Seeing a £600,000 Ferrari Enzo totalled is enough to make a grown man cry. To add insult to injury would be hearing that the car was wrecked by a couple of careless technicians who took the exotic car for a joyride, putting it into a concrete wall.
The car was owned by businessman Michael Fux. The mattress mogul is said to be distraught about losing the car, which there are only 400 in the world. Mr Flux had put his prized possession into the care of Miller Motorcars in Greenwich to be serviced, only to be told later that the car had been written off after one of the technicians lost control on the motorway.
The 650-horsepower car began to fishtail when turning and spun across three lanes before colliding with the concrete divider. While the two drivers escaped unscathed unfortunately the same can’t be said about the car, extensive damage was caused to the rear of the vehicle and chassis.
The dealership where the driver and passenger worked is refusing to make a comment which isn’t very surprising as there aren’t too many ways to explain away your employees crashing a customers car while out looking for kicks. The driver, Leonardo G. Garcia, was given a fine for failing to drive in an established lane and it is unknown if he will be keeping his job at the dealership.
The story shows the importance of dealerships having adequate motor trade insurance that covers them against their employees making foolish mistakes with customers car.
This tale of technicians gone wild isn’t the only example of dealerships crashing customers cars. Recently another dealership crashed a £170,000 Mercedes on a ‘routine test drive’ after the car had been taken in over a minor computer fault. John Guest from Dorset was reduced to tears when he saw the vehicle that had just received a £25,000 paint job.
Mr Guest is accusing the dealership of negligence and says the company tried to prevent him from seeing the car by taking it straight to the body shop. Having seen the car I am not sure what the body shop was going to do with it as the car was completely wrecked.
Gavin McAllister, managing director of the Sandown Group of Mercedes dealerships, says that the car was driven ‘legally and sensibly’ and that they are ‘working closely with the insurance team’ to compensate Mr Guest through their motor trade insurance policy.
