Not sure of anybody has posted or mentioned it, but if it hasn't... Apparently, a dealer allowed "one guy" to take a brand new F8 spider for a spin for a "review". Stepped on the gas pedal, lost control and hit a fence. If the story wasn't bad enough; apparently, it is mentioned that "they didn't have insurance". Now, I am not certain if they referring to the dealership or the driver. I assume (and hope) that the dealership has some sort of insurance on such a high cost vehicle, but to allow anybody to just drive ANY car without insurance is just simply stupid. This is the age of "influencers", some, if not most people that do this randomly pick a subject or a product and advertise for free in exchange for the product or the experience of it. I find some, if not most are too young to carry the responsibility. I am not certain of this being the case with this particular person, but it is what you normally see and it is possibly likely the case. Needless to say, it is painful to see and even more what will occur to this person. I just hope has some money in the bank. He just bought a house but will never get to live in it. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Sent from my BLA-A09 using FerrariChat.com mobile app
It was a very strong fence. A wall of boulders maybe? It'll buff right out... Sent from my SM-G930F using FerrariChat.com mobile app
Doesn’t look like it’s in the U.S.....I don’t know of any Ferrari dealer that will let you take a car like that for a spin without an associate riding shotgun. From the front plates looks like a Gulf or Middle-East location.
This kind of reminds me of another story I heard back in the 90's. I believe it was Los Gatos Ferrari; a salesman was driving an F40 from their showroom to the service center (about 3 miles away) and spun the F40 out coming onto the highway. I didn't see the damage, but I heard it was something crazy like $40K for a new front clip or something. Ray
According to this article (not sure of validity) it was a media drive - which would be though EMEA (so I assume insurance, unless a paper work snafu) If it's a third party/secondary party then perhaps media exposure attempt, if there was lack of insurance by the third/party secondary party then that's the risk they decided to take. Not unheard of with smaller operations. Ferrari crashes is a not exactly a sighting of the Virgin Mary (well maybe on toast.)
"The “Riyadh Roads” account on Twitter stated that Ferrari was driven by journalist Abdul Rahman Al-Rimal when it was involved in the accident." I don't think they will be handing the keys to a brand new Ferrari over to Abdul Rahman Al-Rimal again anytime soon. Ray
Maybe Ferrari will hand him the famous Cease and Desist letter and inform all dealers that he isn't allowed to even look at one ever again. Sent from my BLA-A09 using FerrariChat.com mobile app
One better local BMW dealer went for a test drive after servicing a McLaren F1 and crunched it Needless to say it had to be flown back to England to repair. Imagine those dollars
I don't want to... (imagine those dollars). Along that note, Mr. Bean crashed his F1 a few years ago and spend about a million dollars repairing it. In fact he crashed it twice and still sold it for 12 million! To me, that is the best looking McLaren, even to today's standards. Sent from my BLA-A09 using FerrariChat.com mobile app
There's a book coming out next year about the Ferrari of Los Gatos dealership. Here's part of it that covers the Ray Johns post about an F40. There's more info at FLGstory.com
Here's the excerpt from the book. Back in 1987, Ferrari of Los Gatos sold an F40 to one of the executives at Apple Computer. After signing and paying, it seems he was a little timid about driving a car he’d just paid a million dollars for. He asked his salesman Scott to drive it for him. When owner Brian Burnett saw Scott getting in the F40, he stopped him and said, “What the F*** are you doing?” Scott replied that he was driving the F40 down to the shop because his customer was scared to drive it. Brian said, “********, you are not driving that million-dollar car. You let him drive it down there.” The customer assured Brian it was okay. “I’ve already insured the car, it’s my responsibility if anything happens. Anybody can drive my cars and they’re insured.” “As long as you take full responsibility and cover anything that goes wrong with your insurance, okay.” Scott drove the car off the lot with the customer following right behind. They get on the freeway headed towards the shop in Campbell and Scott punches it. The car makes a circle on the freeway and backs into the guardrail. The customer of course is devastated, and so is Brian when he finds out what happened. Wanting to say, ‘I told you so,’ Brian held his tongue. The entire rear of the car was destroyed and needed to be replaced. Since the F40 had just been released, no parts were available. The car had to sit for a while waiting for parts. In the meantime, the customer filed a lawsuit against Ferrari of Los Gatos for letting their salesman drive the car. Eventually, the insurance companies settled. The experience taught Brian a valuable lesson. “I bought a slide-back truck hauler and from that day forward, every car went on that truck to get to the shop or the customer's house if they did not want to drive it themselves.”
I'll check that out, as I'm sure everyone will. Los Gatos is right up the road from me. Back in the late 80's, I wrote the accounting software and scheduling software that ran Los Gatos surgical center, so I was always driving up there in my Datsun 510 to install updates and handle their computer needs, etc. Anytime I went, I usually would stop by Los Gatos Ferrari and look around. It was definitely an interesting operation. I don't know the whole story, but the rumors I heard were along the lines of this: the dealership came up for sale (or something) and Ferrari themselves tried to buy it. Someone else beat them out and I guess from then on it was a strained relationship. I think at one point it got so bad that there was a law suit or something. All I remember is it slowly became not a Ferrari dealership and started to focus on other cars. For a while they did have a pretty nice service facility on the other side of the highway and I used to typically take my 355 there for service, because they had a guy named (Ace?) who really knew the cars inside and out. I can't remember who told me the story about wrecking the F40, but I think it was one of their sales guys or something coming onto the little looping on ramp and the car spun and took out both the front and rear clips. Back in the day, it was a great dealership and usually the people there were pretty easy going and friendly. I saw many Ferraris I couldn't afford in their show room back in those days haha Ray