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The words do not have to be perfect.

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The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

People really shouldn’t expect the government to help after they watched the GOP drown it in a bathtub.

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

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T R E 4 5 O N

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Peak wingnut was a lie.

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You are here: Home / Popular Culture / Is Each Half Now Worth $500,000?

Is Each Half Now Worth $500,000?

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In all honesty if I had a $1 million Ferrari Enzo (read a reviewer drool) you’d probably have to hire a bodyguard to keep me from racing it. That being said, this story is pretty bizarre:

Feb. 22, 2006 — Stefan Eriksson claims he was only a passenger in the million-dollar Ferrari that slammed into a pole and broke in half in Malibu, Calif., on Tuesday morning. But if it turns out he was lying to the police and he was the driver of the car, that may be the least of his troubles.

According to a Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department investigator, Eriksson, 44, is a former Swedish executive in a failed hand-held gaming company. The company, Gizmondo, reportedly lost $225 million last year before filing for bankruptcy.

… Sheriff’s Sgt. Philip Brooks told ABC News that he received a call from the Bank of Scotland claiming that the bank was in the process of repossessing the car and that Eriksson owns a second Ferrari Enzo with a questionable registration.

Eriksson, he said, is still considered the passenger and although he was legally drunk at the time of the accident, he is not in custody.

According to eyewitnesses, the Ferrari was racing a second car, an SLR Mercedes, apparently also owned by Eriksson. The Enzo was traveling about 120 mph when it went airborne and struck the power pole while at least five feet off the ground.

Eriksson walked away with a cut lip. I don’t think that I’ve heard of an active passenger safety system where the front section of the car detaches from the back half, Star Trek-style, in order to save the driver, but I guess it works.

Reader Interactions

20Comments

  2. 2.

    Shygetz

    Eriksson, 44, is a former Swedish executive in a failed hand-held gaming company.

    Gotta love it–a field where even the abject failures make more money than I ever will.

  4. 4.

    Mr Furious

    I just read (skimmed) the Automobile article and noticed an interesting thing—Ferrari dictated to the design studio that the car have “no showy wings” for style concerns even thought the other similar Ferrari’s all do… Just watch this clown sue Ferrari—after all the car did become airborne at a relatively low (for a race car) speed…

    Just sayin’…

  6. 6.

    JWeidner

    I think it’s more a shame that an idiot like this destroyed a car that is essentially a moving work of art. Only 400 of these babies were ever made. Thanks to this moron, there’s only 399 of them now.

  7. 7.

    neil

    The ‘other half’ of the car consists almost entirely of the engine, which probably weighs twice as much as the rest of the car.

  8. 8.

    Keith

    Naseem Hamed (a former boxer) did a similar thing to a Mercedes SLR supercar (designed by McLaren) a couple of years ago, but in that case, he t-boned the other car. That one was *only* about a 1/2 million dollar car, but it breaks the car nonetheless.

  10. 10.

    Brian

    The ‘other half’ of the car consists almost entirely of the engine, which probably weighs twice as much as the rest of the car.

    This happened near where I live, and the locals up there are mentioning speeds upwards of 160, like Tom quoted. The engine pretty much stayed where the crash occured, landing right in the middle of the road. It’s fucking huge! The front half of the car settled a hundred yards or so up the road. The news chopper coverage on that morning’s news was fascinating, just seeing the debris field left by this amazing machine.

  12. 12.

    JPS

    Anyone else a fan of “The Royal Tenenbaums”? This reminds me oddly of Buckley being found unharmed in his kennel, several thousand yards from the crash site.

  13. 13.

    jaime

    Didn’t I already see this is “Super Troopers”?

    Alright, meow…

    Anyone else a fan of “The Royal Tenenbaums”?

    I’m a bigger fan of Rushmore.

    Maybe I’m spending too much of my time starting up clubs and putting on plays. I should probably be trying harder to score chicks.

  14. 14.

    Shanghai Flyer

    “Only 400 of these babies were ever made. Thanks to this moron, there’s only 399 of them now.”

    I think 399 were made (Ferrari likes to make one less than a round number). Also, this is like the third Enzo destroyed. There is a site called wreckedexotics.com where you can see pictures of the other Enzos as well as other makes.

  15. 15.

    ats

    VW CEO Bernd Pischetsrieder totalled a McLaren when he was CEO of BMW. When, a few days later, the head of Daimler got mugged by a hooker in Rome, Pischetsrieder was suddenly king of snark.

  16. 16.

    JWeidner

    I think 399 were made

    That’s what I had read as well, but then I read this in the LA Times:

    Gil Lucero, a Mountain View telecommunications company executive who is president and Pacific region chairman of the Ferrari Club of America, said only 399 Enzos were at first scheduled to be assembled at the factory between 2002 and 2004, each priced at $670,000.

    But a final car was built and donated to Pope John Paul II and later sold to raise $1,275,000 million for charity, Lucero said.

  17. 17.

    Joel

    Correct. 400 Enzos were made (the original production run of 399, plus one for charity), and three have now been wrecked. A fourth was damaged in a street race, with a 17-year-old girl at the wheel, but it has been repaired. So 397 Enzos remain at large.

  18. 18.

    Angry Engineer

    It’s also being reported that this assclown was drunk, with a BAL of 0.09.

    Save the racing for the racetracks, retards. If I had enough money to afford an Enzo, I’d be renting out racetracks every week. Actually, on second thought, I’d just buy one.

    Dipshit. With the ever-falling cost of horsepower, the last thing any of us car guys needs is some asshat getting himself into a highly-visible wreck because of his inability to control himself and his vehicle.

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Trackbacks

  1. […] A few days back an internet millionaire decided to run his Ferrari Enzo into a telephone pole at more than 160 mph. It seemed like a sad fate for a rare car, like making Black Rhinoceros burger or something. Via Kevin Drum, the story gets wierder: […]