Despite their often feather-light bodies and extreme powerful engines, supercars are some of the safest cars on the planet thanks in part to the extensive use of composite materials, such as carbon fiber. However, no amount of safety can save people from recklessness as highlighted in the following crash which occurred recently in Singapore.
The Ferrari 599 GTO, which is the fastest car ever produced by Ferrari, was being driven by local businessman Ma Chi when it collided with a taxi after the GTO ran a red light, killing the taxi driver, taxi passenger, and Ma Chi himself.
A motorcycle was also involved in the incident with the rider escaping with serious spinal injuries, while the 20-year-old female passenger from the Ferrari suffered head injuries and was treated on the scene. As you would expect, the scene of the crash was littered with debris and the most surprising thing to come out of this crash is that it all seems to have been caught on tape.
A GIF image reportedly showing the Ferrari running a red light and hitting the taxi was posted on Twitter and soon converted into a YouTube video which you can see after the jump.
It’s currently unclear if alcohol was involved in the incident, but whatever caused the crash, three people have died and 2 others have been seriously injured so no amount of inquests or autopsies will ever heal the wounds of those who lost loved ones in this traumatic crash.
The moral of this story is extremely clear: Never run red lights and always drive responsibly.
Just days after we brought you news of a 2013 BMW M5 crashing on the autobahn, we have yet more bad news from what seems to be a haunted-stretch of road. Not only has one supercar crashed on the Autobahn in recent days, four high supercars were actually totaled on the same stretch of German highway in just a few days.
This horrific chain of events all started last week when a luxurious, silver Maserati GranTurismo crashed on Wednesday while in the hands of its brand new owner. Arguably the most expensive car to crash out of the lot was a grey McLaren MP4-12C] which was wiped out on Friday, after its 27-year-old owner lost control but fortunately managed to escape the incident uninjured.
The following day, the two remaining supercars were involved in separate incidents with the first car of the two to be written-off being an extremely exotic Dodge Viper ACR which had only been rented for the weekend with the renter having only been in possession of the 612 horsepower behemoth for just three hours. Unless the car was insured from the rental facility, the driver could be looking at an extremely hefty bill.
And finally, the forth supercar to crash along the same stretch of Autobahn was a silver Chevrolet Corvette Z06, which met its untimely demise by sliding off into an embankment.
Thus far, only the McLaren has been confirmed as a write-off while the Dodge Viper ACR and GranTurismo aren’t far off needing entire re-builds. It’s currently unclear if the German police are investigating these incidents and possibly looking into any faults in the road surface which may have played parts in each of the crashes.
Last month, the black cloud over Toyota Racing’s head reared up again in the form of one of its drivers crashing the TS030 Hybrid at Paul Ricard circuit bad enough to render it useless. This forced Toyota Racing to cancel the T030’s debut at Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium.
It appears as if the black clouds have cleared up again, as Toyota Racing has announced that a new monocoque is complete and testing will resume almost immediately. This also puts the team on pace to hold true to its promise of debuting on June 16th for the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
We’ll be honest in saying that we had our doubts that Toyota could get a monocoque built in time to test before the 24 Hours of Le Mans, but Toyota Racing certainly stepped up to the task and pumped out a replacement vehicle. The issue now is that the monocoque the team is testing was slated to be a spare, and now there is no spare. We’re willing to bet that the brass at TR are telling the drivers to mind their Ps and Qs while testing. According to Toyota’s press release, however, TR will be entering two T030s into 24 Hours of Le Mans, so a second monocoque must be in the works.
With only a little more than a month of testing and tinkering to do, this really leaves Toyota with very little time to really adjust the car and allow the drivers to get a feel for it. Yes, it is the same build as the original TS030, built as with all cars, there is a little variance between each build.
We’re all pulling for Toyota to make a clean return to Le Mans from here on out.
Click past the jump to read Toyota’s press release.
Even though the autobahn is one of the most technologically-advanced highway systems in the world, the lack of speed limits do present a few problems. There are some unwritten rules in regards to the autobahn as drivers pushing their cars generally keep to the inside lane and leave their left indicators on as a warning to upcoming cars to move aside.
Just like any other highway system, accidents always occur and the latest involved a 2012 BMW M5 being driven at speeds in excess of 186. Reports claim that the crash occurred after the 60-year-old driver swerved to avoid a car which merged into his lane erratically, before spearing into the central divider, sliding across the road and flipping multiple times before coming to a rest on the grass bordering the road.
It’s unclear just how fast the M5 was travelling at the time of the crash, but based on the following pictures, the crash must have been fairly violent. Furthermore, when the car came to a rest the engine bay caught fire, but thankfully the driver’s sons were able to put out the blaze, who were following the M5 in an M6 and M3.
Thankfully all the passengers involved, including a dog, managed to escape the crash without serious injury but the M5 is definitely a write-off which is a real shame.
Crashing a regular Lotus Exige is bad enough, but crashing an Exige so customized it could pass as a completely different car is something else entirely. Frank Profera built the car pictured completely by hand over the past six years, even fitting it with both a supercharger and turbocharger to help it produce in excess of 700BHP.
As a result, Frank claimed on the video past the jump when Matt Farah drove his one-off masterpiece for the Drive channel that it was the fastest Lotus in the world, even trumping the incredible Hennessey Venom GT in the twisty roads of the Californian canyons.
Unfortunately however, the car was recently involved in an incident on California’s Route 101, where Frank claims he was rear-ended by a Porsche before sliding backwards into the median strip. In what can only be described as an all-out attack on the Porsche driver, Frank posted a comment on YouTube continually swearing at the driver and taking no responsibility for the incident himself.
Just like any other car crash, there will undoubtedly be conflicting views in how it occurred, and if Profera is to be believed, the Porsche driver didn’t stop and instead continued on their merry way. Thankfully no one was injured in the accident, and the damage only seems to be external, but it will take weeks if not months for the owner to fix all the custom body panels.
Follow the jump to see Profera’s car in action and the pictures.
We have all had bad experiences at car dealerships and car repair shops. Heck, being a former service manager, I have had to attempt to repair these bad situations at times. Typically, when customer service turns sour, you simply express your anger, go home, call the corporate office, and eventually get a resolution. Well, apparently this is not the way the customer service flowchart goes in some countries.
In a Nissan and Suzuki dealership in what looks to be Russia, if I am seeing the sign correctly, a customer decides to take part in creating his own resolution for a customer service issue.
According to the story that we read, this customer took his Suzuki SUV, which he bought new, back to the dealership to have a faulty shock replaced. The dealership refused to replace the shock under warranty, which really isn’t that uncommon, and from there the customer bypassed calling customer service, and chose to take his frustrations out on the dealership, by way of ramming his Grand Vitara through the dealership’s window.
That’s not where it stops, this driver then smashes up a few brand new floor model vehicles, using his SUV as a battering ram, then eventually disappears from the screen – likely to do more damage on the other side of the dealership.
I used to have pretty nasty road rage, but mine mostly consisted of laying on my horn and flashing the occasional one-fingered salute. This guy really needs to get his anger issues under control. I hope his car insurance company is prepared to pay out to fix his now-smashed SUV, or their office may receive the same “redecorating.”
Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face, sheesh. Check out the above video to see all of the craziness, pay close attention to the brave guy that goes knocking on this lunatic’s window at the 1:57 mark. What’s he gonna do, ask him for some Grey Poupon?
It always pains us to bring forth news of any car burning to a crisp, especially a supercar, but this one was just too ‘good’ to pass up. The Lamborghini Aventador has only been on the market for a couple of months, and in that time, the Murcielago’s successor seems to be a raging success. That is, however, until the black example pictured above went up in flames in southern California recently.
We all remember the horrible run of fires which plagued the Ferrari 458 Italia in 2010, and we sincerely hope that this doesn’t hint at a possible problem in the latest supercar from Sant’Agata, Italy. Initial reports suggest that the fire began in the engine bay, before the unfortunate owner pulled over to watch their brand new hypercar send a plume of black smoke into the atmosphere.
Whoever owns this car, no matter how wealthy there are, will definitely feel it in their bank account as it’s worth in excess of $350,000 and is a complete write off.
Just as a quick reminder, the Lamborghini Aventador LP700-4 features an all-new 6.5-liter V12 engine producing 692BHP (700PS) and 509 lb-ft of torque at 5,500 rpm. As a result of this immense power, and the appropriately named ‘Thrust mode,’ the Aventador can sprint from 0-62 mph in just 2.9 seconds and hit a top speed of 217 mph.
However, this unfortunate example will never reach those speeds again, as it’ll be sent straight to the scrap yard. We just have to wonder if it was one of the examples that was rumored to be recalled back in December 2011 with "software issues."
Remember back in the late-1990s when there was all of that hubbub about top-heavy SUVs and how they roll over easily? Apparently, some people really need to be reminded of how SUVs handle. We totally understand that the Nürburgring is an awesome thing, as anyone with a car, $34, a driver’s license, and a heartbeat can take their car screaming down this famed course. We also completely understand that some SUVs belong on this track, like the Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT8, X6M, and so on.
That said, c’mon guys, taking an obviously stock Honda CR-V for a cruise around the ‘Ring? Are you trying to record a 20:00 time around the course to gloat about to your buddies? There comes a moment in every person’s life where you simply have to decide that the risk really isn’t worth the reward, and flying an early 2000s CR-V around the ‘Ring is one of those times.
It looks like the driver in the above video doesn’t quite grasp any of that… The first minute of the video consists of almost all high-performance vehicles, or at least modified ones. Once you get to the 1:05 mark on the video you hear a loud screeching sound of tall, skinny tires and coming around the corner sideways is a CR-V. A quick flick in the other direction to attempt to correct the spin and that’s all she wrote; over goes the CR-V into a spectacular rollover.
The CR-V then leaps over the guardrail on a single bound and sticks the landing like a pro. Keep in mind, the only reason we are so nonchalant about this horrible wreck is that according to the YouTube post, the people in the CR-V were fine, except for the fact that their mom’s gonna be mad when she sees her car.
Enjoy the video and make this a reminder, don’t race your CR-V on a track designed for racecars. It never turns out well.
We all love the BMW M lineup, and we are particularly fond of the brand new 2012 Ms, which punches 560 horsepower and 502 pound-feet of torque from a TwinPower Turbo 4.4-liter V-8 engine. According to our report in January, the 2012 M5 can hit a top speed of 190 mph, and a driver on the Autobahn decided to test this spec.
This 60-year-old man pushed his fresh-off-the-showroom-floor 2012 BMW M5 all the way up to an estimated 186 mph. As he approached a merging vehicle he swerved to avoid it, sending this machine into ping-pong ball, as it careened back and forth between the left and right guardrails. The M5 then flipped several times before coming to a rest in the grass to the side of the high-speed highway.
Miraculously, the driver, his 20-year-old passenger, and his dog all survived the crash, though severely injured. This clearly shows how advanced the BMW’s safety features are. Judging by the images (hat tip to Bimmerpost for the images) if this were any other car, the results would have been more tragic.
This just goes to show that just because you own a car that will do 190 mph and are on a section of the Bundesautobahn (Autobahn for short) that has an unregulated speed limit, does not mean you should push the car to its limits. By all means, stretch its legs when it’s safe, but don’t max the thing out. We should all use the tragic death of this brand-spankin’-new M5 as a lesson in how not to drive. Save that craziness for the racetrack.
Toyota’s road racing days pretty much grounded to a halt when corporate headquarters pulled the automaker from the F1 program after the 2009 racing season. Since 2009, Toyota Motor Company has shown improvements, as buyers began returning after the car-buying slump ended and the safety issues that plagued the automaker were rectified. This allowed Toyota to start to experiment with road racing again and develop the TS030 Hybrid.
The TS030 Hybrid had its debut race set for the Six Hours of Spa-Francorchamps on May 5th, 2012. Things were looking good for the 3.4-liter V-8-powered TS030 Hybrid until its most recent test run. An undisclosed driver was testing out the TS030 at Paul Ricard and must have had a fairly horrific crash, as Toyota Racing Team President announced that the team could not build a new monocoque – chassis for those that don’t speak race-a-nese – in time for the May 5th debut.
Most people would think “Why not just use a second body; they all have spares, right?" Well, when you are easing your toes back into the racing pool, like Toyota is, you can’t really afford to go blowing millions of dollars building and testing multiple cars. In the future, yes, they will have multiple monocoques, but for now there was only one.
According to the press release, a new monocoque will be ready in time for the June running at the Le Mans 24 Hours.
A few things come to mind here. First off, was Toyota planning on arriving at the Six Hours of Spa-Francorchamps with only one monocoque? Secondly, how much of a bum does the driver that thrashed their only vehicle feel right about now? Maybe that’s why they kept wraps on which driver it was that wrecked it.
Well, here’s to a speedy rebuild, Toyota, and we hope to see you in June, sans the black cloud floating over your head.
Hit the jump for the official presser from Toyota Racing and a cool video of the TS030 testing.
