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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-40748897
[i]A driver lost control of his new £200,000 Ferrari and careered off a motorway before it burst into flames - after owning it for just an hour.[/i]
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Dang. No more progress making for him.
Those wheels would make the best coffee table base...
Glad to read that the BBC has toned down the senstionalist headline a bit about a 'brand new' Ferrari - it's a lot of money to crash and set fire to, but it's a 430, it was new the owner, but not 'New' - they stopped making them in 2009.
It's not worth £200k either, they're £75k to £110k they were £200k new.
Hope he was well insured anyway.
The lawn, THE LAWN!!
Makes you wonder how the incident occurred, no?
Is it a sticker?
P-Jay - MemberGlad to read that the BBC has toned down the senstionalist headline a bit about a 'brand new' Ferrari - it's a lot of money to crash and set fire to, but it's a 430, it was new the owner, but not 'New' - they stopped making them in 2009.
It's not worth £200k either, they're £75k to £110k they were £200k new.
It's a Scuderia so depending on spec it could easily be worth £160-£200k, maybe more. There was a limited edition last run variant that's worth a lot more again.
I recently bought my self a Lotus Evora and was so scared I'd do the same thing. For the first week or so I was driving it slower than a OAP's Mirca. 😳
There were a few boy racers who seemed very confused that a fully functioning Lotus could move so slow.
bikebouy - MemberMakes you wonder how the incident occurred, no?
Not too much, driving like a dick would be my guess.
It's the same with anything fast, Motorbike or Car, it's not the 60s when you needed balls of steel to drive your 4.7l V8 Cobra on cross-plys at any speed - at normal road legal speeds fast cars are piss easy to drive, they've got tonnes of grip, massively powerful brakes and in the case of that poor dead Ferrari a very clever stability control system to make sure it doesn't end up on fire in a field.
He might have swerved an animal and steered it off the road by mistake I guess, but I'd bet he was playing silly buggers with his new toy and ran out of room, or heaven forbid turned the ESP off because he thought he was the next Jenson Hamilton.
bikebouy - MemberMakes you wonder how the incident occurred, no?
Not really. 😆
Too much right foot.
Well I'd imagine the very heavy rain (mentioned in the article) and probably track biased tyres on the Scuderia contributed. Big power + wide track biased tyres + lots of water = very careful driving required.
I'm amazed that P-Jay can recognise a car from that pic.
There were a few boy racers who seemed very confused [s]th[/s] at a fully functioning Lotus [s]could move so slow.[/s]
(Excellent choice BTW)
DezB - MemberI'm amazed that P-Jay can recognise a car from that pic.
Ha ha, I probably could have a few years ago, I financed and 'inspected' hunreds of expensive cars between 2001 and 2009 so the F430 was my bread and butter towards the end, but I read the name from the BBC news page.
I hadn't picked up on it being the 'managers special' run out one, they gave them so many names and numbers I get them mixed up Berlinetta (which sounds like a Fiat to me) Challenge, Stradale, Italia etc etc.
They're partly the reason why I would never work in a Bike Shop, I got the 'fancy car' gig in the office because when I joined I was a fully paid up member of the Church of Clarkson and I would get all giddy at the idea of driving for 2 hours to see one to sign a bit of paper to say it really existed, but I quickly got fed up to the back teeth with that whole world and frankly most of the people who drive them - they're not often nice people.
I've driven a lot of them for short distances and at low speed, another other stuff like Lambos, Porsches and stuff - really, they're just shit cars, honestly as a car they're next to useless - you can't get near their limits on the road, you can go very fast indeed with them on the track with a bit of practice but to really find out if you are good enough to drive them 'at the limit' and not just with the computers doing it all for you you need years of practice and a bit of god given talent - very few people who actually own them have that, but they're bore you to death about how their new one turns in sharper than this or that or how it's faster around this place or that - they're a bunch of bullshit artists.
My altimate Lotto win car is probably the new Volvo v90 ha ha
Police said the driver escaped with only minor cuts and bruises, and [b]“officers do not believe excess speed was a contributory factor in this collision”[/b].
These things are so powerful nowadays that a bootfull of right foot at the wrong time and you're in a field in microseconds, fancy computers or not. Coming from even powerful "normal" cars they can be a huge step up, no matter how big the tyres are they can break traction so easily and be spinning before you even know what's going on.
[quote=squirrelking ]"officers do not believe excess speed was a contributory factor in this collision”
Seems plausible - I've no first hand experience, but I presume you don't need to be speeding to do that with a heavy right foot in the wet.
Lol at STW arguing the toss about the book value of the (said) motor. Then a discussion about lift off causing understeer and someone to say that a Ferrari isn't really a fast car. Finally we need a volunteer to recommend that Ferrari to an OP asking for a recommendation for a car for his wife to nip into town with the dog and kids.
Drive past the occasional wrecked exotic in my job, usually a Porsche or Bentley. Last one was a GT3RS that had managed to hit the central reservation on a dead-straight bit of dual carriageway. I think the sharp downpour a few minutes earlier coupled with the near-slick track day tyres caused it to spin out 😆
newrobdob - MemberThese things are so powerful nowadays that a bootfull of right foot at the wrong time and you're in a field in microseconds, fancy computers or not.
That's why they have Snow&Ice and Low Grip modes. Ice severely restricts the power available as well as regulating the power delivery to be as smooth as possible while using the maximum amount of traction and stability control. It also keeps the gearbox in auto.
Low grip is essentially the same but the driver can manually override the auto box with the paddles. Given he'd just bought the car, matey perhaps didn't know about all the driver modes.
Even with all the driver aids switched on, I leave the sports car in the garage in that sort of weather (if I can help it) and take the diesel estate out.
The thing is that a car like that could easily aquaplane at much lower speed than the driver would expect, and fire off the road, and there's nothing any traction/stability control system can do about it.
Even with traction and stability control, it still requires the driver to react appropriately, and he may have just panicked.
Of course, he was by definition going too fast for the conditions, but I think we can assume he's learnt a significant lesson.
Can happen anywhere if you are somewhat heavy with the foot. My local porsche garage nailed a 993 turbo post WOF (MOT here) into a central reservation, apparently it was being given its mandatory drive, sensibly and someone pulled out, the guy had to accelerate hard to get out the way and on a wet road ended up doing a torvill and dean. The driver is a rally driver as well so not exactly a bunny at car handling. i'm sure he was rubbish though.
That would be an exciting call to the insurance co....
but they're bore you to death about how their new one turns in sharper than this or that or how it's faster around this place or that - they're a bunch of bullshit artists.
Totally unlike people here talking about MTBs then.
I span my RWD Volvo when I accelerated (not hard) round a corner in our local town and their was some diesel on the road. Never got a chance to correct it and thankfully not any harm done apart from to my pride. A greasy road in a 500bhp RWD mid engined monster would make an accident inevitable with a novice driver.
And yet, on the same day as that single Ferrari crashed (or more accurately, it's driver crashed) some several thousand normal cars will also crash (or more accurately, several thousand more normal drivers will crash), mostly for the simple reason that they weren't paying attention to what they were doing.......
I imagine it went something like this...
Or these - It seems there's a lot of it about!
A few years ago I was in the works van driving on the dual carriage way link between Crawley and Horsham. It was very wet and at the end of the slightly uphill straight there was a wide patch of water running across the road. Just after the bend there was lots of carbon fibre in the armco, across the road and up the bank. The largest lump of carbon fibre was the remains of a Lamborghini with a very shocked looking driver on the phone. He'd taken all the corners off it and it didn't have a drivers side.
All at 70mph....I suspect he told the police.
I know somebody who did buy a new 488 and crashed it same day. First thing he did of course, was turn it to race or track mode, turning off all the traction control and other "nannies"... result, new 488 upside down with every single body panel dented.
The best thing is that most of them aren't even going very fast at all in those videos above, I'd probably be faster in our old Mazda 6....
The one from the car inJapan (Judging by the voices) is brilliant!!! LOL!
Was it an auto? If I remember an old track day the pedals were in an awful place, could easily have slammed the brake on and given it the full beans on the loud pedal instead.
I'm surprised by those videos, I thought the computer gubbins would counteract a lot of the power keeping it where it's pointing. I can understand the 355 and older but the newer models I thought would be easier to drive. Still I'd have one in a heartbeat.
Finally we need a volunteer to recommend that Ferrari to an OP asking for a recommendation for a car for his wife to nip into town with the dog and kids.
Finally finally we need someone to blame it all on cyclists.
thecaptain - Member
Finally we need a volunteer to recommend that Ferrari to an OP asking for a recommendation for a car for his wife to nip into town with the dog and kids.Finally finally we need someone to blame it all on cyclists.
Oh please, we need someone to debate the real world mpg of a diesel Ferrari vs petrol Ferrari as well as whether or not winter tyres or 4wd drive Ferraris are better on snow and of course, what Ferrari for dealing with angry dogs.
In true STW style I'll say don't get a Ferrari and recommend what I own. This wouldn't happen in my Zafira 🙂
I thought the computer gubbins would counteract a lot of the power keeping it where it's pointing.
Yes but to prove you're a real man you have to turn all that stuff off.
This wouldn't happen in my Zafira
My wife and our Zafira beg to differ.
You would all be amazed at how many people really don't have a clue how to drive, let alone drive a proper sports car, money is not a reason to own a fast car, or at least it shouldn't be 🙄
As previously mentioned, fast 'normal' cars you can literally put your foot to the floor and nothing too crazy happens.
Put your foot to the floor in something like that and you'll end up in a tree. Or in a field on fire in this case.
No amount of computer gubbins and expensive tyres can offset 600bhp and a heavy right foot. Unless the computer realises the driver can't drive and limits the engine to 80bhp.
In which case you may as well save your money and buy a normal car. Possibly the 'sport' version of you feel confident.
I was probably only a few minutes behind this, we approached as traffic briefly slowed, saw a fire ahead, it quickly got quite intense as we passed saw it was in the field I thought little of it but my work mate in the car saw two people running into the field so assumed something had happened. I just saw a van and car on hard shoulder, no obvious signs of any crash
It wasn't raining at the time although it had been quite heavy about 30 minutes previously so road was wet but I wouldn't describe it as hazardous driving conditions, traffic on the motorway was light, perfectly straight bit of road
No idea how he could end up where he did given the conditions, but I don't recall a black Ferrari passing us in the moments before so suspect excess speed wasn't a contributing factor, although that's not to say he wasn't pulling some dickish type of move at the time or someone didn't pull out in front and he over reacted on the brakes and lost it, basically could be anything and possibly only the driver knows why
suspect excess speed wasn't a contributing factor, although that's not to say he wasn't pulling some dickish type of move at the time
Excess speed may well have not been a factor.
Excess acceleration whilst turning the steering wheel, ensuing panic and over compensating steering .. That's what my money is on.
It's better to have loved and lost.......
Not in this case, he clearly couldn't handle the car, he could have killed a bunch of people for his adrenaline rush.
He didn't have much time to love the car and he lost a fair chunk of money in the process. I assume he had insurance but who's gonna give him a good quote after writing off a Ferrari?
Well it was supposed to be a subtle joke but uh. Yeah.
Sorry *wooshed right over my head.
*no pun intended
Nearest I've ever got to driving something like that was a Merc C63 AMG, and for the hour or so I had it it didn't get over an indicated 80mph, 75-6 in real world figures; I'll bet all the white vans and repmobiles tearing past in the outside lane were wondering why it was going so slow!
The trade plates might have given them a bit of a clue, but I wasn't going to risk my job driving like a jackass!
The sound of that engine made it bloody tempting, mind... 😈