly wrong, because the interior looks like this.
See, that’s cloth. No frills. No unnecessary BS.
Because this S-Class has only had one owner, it’s very likely that Albrecht used it from 1996 until very recently. So want to buy it? 100,000 Euros and it’s yours.
