Ferrari Split in Two After Accident

Apparently the narrator doesn't know the difference between a 430 and a 360...From the subtitles it seemed that a 24 year old driver was doing 150 on a road and killed his 38 year old passenger by hitting the only tree that seemed to be out there. People want to race on country road with street tires and no skill or safety measures, this is what happens. Sad, nonetheless.

 

Yup. Exactly.

 

No crumple zone ... just came apart. Jeez.

 

A "crumple zone" car that hit an obstacle at 150mph... probably a similar outcome.
Sometimes no amount of safety features will overcome bad judgement and foolishness.

Sad about the human loss.

 

Crumple zone wouldn't have helped in that instance. I believe these are actually made to split in two in some situations (see the story of the Enzo in california) but nothing in the world is going to save you from hitting a tree dead on at those speeds. Doesn't matter what car you are in.

 

Yeah... it looks like it just came apart.... the 360 has an aluminum tub..... like the tub just came detached from the back half....
sorry for the occupants..... rip

 

I'm surprised it was a modena. If you go on wrecked exotics, it's kind of scary seeing how many spiders split in half.

 

Waiting to see it on Copart.

 

its aluminum the entire car is a crumple zone - aluminum just rips apart !

 

Seriously guys, some of you are all talking out of your ..... The 360 HAS crumple zones and NO car was going to survive that crash full stop. It doesn't matter if it was a Ferrari, a Volvo (many top crash ratings), or anything else; it wouldn't have survived that crash. Look at where that car is destroyed, this car didn't break where the 360 breaks under extreme conditions. The 360 breaks behind the firewall, effectively ripping off the rear engine frame and leaving the cabin intact (by design). This car ripped in half trough the cabin.

 

To add, as a guy who has removed a few small dings in my car (and hand shapes aluminum and steel sheet metal parts), the aluminum used in the 360 body is not what most think of when they think of aluminum-- as a soft material. It is very tough to "move". There is a variety of aluminum material out there. 50 series is soft ( I do a lot of shaping with this as it gets work hardened), 60 series is a bit harder and there are the 70 series (used in some aircraft applications) and others that are very hard. Some of the 70 series aluminum is so hard it is difficult to even machine in lathes and milling machines (tapping and threading, etc.)

I'm pretty sure Ferrari has a firm grasp on all of this and has made their cars to be both light and structurally sound. But 150mph hit a tree structurally sound... aint gonna happen for any car as those here have already said.

 

no street would survive 150mph crash!

 

Is it not 150 km/ h. About 90 mph, would not expect to see it that bad
Makes you think about how McLaren make their tubs, must be a lot safer

 

You are correct. I missed that. But 90mph hitting a tree that isn't moving... still.

 

McLaren's tub wouldn't have survived either. Look at the math instead of guessing. I would rather hit ANYTHING but a tree. Even with that kind of impact a tree 8" or more in diameter isn't likely to move more than 1" and probably less. IE: they decelerated from 90 mph to zero in about 0.0005 seconds (90mph = 1584 in/sec). You can work out the math but the energy dissipation FAR exceeds most materials/structures; I am not sure you can actually design something to withstand that. AND the human body can't take that many Gs so even if you could, the passengers would not survive.

This reminds me of an ad when I was younger. State patrolman standing by a Lambo. He says "Lamborghini Countach zero to 60, 4.9 seconds." He then pats a tree and says "California Oak, 60 to 0, 0.1 seconds".

 

Just been real unlucky to hit it square on sideways.

 

I used t work in crash safety for a U.S. OEM.
The problem with an accident like that is the following: if you don't die from blunt force trauma (the tree or the interior structure making contact with your body), the g-load you experience from such a large scale deceleration will kill you.
Hitting any fixed, unmovable object anywhere over 50 mph is mostly un-survivable in road car accident.

 

Thanks. And, take the brick wall over even a fairly small tree. At least the wall will break and give.

 

If the car just fractures apart, the occupants are exposed to the tree.
If the car used up energy actually folding in around the tree the occupants are not directly exposed to the tree........ I'm not saying they will survive.... but they remain in the cage.

the tub and rear of the car appear to "break away"...... with little deformation of the roof and floor......
I'm not making any judgement.... just commenting on observations of aluminum vs steel.

I suspect anyone seriously tracking this car will install a cage for pc of mind.

 

that begs the question
why a tree won't budge ??? kind of counterintuitive

 

And that is exactly what the 360 is designed to do. In this case, the far exceeded reasonable design limits and it broke in an odd place. Once you go that far beyond the design limits of anything the outcome will be a lot closer to random than controlled.

 

100%. Its the rapid deceleration that causes most of the internal trauma. Terrible accident. RIP

 

They actually do flex a little but it is simple mechanical engineering. The anchor point, root system, holds rigid. You hit the tree and you create mostly a shear force, very little bending moment. For example a 1/2" aluminum pin will take about 17, 000 lb to sheer. Extrapolate that area up to even an 8" tree (fairly small) and you have the equivalent of 100x the area. Wood has a sheer strength about 1/10th that of aluminum. That means you now need about 450,000 lb of force to sheer the tree. BUT the wood has a little yield and crush so it actually takes even more than that.

 

I hit a concrete wall in a 360 challenge race car. with full 5 point harness, I crashed straight into the wall, at about 35 MPH ( a little less than 60km) at the point of impact.

I broke my tail bone, a little fracture, healed without any medical intervention in about 6 months. No rib was broken.

whole car's front is done. anything behind the dash is untouched.