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Gumpert Apollo Falls Victim to Gumball 3000, Becomes First Car to Abandon

Gumball 3000, the supercar rally across Europe, involves several supercar crashes every year. The 2016 edition of the event is no exception, and the first car to suffer this fate is a Gumpert Apollo. The rare hypercar left the road and ended up in a tree in Scotland, as it was being driven from Edinburg to Manchester.
Crashed Gumpert Apollo 1 photo
Photo: GTSpirit.com
According to witness reports, the car’s rear end went loose after an oily patch. The driver corrected the skid, but the vehicle ended in a ditch and almost hit a tree.

Luckily, the passengers of the vehicle were not harmed, as the convoy was traveling at a reasonable road speed, and the Gumpert did not hit any hard objects as it shed speed.

This collision took place on the second day of the Gumball 3000 rally. While the first day passed without incidents from Dublin to Edinburgh, the second day marked a costly crash for the German hypercar driven by Team 10. The example in the image belongs to the London Motor Museum.

In an interview with UK’s Express, the driver of the vehicle says he considers himself lucky for not losing his life after the impact, which could have ended disastrously, as the car dodged several concrete bollards and a large tree on the way to the spot it eventually stopped.

To the best of our knowledge, this was the only Gumpert Apollo present at this year’s edition of the rally. As some of you already know by now, the 2016 Gumball 3000 goes from Dublin to Bucharest. The 3000-mile event started on April 30, 2016, and will end on May 7, 2016, in Romania’s capital city.

This year’s Gumball is the 18th edition of the rally. Over the years, this event has seen some severe accidents, some of which included fatalities. Organizers changed the rules over time and reduced the maximum number of participants to 100 to ensure its exclusivity.

Beginning 2013, the event is raising money for the Gumball 3000 Foundation, which was established to help disadvantaged youth. On the day of the start, the officials announced on their Twitter feed that more than $270,000 were raised for the cause.



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About the author: Sebastian Toma
Sebastian Toma profile photo

Sebastian's love for cars began at a young age. Little did he know that a career would emerge from this passion (and that it would not, sadly, involve being a professional racecar driver). In over fourteen years, he got behind the wheel of several hundred vehicles and in the offices of the most important car publications in his homeland.
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