Our friends over at WreckedExotics were kind enough to share with us a number of photos that looks nothing like a Ferrari 458 Italia. But the thing is that’s exactly what they are.
While not painted in the traditional colors Ferraris are usually associated with, the two teal blue 458s were actually the ones used by the Prancing Horse for their crash tests. Judging from the damages done on the two cars, it appears like they were involved in a side impact test and a front and rear impact test.
Also worth noting is the fact that apart from these two that are only partially covered, a number of other supposed 458s that we can only assume as crash test vehicles are fully covered. From the looks of things, the beaten-down 458s look to be in relatively good shape after enduring a crash test, which only lends more credence to Ferrari’s goal of giving the 458 some added toughness.
In a bit of cross promotions for both their Formula One team and road car program, Ferrari has just released this viral video letting all of the F1 fans around the world that Felipe Massa is doing all right by documenting his recent visit to the factory in Maranello where he met with the team and management, before getting to know the new 570 HP 458 Italia first hand. If you aren’t familiar with the recent news surrounding the Brazilian driver’s recent drama; back on July 25, 2009 a spring came off of the car in front of Massa’s Ferrari F60 and struck him in the head at around 150 MPH during the second round of qualifying for the Hungarian Grand Prix.
Felipe was immediately air lifted to a nearby hospital and placed into an induced coma to allow the healing to begin. More recently Massa underwent successful reconstructive surgery in Miami on September 1st with the hopes of competing in the Italian Grand Prix a few weeks later. Unfortunately he was unable to make an appearance at the automaker’s home race, but from the looks of thing he is doing quite well considering the circumstances. After all, he’s sitting pretty inside of a 458 Italia.
Like a set of dental records are used to identify a badly charred body, the only thing that is left from this Italian super car that is now a pile of molten metal is a lone five spoke alloy wheel with a little yellow prancing horse emblem in the center to let onlookers know that it was one a Ferrari 360 Modena. Apparently the 32 year old driver was enjoying a spirited country drive with an older female riding shotgun when he unexpectedly lost control in a swooping bend and then flipped over multiple times before landing in a crop field and then bursting into flames, however unlike the other Ferrari 360 incident that we reported on earlier, this time all that the driver walked away with was a broken ankle.
Thanks to the quick actions of a benevolent motorist who happened to be passing by just after the accident occurred and then courageously pulled both the driver and 37 year old passenger from the wreckage before they were harmed by the fire. The passengers were then treated by firefighters on the scene of the accident as they waited for paramedics. The driver only suffered a broken right ankle while the female was air lifted to the hospital with pelvic wounds however her condition was not life threatening. Had it not been for the quick acting passerby, the Ferraristas would have certainly suffered a more tragic fate. The 360 Modena involved in the incident was a 1999-2000 model that originally sold for around $150,000 and was the first production Ferrari to make use of extremely light weight aluminum and carbon fiber construction that made it an extremely agile sports car, but also a highly flammable automobile.
Vancover was the scene of yet another Nissan GT-R crash after the owner of the sports car slammed into a VanCity Credit Union Bank. Fortunately, except for the driver who had a few gashes here and there, nobody was hurt or seriously injured from the accident.
According to News 1130, the GT-R barely hit a few civilians, including one who was just in front of the car after it crashed into a row of ATM machines. Another woman was inches away from being run over before jumping out of the way seconds before it would’ve hit her.
The police are currently investigating the situation and are not ruling out the idea that the GT-R may have been going faster than it should have, which probably led to the driver losing control of the car.
The driver was fortunate that nobody was seriously hurt because he would’ve had to face a much stiffer penalty than just paying for the damages. Then again, crashing a GT-R onto a bank is going to be pretty damaging to his bank account anyway.
We’ve seen a lot of accidents over the years and for the most part, we’ve been happy enough to say that despite those unfortunate circumstances, the people involved have been lucky enough to escape from the wrecks breathing and their limbs intact. Unfortunately, this isn’t one of them.
In an accident that happened about a week ago in Rome, a 2003 Ferrari 360 Modena crashed head-on with a Fiat Punto, resulting in a devastating accident that killed both drivers and seriously injured a couple more, including a motorcycle driver.
The wreckage doesn’t even paint the picture as to how destructive the accident is. It’s one thing to crash a car and live to tell stories about it, but it’s another thing to crash and lose your life in the process.
To those who were involved and lost their lives, rest in peace, buddies.
When you’re delivering something that probably costs more than your house, it’s always best to treat the item with supreme caution.
Unfortunately, this driver forgot to remember that.
While delivering a brand-new Ferrari F430 Spider to an exotic car reseller, the poor chap had quite a few problems on how to put the F430 safely into the trailer of his truck. We don’t know exactly what he did – or didn’t do – but the beautiful and expensive F430 ended up falling rear first into the very unforgiving cemented ground.
As you can imagine, the car was severely damaged and the driver, well, he
probably had a lot of explaining to do when he got to where he was supposed to go.
Driving on sub-standard weather conditions is always a recipe for disaster, and while most of us with as much as a grain of common sense would slow down and put safety and security first, others are still bent on throwing all caution out the window.
Unfortunately, the prevailing result of this almost always ends up being a car crash, and if you’re behind the wheel of what is probably one of the rarest production cars in the world, then it makes it doubly hard to digest.
The owner of this ultra-rare 2001 QVale Mangusta had one thing to do: park his car under a shelter. While most of the surrounding cars were doing the same after a torrential downpour fell on New Orleans, the owner of the Mangusta decided he could outrun the storm but ended up spinning his car out of control, narrowly missing an unsuspecting Honda before crashing into a metal guardrail.
If you don’t know what a QVale Mangusta is, only 300 of these cars were produced back in the turn of the millennium with only 200 making it to US soil. The car, which was designed by no less than the architect behind the Lamborghini Countach and Diablo, Marcello Gandhini, came with a 5.3-liter V8 engine with a supercharged with well over 600 horsepower. Fortunately, the driver of the car escaped the crash unscathed although the same can’t be said for the Mangusta, which had its front hood and bumper completely mangled. We don’t know if he can even have that fixed considering the rarity of his ride, but it should give him a valuable lesson next time: you can’t outrun Mother Nature.
Speaking of ambitious car building efforts, when a team decides to go racing there is almost nothing that can sand in their way, not even having to build a complete race car from scratch. When Patrón Highcroft racing driver Scott Sharp totaled his Acura ARX-02a LMP1 car heading into turn 3 during a practice session for the Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta, the fun loving tequila drinking team was faced with that very task. After making sure that Sharp was still on point and stripping the wrecked Acura for whatever was still race worthy, all that the Acura racing team could do was wait.
The brand new carbon fiber tub arrived directly from Honda’s Performance Development center in California at the racetrack in Atlanta, Georgia at 9:30 AM on Friday morning and after 15 and a half hours of non stop wrenching, the ARX-02a’s 4.0 Liter V8 was fired at around 1:00 AM the next day. About six hours later the Acura took the shape of an LMP car and was on the track and race ready by 9:45 AM Saturday morning. It might have been a tall order, but remember what we said about how nothing can keep a racing team from competing.
Here in America, a lot of us have probably circled the date ‘October 17’ on our calendars, and for good reason, too.
And if you don’t know what’s so special about that date – apart from around 21 million people celebrating their birthdays (yes, we crunched the numbers!) – that’s the day when the Porshce Panamera goes on sale in the US.
But while the Panamera is still a few weeks away from tasting American soil, the car has already been sold in a number of European countries, including the Czech Republic. And unfortunately for this man who happened to have one of the said Panameras in Prague, he now also holds the distinction for being the first person to crash Porsche’s new sports car.
Although it’s just a light fender bender – we’ve seen far worse crashes than this one – crashing a new sports car is still pretty hard to come to grips with, especially since the Panamera only went on sale in Europe a few weeks ago.
Ultimately, we don’t see any reason why the man can’t pay for the damages to his car and we expect him to do so. After all, he was able to afford one in the first place, right?
Remember that enraged customer that drove a 1983 Rolls Royce straight through a Tesco store?
For his uncalled for act of destruction, the man – Robert Caton – has won for himself a 16-month, all-expense paid trip behind bars. In addition to serving time behind bars, Caton has also been slapped with another 3-month sentence because he didn’t take a breath test, plus a five-year suspension of his license.
But that’s not the most depressing part, as far as we’re concerned. His beautifully restored 1983 Rolls Royce was severely damaged beyond repair after Caton decided to use it as his preferred weapon of store destruction. You can say he was partly successful too because the Tesco store he decided to crash into ended up losing over £60,000 in damages and lost sales.
For his part, Caton was remorseful at the sentencing and owned up to his reckless stupor. “I gladly offer my sincere apologies to all affected by my reckless and irresponsible behaviour,” he said.
Kudos to him for finally manning up and taking responsibility, although if he had shown this much poise at the time of the incident, then none of it would have probably happened.
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