Day 2: 720 S Totalled

[John]

Ouch, the day after the driver bought his gorgeous McLaren 720S, he totaled it due to excessive speed. Thankfully the driver sustained only non life-threatening injuries.

Easy come, easy go: McLaren 720S totaled day after purchase

July 16, 2018, 11:15 amby Drew Johnson

I hope they had their insurance sorted.

Today's supercars are engineering marvels. They can accelerate from 0-60 in less than 3 seconds and hit top speeds in excess of 200mph. But even with all of that state-of-the-art technology, supercars are only as good as the person behind the wheel, as one unfortunate owner learned this past weekend.[/Quote

Police in Fairfax County, Virginia were called to the scene of a single vehicle accident at 7:45am this past Saturday where they found a brand new McLaren 720S smashed against the tree. Luckily the driver sustained non-life threatening injuries, but the same couldn't be said for the McLaren.

Adding insult to injury, the owner of the 720S had purchased the vehicle just one day earlier. As you may have guessed with a new owner of a 710 horsepower vehicle, police say speed was a factor in the crash.

"Purchased Friday. Totaled Saturday," the Fairfax County Police Tweeted. "This McLaren 720S, costing around $300,000, was destroyed today in Great Falls because of speed." The department also posted a low-resolution picture of the crash scene.

Hopefully the driver picks something a little less powerful for their next vehicle purchase.

https://www.leftlanenews.com/easy-co...se-100912.html

[Frenzy36]

That's one expensive AXE. I wonder how many he'll have to buy to get that tree chopped down?

[meyerweb]

That was about 10 miles from my house. There's a Car's and Coffee near there every Saturday morning, and crashes along that stretch of road are, unfortunately, all too common afterwards.

[MsBadWolf]

Respect the car, the power is what I've always heard. Most all of the modern sports cars are very docile until you poke them a bit then they'll turn on you and demand that you have the talent and training to control them, if even then. Driving a 720 with a Prius ability or experience is never a good recipe. Even my SS sedan will get me in trouble if I give it/myself a chance. I'm glad no one got killed or maimed. Too bad about the tree, but it'll probably get hit a few more times during it's life.

[John]

Driving a 720 with a Prius ability is never a good recipe

That is the most important post. Thank you MSBadWolfe! In a previous life/forum, I cautioned against someone going from a 170 HP Toyota right to a 650/650 Z06.

I had 10+ years of experience owning 500+ HP cars, had track experience, and yet when I got my C7 Z06 I felt the smartest thing for me to do, would be to go to Spring Mountain. Left there 100% comfortable with the car.

When I get the ME, since there are signficiant handling differences between a ME from a FE (as we have noted in the following thread), I intend to go back (excitedly) to Spring Mountain.

https://www.midenginecorvetteforum.c...-disadvantages

[OnPoint]

Wow. Tough day for that owner. Sad to see that. Good to hear he's ok, though. A machine can be replaced.

The more power these sports cars get, the more important road surface becomes, and even more important - getting heat in the tires before getting aggressive. Obviously not stated whether either of those were a factor here, but often one or the other is (especially getting the tires up to op temp).

[John]

So true. No heat in the tires as someone shows off (blasting off) from a car event, is a prime reason we see many YouTube videos shows a crash as folks accelerate wildly in the first few hundreds yards leaving a car event.