Project Petrolhead

People can be come legends for all sorts of reasons. Good ones like winning countless races in the upper echelons of motorsport, bad ones like using your personal image and politics to single-handedly tank your successful EV brand, and then there are the truly weird ones. This is one of the latter.

Carlos Ghosn might be considered somewhat of a nomad. Born in Brazil and of Lebanese decent, Ghosn was educated in France, where he later took up a management position at Michelin who then decided to ship him off to the US to manage their North American division. In 1996, he left Michelin to join Renault, heading up both the R&D and Manufacturing sides of the business and overseeing the release of the Euro Car of the Year winning Renault Scenic. In 1999, Renault bought into the failing Nissan with an aim of restructuring the company to finally ease its money woes and assigned Ghosn to head up operations in Japan. Over the next two years, under Ghosn’s stewardship, Nissan would go from near bankruptcy to one of the most successful car companies Japan had ever seen. Quite lucky really, since Ghosn had agreed to resign from his position if his goals weren’t met before 2002.

Over the next few years, Ghosn would split his time evenly between Nissan and Renault, leading both companies to release some of their most important cars. From Renault, we had the push for zero-emissions with cars like the Zoe (good), the Fluence (not so good), and the Twizzy (downright awful), as well as increased commercial vehicle output thanks to the ubiquitous Kangoo van. And Nissan? Oh, just a small coupe you probably haven’t heard of called the R35 GT-R. I don’t think it’ll catch on, let alone capture the hearts and minds of tuning enthusiasts worldwide.

So, put yourself in Carlos’ shoes. You’re heading up two large car companies on different sides of the globe. You’re stretched quite thin and are constantly flying back and forth to make sure one of the companies doesn’t catch fire while you’re not looking. You know what you need? That’s right! A third company to keep tabs on! In 2016, Nissan purchased a controlling stake in Mitsubishi and Ghosn (who else?) decided to take the post as chairman. His aim? To merge the three brands (as well as their subsidiaries like Alpine, Dacia and Infiniti) to form the fourth-largest car manufacturer in the world. Was he done there? Of course he wasn’t. He also wanted to merge Renault/Nissan/Mitsubishi with FIAT-Chrysler, all while Renault was working in partnership with Mercedes to develop cars like the second-generation Smart FourTwo.

There was, however, one unseen benefit to having so many fingers in so many pies: It made it very difficult to keep track of where all of Ghosn’s substantial pay packet was coming from. In November 2018, Ghosn (as well as his right-hand man Greg Kelly) was arrested just after his private jet touched down in Japan, under allegations of false accounting. It had come to light that somebody at Nissan had noticed that their company jet (Tail number N155AN, lovely branding there guys) had been making trips that weren’t on the books, often for the personal benefit of Ghosn. After a bit of digging, the company also allegedly found multiple mansions (one in Lebanon, one in Brazil) a super-yacht, and payments to his family’s companies totalling around $5 million. The US Securities and Exchange Commission totalled the value of the diverted funds at $140 million. All alleged, of course (wink wink, nudge nudge). Ghosn was ousted from Nissan and placed under house arrest awaiting trial.

And then, he escaped.

No, really.

In 2020, Ghosn miraculously appeared in Lebanon, despite still officially being under house arrest in Japan. Managing to somehow give the guards monitoring his house the slip, Ghosn managed to catch a bullet train across Tokyo to a hotel where he met up with an American ex-special forces mercenary (no, really) who smuggled him through an airport in an audio equipment flight-case (no, REALLY), sneaking him onto a private jet(!!!) bound for Turkey before hopping the border into Lebanon. In a completely brazen press conference held in Beirut, Ghosn claimed that “I have to clear my name” and told reporters that the Japanese justice system was corrupt and conspiring against him. I’ll be honest, that sounds like exactly what someone at the mercy of the Japanese justice system would say. As of today, Ghosn is somehow still on the run, now facing arrest warrants in Japan and France as well as being forced to vacate his $19 million mansion in Lebanon that was, whoopsie daisy, purchased with company funds. Allegedly. For those of you who don’t know, i’m the author of a fictional political thriller and if I wrote that, i’d re-read it and think “nah, sounds a bit implausible”.

From arguably shaping the modern automotive world to being completely ostracised by the entire industry. That’s definitely going to make me re-think buying a Nissan GT-R now.

Allegedly.