brewha: Yes, you are 100% corrent on Ferrari’s prerequisite to owning an Enzo. You could not be a first-time Ferrari owner, much less a first-time driver, no matter how much money you came to the table with. This is exactly why Griffin or any other Ferrari virgin shouldn’t be driving one. You wouldn’t put a toddler on a magnesium framed road racing bike right after they’ve learned to ride without training wheels either.
adam yax: Yes, his name was Stefan Eriksson. Quite the scumbag. Google his name for the skinny on that story. It’s got layers like an onion.
Monkey With a Gun: That is a great cite even though it’s note the right Griffin. And that leads me to …
Marley23: Perhaps if I’d have added a diamond studded grille, limo-tint on the windows, and a .45 in the glovebox, the joke wouldn’t have been so inconspicuous. I know, that’s so racist of me, since we all know Griffin never makes jokes about white people, right?
BTW, Monkey With a Gun, any chance your name is a reference to Eddie Izzard’s bit about monkeys and the NRA?
Those cars are very well-built. Their entire body structure is made of carbon fiber, not steel. It absorbs a lot of energy in crashes, while still maintaining its integrity.
The engine and drivetrain are designed to break away from the passenger compartment in an accident. Once that happens, you’re basically tumbling around while strapped into a carbon-fiber cocoon. Unless you hit something dead-on and cause a sudden deceleration, you have a good chance of surviving.
Re. the race question, I had no idea who E.G. is (I had the name crossed in my mind with an overweight white guy with no discernable talent I saw recently on one of the late-night talk shows), but the pimped-up Escalade crap is a fantasy shared by millions of young men of all races and ethnicities. The joke didn’t make me think the guy was black – just frivolous and ostentatious. Having bling-bling wheels may well have started in the hip-hop/NBA scene but it’s a shared whiteboy/Latino/Asian thing now, too.
When I told my brother about this, the first thing he said was “Ferrari won’t even let you buy an Enzo unless you’ve owned three Ferraris previously.” That number may actually be two I suppose, but my brother seemed pretty confident.
Anyone who lets an inexperienced driver behind the wheel of a machine like that is a fool. You know what they say about fools and their money?
I saw this on the AM news shows. and, as a vet observer of Nascar races, thought it was a rather small crash, and, then, why was that car worth so much when it crumpled up so easiely? It didn’t look like a high speed crash, as evidenced by the fact the driver walked away. What am I missing here?
I saw the video on Keith Olbermann’s Countdown show on MSNBC, and they pointed out the cameraman standing behind the barricade who didn’t even flinch as the Ferrari came straight at him, suggesting he expected it. Then, Griffin actually posed for pictures with his hand perched on the wrecked car, rather than being in, say catatonic shock over having wrecked your executive producer’s Enzo, or pleading for his life. World’s most expensive movie promotion?
If this does turn out to be some kind of a publicity stunt I will lose all respect for mankind and just naturally have to go move out to a ten by twelve shack in the woods with my typewriter, becoming an instrument of karma…
I think I remember something about a car, a Ferrari I think, that came with a contract that restricted one’s ability to sell it. I think it went along with their policies of selling some cars only to drivers, and not wanting the car resold at a profit. There was some phrase, “right of return” or “right of first [something].” Can anyone help me out?
“Do you know how copper wire was invented?..Two producers fighting over a penny.”
Producers see everything in terms of worth and investment and return on investment. No producer who bought a valuable, rare treasure like an Enzo would blithely hand it over to someone who, even if he didn’t crash it, might still depreciate its value some other way, like messing with the gears, unless he stood to gain big-time for the risk. I wouldn’t even rule out SmartAleq’s hypothesis from the other thread, that it was a kit on a Mustang frame, and the real Enzo is snug under a tarp somewhere. B-list comedian, minor charity event, Ferrari Enzo…one of those items does not belong.
There are people out there doing the exact same things in a Ford Taurus or Honda Civic. You just don’t hear about them unless it’s a particularly amusing episode. These rich folks are able to make more expensive mistakes. That makes all the difference.
That said, it seems like high performance cars just invite trouble. A guy who wants a high performance car usually wants to push the limits and really lay down some rubber. And everyone thinks they’re a good driver regardless of facts or driving record. If I owned an Enzo, the people I would least likely loan it to are the ones who most want to drive it.
