Dubai Prince Cordons Off Mercedes-AMG G 63 to Protect Pigeon Nesting on Hood

4 years, 4 months ago - 9 August 2020, autoevolution

Bird droppings are the worst for your car’s paint job, especially if let out to dry in the sun.

But if you’re a passionate environmentalist and animal activist and, more importantly, worth hundreds of millions of dollars, you can afford to invite pigeons to poop on your car.

Because he meets all the criteria, this is exactly what the Crown Prince of Dubai did a few days ago, as he revealed on his Instagram stories. He woke up to find his black Mercedes-AMG G 63, parked in the shade outside his home, had become home to a pigeon that had built a nest on the hood.

Where any one of us would have taken a broom to shoo the bird off, His Highness Sheikh Hamdan Bin Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, aka Fazza, did the opposite. He cordoned off the car, so as to protect the pigeon. Given he’s such a famous nature lover, we’re going to assume he will leave the cordons on until the bird grows tired of its home and flies away.

It’s not like the Prince is going to walk or have to make do with lesser means of transport while his G 63 is thus sidelined. With an estimated net worth of some $400 million, he owns a choice of the world’s best and / or most expensive vehicles out there. Plus, based on the thick layer of dust on the hood, it doesn’t look like he was using the G 63 all that much.

All jokes aside, protecting other forms of life is excellent, but allowing pigeons to poop on your car(s) is never a wise idea. As Ford was saying a while back, regardless of the efforts all automakers make to ensure paint is resistant to the acidic composition of bird poop, it’s up to the owner to take the best care of their vehicles.

This means parking indoors or, where not possible, in areas where there are no overhead branches or structures that can serve as home for pigeons. If droppings do end up on the car, it’s best to remove them as soon as possible with warm water and a pH-neutral shampoo and not let them “bake” in the sun.

Or, you know, get yourself $400 million and damage to the paint of a $150,000 car won’t mean anything to you. Especially if it means not disturbing a pigeon.