World’s Most Expensive Car Crashes
Author: Chris Barker
Published: 20 August 2008
When we say car crashes, we don’t necessarily stay true to form, and from time to time stray quite readily into the arena of car fires. But there’s good reason for this. And it goes by the names of taste and decency. And possible legality. MT does not – and never has – condoned wanton imagery depicting the visible suffering and pain of motorists – apart from at the petrol pumps - complete with contorted faces, occasional bloodletting and optional organ discharge. Much in the same way that MT never stops and gawps at freeway accidents to fulfill its cravings for excitement and subversive pleasure. It’s just not our bag. Having said that we got on the blower to our motoring buddies over at www.wreckedexotics.com who assisted us with the images -a website that dedicates its time to supplying supercar voyeurs with a constant drip feed of luxury exotica in varying states of disarray. And disembodiment mainly.
Our photo-fits are not of celebrity car smashes - no VIc Reeves, Lindsey Lohan, Shia LaBeouf, Morgan Freeman here - all are members of their own select club. And if you're looking for a wrecked Bugatti Veyron it's not here - as it wasn't a complete write off.
They are normal folk that have perhaps made a killing on the stock markets. They too want the trappings of such acknowledged wealth, so they go and get themselves a fast car. A very fast car. Either that, or they go and steal one.
Conclusive proof that money may well be able to buy you anything you desire, but ultimately at the price of being made to look a total somewhere not very far down the road, at the exact juncture someone tells you to shout ‘cheese’.
What follows is the list of the World's Most Expensive Car Crashes
Jay Kay’s Lamborghini Diablo SE30 totalled
A list like this wouldn’t be worth the screen it’s written on if we failed to mention jazz-fused Jay Kay’s misdemeanour at the wheel.The funkster who single-handedly supplies gossip columns with free material every time he turns up a red carpet event is renown as much for the contents of his garage as he is for his mantelpiece-dwelling gold discs these days and is no stranger to temporarily dislodging himself from the road and acquainting himself with the UK’s hedgerows.
Which is – as we all know - down to his grip-free trainers’ inability to control the pedals. Not only is he the proud owner of an envied collection of slippy sneakers, even slippier dance moves and downright ludicrous hats the sort of which would be deemed just too daft for a jester, but he’s had more heavy metal than you’ve had microwave-re-heated suppers. Which has more often than not meant that his perceived planet saving credentials have always sat somewhat awkwardly next to his enjoyment and clearly defined need for more than an average quota of speed. All of which led the lead singer of Jamiroquai to the destruction of his beautiful magenta Lamborghini Diablo SE30 (with an estimated worth of £193,000, the model preceded the Murcielago) as he struggled to control the bullish Italian supercar on attempting to turn an evidently troublesome corner. The mercurial space cowboy was thrown onto the edge of the road by his later buckled bronco as well as fined £750.• Check out Jay Kay's smashed Lamborghini Diablo in the pictures at the bottom of the page
Bentley Continental GT ends up attached to Lincoln Towncar in New York
New York. The city that never sleeps so legend/marketing has it.Well, maybe so. But if the owner of this £135K Bentley Continental GT coupe had snook a few zeds prior to this journey, they might have arrived at their destination less crumpled and grumpy. And other telltale signs of sleep depravation. Like parking your car in the front of another.
According to eye-witness reports – and the fact that the Bentley grand tourer is clearly lodged into the business end of a Lincoln Towncar – the GT driver sideswiped what appears to be a bit player in this car pinball game – a killjoy Honda Accord – which in turn sent the Bentley across central reservation and headlong into the path of the approaching yank tank. And the rest as they say is history. And a whopping great bill of repairs no doubt.• Check out the wrecked Bentley Continental GT photo at the bottom
Lamborghini Murcielago burn-out in Kuwait
They say every picture tells a story. OK. This picture might be able to depict a central theme – one of the faint smell of burning, followed by an almighty explosion and concluding with charcoal mainly – yet unfortunately it can’t decide on the central character.Which we have on good authority as being a £197,640 Lamborghini Murcielago LP640.
Kuwait, as we know, is a hotbed of oil-rich Arabs with money burning holes in their white flannelettes. But it appears that when they’re not spunking it on illegible number plates, they’re not averse in seeing their cash go up in flames. That’s if this image is anything to go by. Simply described as a tragic result of what happens when a 211mph supercar crashes at high speed, thus prompting an engine fire and subsequent explosion, who are we to question this judgment. On the plus side, the once proud supercar will still command around £250 in scrap value, and thus provide some practical parts to a Beijing-bound fridge freezer.• Scroll to the bottom of this page for the Murcielago burn-out pic
Lamborghini Murcielago provides quite a spectacle
This picture shows again that Lamborghinis can pose a series wealth issue. Or should that be health issue? This £200K Murcielago Roadster at first glance visibly appears to have carelessly driven into the viewfinder of someone trying to capture the moment a volcano erupts. Why the selfish so-and-so has even stopped and got out to have a ganders themselves – cue the gull wing door ajar – and thus blotting an otherwise impressive shot of Mother Nature’s finest destructive hour. But then you gradually think to yourself just how many major intersections are sighted that close to active volcanoes in the Key Largo area of Florida? Er, none. So what we really have here is another engine fire. And another long face, factious insurance claim and ready-made fodder for the American equivalent of ‘You’ve been framed’ to look out for on some obscure digital channel.•Go and take a look at the Murcielago Roadster damage at the foot of this page
Lamborghini Murcielago crashes and burns in Middle East
With as much crude oil floating around in the Middle East at any one time as there is, it’s no wonder random combustions take place with alarming regularity.Add into the heady mix the Murcielago’s accident-prone tendancy – the model’s reportedly plagued by handling issues – and as this picture is further damning evidence toward, budding-millionaires might want to steer clear.
Showing a little more effort at rewarding the rubber-necker with some distinctive LP640 styling characteristics that simply don’t lie, the location is also immediately authenticated by the backdrop of some temple or another. Again, we’re led to believe that an engine fire can cause this amount of damage to the £200,000 Lamborghini supercar. Whether or not it took half a box of Swan Vestas, a petrol-doused rag and much flame fanning for it to get going in the first place isn’t made any clearer by the image, but suspicions that it might have been started deliberately were aroused when two men fitting description of Sammy Davis Jnr and Dean Martin were spotted swiftly driving away from the scene in a red Ferrari 308GTS, whilst shouting something about "winning this Cannonball Run", whatever that is?• Make sure you check out yet another destroyed Murcielago at the bottom of the page
Bentley Continental GTC rolls in Australia
In Australia there are many naturally occurring hazards that you have to keep your eyes peeled for. Kangaroos looking for a brawl, aborigines and their crash causing didgeridoos and spaced out Koala bears, high on eucalyptus leaves being just three. Well now there’s perhaps something else to add to the growing list as the driver of this £130K Bentley GTC convertible found out to his cost. The possibility remains that a roadside hoarding in Brisbane advertising that former pop warbler Jason Donovan is on the comeback trail and has a new long player out soon might have been the root cause of this expensive episode of driver absent mindedness. Crash, bang, wallop indeed. Only that wasn’t the sound of a drum roll and canned studio laughter. It was the sound of a stunned driver losing control of his Bentley supercar, rolling it several times and coming to rest in a ditch full of water. Well, a couple of feet of water any road. And to think he walked away with only minor bruising. Which would be more than the rest of us would get away with if Donovan did actually start droning on about two many broken hearts again like some soppy, lank-haired ex-soap star loser. Fair dinkum though, the guy can sure act as ITV’s Echo Beach went a short way to prove.• Zoom to the bottom of the page for the Bentley Continental GTC wreck
Porsche Carrera GT engine blows!
Looking more like something Daniella Westbrook once sneezed over in her leisure drug taking prime, this £325,000 Porsche Carrera GT had in actual fact suffered an engine fire. A popular trait that seems to have an uncanny knack of befalling very expensive supercars. Long-term implications sadly amount to more than just titillating passers-by at a loose end, keen to have their photos taken with what might be otherwise mistaken for a giant Porsche Carrera GT shaped luxury chocolate with a sprinkling of caster sugar on top. Like the underlying fact that the car is as good as useless now. And, that’s £325K down the swannee. Still, whoever is responsible for effectively totalling this GT in Shanghai, can console themselves they are in good company. There have been 38 recorded counts of Carrera GT reshaping since its launch in 2004, and no lesser a dignitary than Lewis Hamilton’s dad - who himself directed a Porsche Carrera GT into some leylandii a few months back - bringing shame on his f1-dabbling son makes up that number. As well as a few more headlines to sell a few more papers. With murmurings that the Carrera GT wasn’t the safest car on the road, production was brought to a premature end in 2006.• Check out one of 38 recorded Porsche GT wrecks at the bottom
Ferrari F355 smashed
It's never nice seeing a Ferrari looking a little sorry for itself, unless of course you think Ferrari’s are driven by people who by rights should be sporting their genitalia on their foreheads. In which case it’s a hoot.For the majority of you out there then, this £105K grey around the gills F355, which seems to have had a run in with an immovable object. Like the Great Wall of China.
Although don’t let any Chinese car manufacturers’ spend too long staring at this once super car, or they’ll see a ground-breaking opportunity to clone it and call it their own. Talking its latest model up as a very compact, two-seater roadster for those that want Ferrari F355 looks for a fraction of the price. And even more reduced quality. We’re not quite sure how it happened, but secretly glad that it does from time to time, restoring some kind of nice person/asshole balance and making us emit a contented sigh.Ferrari Enzo broken in two!
Not the winter wonderland scene it first appears, as that white stuff’s not snow, but foam. The heavy-duty variety fire fighters pump out when a blaze needs putting out ASAP. As opposed to the half-hearted stuff you wade through in an Essex nightclub. And on closer inspection you can understand why they needed to implement such draconian measures, as what you’re seeing is not two cars, caught up in a collision that seems to have had a tree play an important role, but the one. The one Ferrari Enzo that is. Set on location in Nice, France, this tale involving an Italian thoroughbred gets a lot more cosmopolitan than that, with news that the driver held a Russian passport. In fact, he was a member of the Russian parliament and ranked 72th richest bloke in the world. Hence the £450,000 Enzo. Hence the flamboyant spectacle. That’s right. No scuffing into a Hyundai Getz and breaking a taillight for this show-off, as he insisted in putting on a display for his passenger. Whether or not this two-piece supercar now forms part of a Damien Hirst-inspired display no one knows. And whether each half would fetch £225K in their own right is nothing more than guesswork. And insensitivity to another man’s misfortune. The crash happened as a result of the driver driving his new car at silly speeds through busy traffic. And a mature tree. Which if nothing else, serves as a reminder of just how dangerous a weapon a car is. In the hands of a billionaire playboy with a woman to flirt with.• Check the halved Ferrari Enzo pic at the bottom of the page
Ferrari Enzo smashed into pieces!
Believe it or not this pile of debris started off its pristine life as the underpinnings of a £450K Ferrari Enzo. You might just be able to make out the Ferrari logo on the engine block. What you won't be able to describe to anyone in the same room as you is the finer points of the sweeping curves that typify the Enzo. Because they’re not there. Neither is any semblance of an interior, wheels or glass. In fact, there’s very little to confirm one way or another as to its identity. Until that is the camera spins 180 degrees and spots the missing pieces of this incredibly fragmented Enzo jigsaw further down the road. Shrouded in mystery, the red supercar belonged to a Swedish video-gaming millionaire. One story suggests that he was attempting to capture on a hand-held device the thrills of street racing up close and personal, which he would later formulate and develop for gaming console purposes. Had it not being very nearly a case of game over. Another implied that he was engaging in a spot of drag racing with a Mercedes-Benz SLR. Either way he did his defence little favour by blurting the following, highly improbable get out clause when questioned over the incident. He informed authorities that he was a passenger in the car driven by 'a mysterious German man whom he knew only as Dietrich' when the Ferrari Enzo lost control and crashed on Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu. He said Dietrich fled on foot up a canyon and disappeared.Witnesses said the Enzo mounted the brow of a hill travelling at over 120mph, lifted off the ground and planting itself in a power pole, which split the car in two; sending the engine flying one way, and a trail of assorted Ferrari debris the other. Police were also said to be investigating the legality of the Enzo’s import to the United States, and quite how the millionaire came to be its owner. One of the most exclusive supercars in the world, only 400 were said to have been manufactured. Less two we now know about.
• Take a look for yourself below at the disembowelled Enzo below
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Small beer!
I saw a Maclaren F1 go up in flames on the A27 near Brighton.