Footage has emerged of the crash that took out what is (was?) reportedly the highest-mileage Ferrari F40 in existence, and this quick clip reminds us just how much respect these old-school performance machines demand even in the most mundane circumstances. In this case, a little rain combined with a rookie mistake scratched one of the rarest supercars on the road. One second, everything’s hunky dory. The next, topsy turvy. How like life, no?
The whole clip is seven seconds long, but even that oversells how long it takes events to unfold. It opens with the Ferrari headed straight down the highway, and before we even have time to get a feel for the scene, the F40 is already sideways. How? I’ve got three words for you: lift-off oversteer.
Turn up the volume and you can hear it happen in real time. The video opens with the Ferrari driver still on the throttle; the instant it cuts, the car’s nose hooks hard to the right. You can see the driver begin to dial in some countersteer, but with only a couple dozen feet between the Ferrari and the guardrail, the car had already gotten away from the driver before they had the chance to react.
We know from the pics that emerged yesterday that the F40 was on street tires with visibly decent tread (though that’s not a definitive indicator of their condition), so this doesn’t appear to be a case of using the wrong equipment for a slick environment. Instead, we’re likely looking at a driver who simply hasn’t had a lot of time behind the wheel of a high-horsepower, rear-wheel-drive supercar with none of today’s intelligent driving nannies.