Steve Parker Motoring / The Car Nut: FERRARI ENZO AND PORSCHE CARRERA WRECKED

EXCLUSIVE PHOTO ALBUM! 2009 GUMBALL RALLY 3000

See Steve's exclusive Gumball Rally video from NBC-TV's Whipnotic website (copy and paste): http://www.whipnotic.com/videos/viewvideo-558.html Over 120 gas-guzzling super-exotic sports cars, Hummers, Cadillac Escalade SUVs and an occasional interesting older car roared on May 2, 2009, from a California beach-side parking lot directly onto I-10, the Santa Monica Freeway, also known as the Christopher Columbus Transcontinental Highway, for the start of this year's Gumball Rally. The world's most politically-incorrect automotive street event, the Gumball Rally 3000, left Santa Monica (CA) Pier on Saturday, May 2, 2009 and headed toward its ultimate destination of Miami, FL eight days later. Participants reportedly paid $44,000 per car/team to enter the event. Though the Gumball stresses the skills of its drivers (and their cars) there are only two race track "special section" stops scheduled for the 3,000-mile long event, which will be run on public roads with all entrants subject to all highway rules and regulations. All photos (c) 2009 by www.SteveParker.com

November 28, 2006

FERRARI ENZO AND PORSCHE CARRERA WRECKED

A bunch of websites seem to exist only for the purpose of running photos of wrecked cars, classics and collectibles specifically. We are not altogether sure what the attraction of this is, but we've been guilty of it ourselves, and here are two more recently-wrecked over-$1-million-cars, a Ferrari Enzo and a Porsche Carrera, top-of-the-line for both of these incredible automotive engineering companies. In fact, both these firms make more money doing Research & Development and prototyping and engineering work for other companies (not necessarily automotive companies, either). So, for those of you who enjoy this stuff, herewith the wrecks:

Suleiman Kerimov, a billionaire Russian Statue Duma Deputy, crashed his black Ferrari Enzo into a tree in Nice, on the French Riviera. The car subsequently caught fire, severely burning Kerimov. His passenger, an unidentified female companion, was also injured in the crash but the extent of her injuries was not reported. Kerimov is currently hospitalized in Marseilles, where he was airlifted to after medical personnel in Nice stabilized him.

Hospital officials are not commenting on Kerimov's chances for survival. The politician is a member of Russia's Liberal Democratic Party and is said to be worth over 7 billion dollars. This is the latest in a series of Ferrari Enzo wrecks over the last year, the most high-profile of which was Stefan Erickson's crash in Malibu this past February which his car split in half. (Photo: A 2004 Enzo wrecked after overtaking a bus in the UK).

(Sources: Bloomberg via The Moscow Times, ITAR-TASS, Autoblog)

PORSCHE CARRERA GT SHUNTED IN WESTCHESTER, NY

This accident took place last after a party (what a shocker, right?). It has been reported elsewhere that: The owner let the other driver, a prominent businessman, take the Carrera GT out for a spin.

In this case, it appears that the car proved to be more than this person bargained for, and it hit the utility pole at what appears to have been a significant rate of speed.

The driver luckily escaped with only a broken foot.

The car appears to be totaled. The man who wrecked the car reportedly bought the Carrera's owner another Carrera GT the next day. With lower mileage, too.