Facebook screengrab
The Bugatti Veyron at the center of an Internet storm crashes spectacularly into a Texas lagoon in a new video. (Top right)
(Facebook screengrab)Photos (1 of 1)
Video: Bugatti Veyron for sale, slightly damp
Motivated seller needs to stay, uh, liquid. Make offer.
By Andrew Heining | 11.12.09
Update: Video posted to Facebook appears to show the car crash in question.
Owner Andy Lee House reportedly told La Marque, Texas, Police that he’d lost control of his car when he dropped his cellphone and, upon sitting back up, was distracted by a low-flying pelican, which caused him to jerk the wheel to avoid it.
The new video (which contains harsh language) was posted Thursday night, and opens with Facebook user Joe Garza and another man driving alongside the Bugatti. The car does not appear to be speeding or driving erratically, but at the video’s 12-second mark, it veers off the frontage road it had been traveling on and throws up a dramatic wall of water as it comes to a halt in three feet of salt water.
Neither Mr. Garza nor the La Marque police department have responded to requests for comment.
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Ouch.
There are bad days, and then there are days you crash your $2 million Bugatti Veyron into a saltwater lagoon.
Autoblog found this footage of authorities towing one man’s prized (and heavily wait-listed) French supercar from a Texas marsh on Wednesday.
The man told a Texas paper that a low-flying pelican (and not, say, a bout of at-the-wheel texting) distracted him, and he jerked the wheel to avoid it, catching a front wheel in the mud and sending him into the drink.
It’s said the Bugatti’s thousand-or-so horsepower, 16-valve cylinder engine “gurgled like an outboard motor for about 15 minutes before it died.”
[Editor’s note: The original version included a comment about the safety of Tesla electric cars that was incorrect. Discussing the safety of electric vehicles, a Tesla official points out that Teslas’ motors are a closed circuit and do not pose an electrocution risk when submerged.]
Assuming insurance won’t cover crash-by-pelican, how’s he going to replace the rarest and fastest production car sold today? eBay has two….
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2. Alexander Hill | 11.13.09
Fundamental risk management here regarding electric vehicles (ev’s)and internal combustion engines (ice’s). EV’s are far safer, even in water. If you dropped a cordless drill into the bathtub would you be afraid to retrieve it? The circuit is completed inside the car and inside the drill when it fails. You’re thinking like it’s a hairdryer dropped into a bathtub where YOU complete the circuit. Would you drink the water after the Bugatti leaked it’s oil and gasoline in there? How long ’till the water is safe again? Would you run the Bugatti in an enclosed space? 550 people die as a result of automotive fires every year. 20% of all fires in the US are vehicular.
Maybe this guy should have bought the faster, cheaper, Tesla.
Fear-mongering of this sort will only delay the adoption of electric vehicles and result in more fire related deaths.
4. Walterk)! | 11.13.09
He’s not the first guy to test out the power of his car and end up in a lake. What a costly mistake. He’s lucky that the car is the only casualty.
5. dave t | 11.13.09
and the driver should have killed the engine immediately! letting it suck in salt water for 15 minutes, the cylinders are ruined! that engine is sealed except ..for the air intakes, it had anti backflow gates in the engine also, oh well, if he can afford that, he can afford 450,000 to replace the engine, let alone the tranny!! costliest almost none aircraft bird stike in history!!
6. Jeff | 11.13.09
Is it too much to hope for that this car was bought with one of those Goldman Sachs bonuses?
7. margaret nicholson | 11.13.09
a minor quibble: it’s a 16 cylinder engine, not a 16 valve engine. (in fact it’s got 64 valves.)
8. G Jiggy | 11.13.09
Wow @ #1: Doesn’t make any difference how they pulled it out. It’s a salt water dunk. The car is history if it sits there for more than a few minutes. All of the electronics are toast as well as any electrical connections but the real problem is the structure. Salt gets where it can’t get out and in few years, if it was put back on the road, it would be a pile of white corrosion (assuming that the car is majority aluminum). I imagine that the car could be disassembled and then dunked in a fresh water bath to purge the salt but there would be no guarantee that all the salt would leave. Then of course you have the seat mechanisms, dash gauges and electronics and the list goes on. Think back to pictures of 15 year old cars that have spent their whole life in a seaside town. Driving the beaches, cruising around (we see them all the time here in the northwest). They are nothing but a pile of rust and corrosion held together by the paint. I had one of those drop the engine onto the floor of my shop years ago. That is what the Bugatti will be like in a couple of years if put back on the road.
9. Tony N | 11.13.09
When you drive down 45 and I10 in Houston all you see are cell phones and texters. In this case, I bet he still uses his phone while driving. He can blame the Pelican but that phone will record the exact moment of the accident.
11. margaret nicholson | 11.13.09
Why so expensive? Chinat, it has a 16 cylinder quad-turbo engine and can go over 240 mph(in the hands of a qualified driver who isn’t texting…duh ;))and can get from 0-150 in about the time it takes most ordinary autos to go from 0-60. It has massive Michelin tires that were specifically designed just for this model, and to be able to have these kind of capabilities and sell it in small quantities that aren’t easily amortized it needs to be manufactured by very skilled personnel using all sorts of exotic alloys– which are designed to be very strong and very light; don’t know about very rust-resistant…
15. Dane | 11.13.09
Actually it was a great idea to leave it running!! Ever had to back a boat into the water with a truck? Once you get the exhaust under you need to leave the engine run so no water backflows into the cylinders. The bottom of the door was barely submersed, so I highly doubt that the air intake was touching any water, other than the initial splash. And “Chinat” if you seriously have to ask that question then the news of this accident should not bother you. Bugatti actually loses millions on everyone one of these cars that get sold, thats how much r&d and passion they pour into this automobile. This just goes to show that money can’t buy brains… I cannot believe he was trying to find his phone and sank this thing. Unreal!!
17. ben | 11.14.09
i think this car is cursed or the people who buy them are just stupid because i’ve seen like 12 videos of this kind of car either crashed, exploded, or sunk into a lake
18. Terry de Hermes | 11.14.09
Concerning what’s makes it so expensive also includes a complete Hermes leather interior, specially marked “H” alloy rims with the famous saddle-stitch looking slots. (Priced the cost of the reknowned Hermes’ Birkin handbag lately? Try $8 grand and up…for a women’s handbag!! Victoria Beckham is said to own over a hundred Birkins.) The French do love their fashionistas dream supercar.
19. Mike Brady | 11.14.09
A car of that value can be rescued from salt damage if it is worked on soon enough. High pressure water and lots of detergents will fix up the carbon fiber body and corrosion X will handle all the aluminium structure. A good electronics man will wash and re-humiseal all boards and silicone grease all connections. The real damage will be to the interior.
20. Scott | 11.14.09
I seen this car at Tokyo’s in Lukin,Tx Sunday night and it is bad to the bone this guy that owned this car is a good guy and he rebuilds all kinds of cars his wife and him spoke to my wife and I when they walked into Tokyo’s
so give him a break!
Scott Grimes
21. Piper Clipper | 11.15.09
Interesting that nobody mentioned that is, after all just, another VolksWagen. Albeit a rather expensive one, but then so is a Bentley.
23. Anthony | 11.19.09
wow you guys are so stupid you leave the car running to keep the engine from water logging, you want to keep the car running as long as possible in this circumstance because once it shuts off water rushes in everywhere in the engine.
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1. wow | 11.12.09
dumb to drag it out of there. They should have taken a crane to get it out. I imagine they probably caused another $250k by dragging it out.
Take it out of gear too, you idiots.