So Volkswagen has been caught with its trousers down in America and now everyone is running about saying the mighty German giant will be driven into the wilderness by fines, lawsuits and decimated sales.

And, of course, if VW were to go out of business the fallout would be immense because it owns Audi, Bugatti, Bentley, Lamborghini, Porsche, Seat and Skoda as well. So they’d also go to the wall. And without the profits from these engineering powerhouses Germany would no longer be in a position to bail out the Greeks or house half of Syria. Which would cause global economic collapse, a humanitarian catastrophe and many plagues.

VW, then, is all set to become the new benchmark pariah. Robert Maxwell with windscreen wipers. North