It was just after ten p.m. on Chugoku Expressway in Yamaguchi Prefecture -- western tip of Japan’s main island of Honshu--when drivers on an expressway and driving eight Ferraris, one Lamborghini, three Mercedes Benz vehicles and two Toyota cars became part of the world's most expensive car crash. The pack of luxury vehicles got itself into a massive mess that rainy, Sunday night. The fleet had been headed from Kyushu to Hiroshima for a motor festival, when one Japanese driver's skills apparently went awry--in a wreck first estimated at a million but now upped to about four million in damages.
An officer with Yamaguchi Prefecture’s Expressway Traffic Police unit calls it "a gathering of narcissists.” It certainly seems stupid -- with Japanese drivers now suspected to have been driving in "couples", an act that would've allowed no room for error when a 60-year-old businessman from Japan may have made a crucial one. The 14-vehicle wreck is now estimated at US $3.85 million.
There were no fatalities or major injuries in the 14-car crash but the 60-year-old self-employed man from Fukuoka prefecture, suspected of causing the multiple-car pile-up, may face up to three months in jail or a fine near 100,000 yen ($1,280). A Ferrari's accused of changing lanes -- from the right lane to the left lane before skidding -- and subsequently hitting the median, starting a chain reaction that sparked the ensuing crash of another 13 vehicles.
The Ferrari drivers didn't know each other -- they're believed to have met online, using the internet.
And a main reason Japan's police are in a tizzy over the wreck and one driver has to do with the idea that the major crash was caused by a Ferrari trying to pass a Toyota Prius. The luxury cars were believed to be driving in close formation and -- when the single driver made what appears to be error in judgment or timing -- a chain reaction caused total chaos. A white Ferrari 512 crashed into a black Mercedes, sending the car into a guardrail. While a Ferrari F430 in the group managed to avoid that accident, two red Ferraris including an F355 and F360 didn't escape fate -- crashing into the first scenario. That was all followed by another Ferrari F355 crash into the guardrail after the driver attempted to avoid the current accident.
One of the luxury vehicles in the accident included a Ferrari F-360 with estimated worth of 18 million yen (approximately US $230,000). It was a car accident scene that took more than six hours to clear from the Japanese expressway.
News coverage shows video of a Ferrari having plowed into an outer guard rail, suspected to have occurred after a lange change, while another of the luxury cars was shown with its engine bonnet nearly stripped from the expensive vehicle. All eight Ferraris at the accident scene included cars registered in Kyushu. And damages for the 14 luxury vehicles is steep -- estimated at about US $1,000,000 dollars. At the onset of the initial Japanese crash, Monaco was though to have outdone the accident recently -- with just five cars.
In late July 2011, a major luxury car accident in Monaco racked up an estimated bill of over a million in damages with just roughly one-third the amount of cars that was involved in the Japanese auto wreck. A Bentley in Monaco was thought to have sparked the crash. In moments, no less than five cars -- including a Bentley, Aston Martin, Porsche, Ferrari and Mercedes -- were able to tally a total bill for bodywork and damages that was staggering at the time: Damages to the Bentley and four cars were estimated at U.S. $1,100,000 for Monaco's July crash.