Germany is supposed to be one of the few places in the world where supercars can stretch their legs and just go all-out without the worry of being flagged. That’s why it bums us out after hearing that two separate accidents occurred in Germany over the weekend involving two of the most popular – and expensive – exotics out on the planet.
The first accident occurred in a town called Vaterstetten where a Lamborghini Murcielago LP-640 that was being driven by a 32-year old spun out of control after – what else? – the driver decided to run it faster than he should have. If that wasn’t bad enough, a separate crash occurred near Geiselwind involving a Bugatti Veyron who, just like the Murcielago, had a pretty overeager driver determined to show off his car’s power only to end up losing control of it and crashing it in the process.
Both drivers escaped the crashes without any major injuries although with the current state of their prized exotics, it’s a safe bet that they’re bank accounts won’t be healthy in the foreseeable future.
What a waste of a perfectly awesome tuned up sports car. For the record, we’re glad that the driver – a 40-year old man – and his passenger walked away from the crash without any major injuries. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for that tuned-up beast that was once a G-Power Hurricane.
The BMW M5-tuned beast was totaled beyond recognition after the driver, who appeared to have been driving under the influence during the time of the accident, lost control of the car as a result of some high-speed – and obscenely reckless – driving before crashing head-on into a tree while it was on its way to Autenzell, a small town in northern Germany.
We can’t determine whether this tuned-up BMW M5 comes with the RS or RR tuning kit, but either way, the damage on the car is about as bad as it gets. It’s highly unlikely that the car can be pieced back together, a pity considering that the G-Power Hurricane – whether it’s an RS or RR version – is one of the most desirable BMW tuning kits out on the market.
As we announced last week, the Mercedes SLS AMG GT3 made its race track debut this past weekend in the VLN Endurance Championship at Nurburgring. While everyone expected this to be a great event, it didn’t have such a joyous end for the SLS GT3.
The car, driven by Bernd Schneider, went out of control and crashed into a Corvette driven by Christian Hohenadel. Bernd Schneider, five-time DTM Champion and now an AMG brand ambassador, was behind the wheel at the start. Schneider was already in second place by the first bend, however contact with the leading car on the second bend caused him to spin and collide with the following car. After a 25-minute break for repairs, Bernd Schneider returned to the race three laps behind the leaders, and was able to hold his own without problems in the lineup of GT3 cars. However, it only finished in the 91st position. Not exactly the type of debut Mercedes had in mind.
What is it with auto mechanics that makes them think that they can toy around with other people’s cars, especially one as high-end and expensive as an Aston Martin Vanquish?
For the life of us, we can’t tell you, other than maybe they’ve lost their minds and can’t seem to scratch that itch for the thrill so they take the next sports car they see and go balls out on it. Unfortunately, their driving skills aren’t as good as their mechanical skills, otherwise they wouldn’t have crashed this beautiful Aston Martin Vanquish in Rose Hill, Australia.
Now, we don’t mind mechanics test driving our cars after they’ve worked on it. It’s the only way they can test the car to make sure that everything’s where it’s supposed to be and that it’s running in good condition, but when these mechanics go overboard with their test driving, then that’s where it becomes a problem.
We don’t know what the owner did when he found out that his precious Vanquish had been crashed, but we’re venturing a guess that he wasn’t all too pleased about it.
Hey, look! There’s a bonfire happening in the middle of the streets of London!
Oh, wait. That’s not a bonfire. What that is, unfortunately, is a Ferrari 360 Modena that’s on fire. Hey, at least it’s not a Ferrari 458 Italia.
Tasteless jokes aside, the story on how that 360 Modena caught fire is a doozy. Turns out, it belonged to somebody who decided to rent out his supercar through a rental agency for $1,500 to an Arab prince who ended up crashing it to oblivion. And all of that happened before the car started catching fire.
Two things that we’re dying to know: One, how in the world did the owner feel when he found out his Ferrari was totaled beyond repair and all he got out of it was $1,500. You can’t even buy a dinged-up Pinto with that money. Second, how can an Arab prince rent out a Ferrari when he probably has like a hundred of them tucked in his garage?
Although we don’t know what came out of this mess, the only redeeming part about this is that the Arab prince can probably afford to replace the 360 Modena with another Ferrari, or maybe something even better. If we were the owner of the car, we’d be thinking somewhere along the lines of maybe a Pagani Zonda.
While filming an Audi commercial featuring the new "driverless" VW/Audi car named Shelly, an Aerospatiale helicopter crashed near the summit of the famed Pikes Peak Highway. The pilot, Jim Dirker, was severely injured, but is said to be in fair condition. The other three crew members were hurt, but are in stable condition and will be able to leave the hospital later today.
In an official statement the company said: "Audi is saddened by the helicopter incident that took place this morning near the summit of Pikes Peak. Today’s film crew was shooting a test run of the “Autonomous Audi TTS Pikes Peak,” a joint program involving Audi, the Electronic Research Laboratory in Palo Alto, California, and Stanford University. The goal of the project involves ascending Pikes Peak autonomously without a driver behind the wheel to demonstrate the capabilities of advanced driver assistance systems and GPS. The car was not involved in the incident."
"Further information on the helicopter incident will be released by the National Transportation Safety Board and local law enforcement officials. All research activities on Pikes Peak have been suspended. The research project will continue at a later date."
We didn’t know that gas stations would be such a dangerous place for sports cars, but as the owner of this very dinged up Porsche 911 GT3 RS in the UK will tell you, there really is no place to feel safe with your sports car these days.
We don’t exactly know the details behind this crash, although we’re a little surprised that given the circumstances – like, say, hitting the fuel pumps - it didn’t lead to anything more dangerous. But hey, you can only count your blessings, right?
Despite the extensive damage the 911 GT3 RS sustained, we think that the car is still somewhat salvageable. It might take a lot of money to repair the entire front hood and bumper, but given that this is one sweet piece of ride, sending it to the clunkers would be a perfectly way to waste a Porsche 911 GT3 RS. Then again, not crashing it into a gas pump would’ve been a better alternative.
America’s most popular jock, Tom Brady, was involved in a car accident a few days ago involving a pretty sweet Audi S8 sedan. Now, it turns out that the S8 Brady crashed was loaned to him by Audi as part of an arrangement the Patriots quarterback has with the automaker and the Best Buddies charity.
For those who don’t know, Brady has served as an honorary chairman of the Best Buddies charity for the past three years. In his tenure, Brady has even spearheaded a number of charity events, including hosting the Audi Best Buddies Challenge, a series of fund-raising events that predictably includes a flag football game.
The Brady-Audi partnership has been a solid one for quite some time now and, while we’re pretty sure that Audi was none too pleased on seeing one of their S8 sedans getting all dinged up, we don’t think they’re going to reprimand Tom Brady for the crash.
After all, the Pats quarterback has been a model partner for the company through all the charities he gets involved with and Audi couldn’t have picked a better athlete to tie up with. Just don’t let him drive any more loaner Audis in the future.
Ordinarily, any racing team would always want to have a perfect pit stop. It doesn’t always go according to plan, but for the most part, you take the lumps of botched stops over the possibility of a mechanic getting seriously hurt, especially if the incident could have been totally avoided if not for a minor miscommunication.
In this video taken during the recently-concluded Italian Grand Prix, a mechanic from the HRT team was thrown violently into the ground by driver Sakon Yamamoto’s F1 car after it left the box earlier than it should. In fairness to Yamamoto, it wasn’t entirely his fault because as a driver, the one and only signal he has that he can accelerate comes from the lollipop man, who, unfortunately, signaled for the driver to go when a mechanic was still busy adjusting the car’s radio.
With the green light signal to go, Yamamoto launched his car unaware of the plight of the mechanic fixing his radio and, as a result, the latter was slammed to the ground as Yamamoto was exiting the pits. Fortunately, the mechanic escaped his brush with serious injuries relatively unscathed. Given how strong the impact was of him being thrown to the ground, that dude should definitely count his blessings.
Technically, we don’t know if this is the first Aston Martin Rapide that has been crashed since the car was unveiled almost a year ago, but we are absolutely hoping that it is, and that no other Rapides have been cracked and banged before this.
The incident happened in Netherlands, near a school in Eindhoven. Although we have no details as to what really happened, the pictures shown here lead us to believe that it wasn’t a horrific display since the Rapide isn’t that damaged. We are guessing that there was a sudden braking scenario and the car behind him just wasn’t fast enough - or was driving too close - to brake in time. Anyone with details on this accident, please drop us an email or comment below. We have no details on what really happened, but the Rapide in the pictures looks pretty less damaged, so we presume nothing bad happened. Most likely something involving a sudden brake and the car behind not reacting in time. If you have more details on this, please let us know!
