According to the news report I heard the car was doing pretty close to 200 MPH when it wiped out.
Somewhere up in heaven, the great maestro Enzo sheds a tear for the death of one of his stallions. It’s a damn shame.
A video report says the Ferrari was racing a Mercedes after a party. I’m guessing booze was involved.
Ferrari. It’s sleek, but safe.
Just to save links… here’s some pics. Pretty gruesome (if you’re a Ferrari lover… occupants were fine…)
Was the car really going 200 mph at the time of the crash? It is amazing that the occupants survived at all-if you crash in a compact car at over 55 mph, you are pretty much toast. What makes the Ferrari so superior for crash resistance?
Probably closer to 150. If you check out the video report I linked earlier, all they say is “at least 120.”
If you look at the intact cockpit in that one pic, I’m thinking steel roll cage.
Is that the engine lying in the middle of the road in the pictures?
The KTLA morning news helicopter was flying over the site yesterday morning. It is amazing to think that nobody was killed. Someone quoted the price of the Ferrari at “roughly 1 million dollars”, is that possible? Unbelievable how far the engine block was from what was left of the car’s body - they said over 100 yards?
150 mph is 220 feet per second… :eek:
It’s the highest end Ferrari, and yes it does cost that much. If you have limitless income, a normal $200,000 Ferrari just doesn’t seem that special which is why the Enzo exists.
I’m actually surprised it has airbags at all. A lot of the supercars I’ve seen on Top Gear just have a completely open steering wheel. Shaft, rim, and spokes. I suppose the airbag is a US import requirement.
Don’t you have to have bought about 3 Ferraris before to even be allowed on the waiting list for an Enzo?
Well, it’s a racing car for one thing and to some extent the vehicle will have to be more sturdily built than your average Jetta even if safety is not an engineering consideration. That only helps. A 55 mph crash is very survivable in a modern compact car if you do it right: glancing off of barriers, other cars, multiple rollovers when properly restrained and extremely lucky, etc. The trouble usually starts when you engage oncoming traffic with your vehicular acrobatics. At that time you get another 55 mph added to the overall impact and incidence of deceleration trauma begin to skyrocket.
As for Ferraris, I’ve seen them come apart like glass in impacts much lower than 120 mph. The angle of impact matters a lot (glancing vs. head on) but nearly as critical is what the car does immediately afterward. This car lost its back half and the cockpit most likely spun like a top. Note the absence of damage to the front half–probably got sideways and hit a pole on the rear wheel and just sheered that bit off at the firewall. Other times they will roll and lose 20-100 pounds of steel and plastic every time they hit the ground until there’s nothing left but the seat and a greasy spot.
I think that they only made a short run of the Enzos, so that helps to drive up the price. As for the airbags, Ferrari’s too big a car maker to get away with not having them installed. Lotus, and a few of the other small exotic car companies can get wavers to sell their cars in the US without airbags (though they have only a limited amount of time to do this) because of the economic costs in engineering such systems. Given that Ferrari’s got scads of money and they can sell as many cars as they can build, there was no way the Feds would allow them to escape the airbag requirements.
Maybe someone confused MPH with FPS? 