You know that joke that comes up every time an expensive car is involved, with the insurance agent asking, "You hit a what?" Well, this time, "You drive a what and you hit a what?" would be more appropriate. Yes, rich people do have major problems. No irony in that, really.
That is because a Ferrari crashed into a Maybach in Tokyo. According to witnesses, the Mercedes-Maybach S-Class sedan was reportedly doing a U-turn. The Ferrari F355 driver failed to brake in time and went head-first into the rear door on the driver's side of the Maybach. In Japan, cars are left-hand drive and drive on the left side of the road.
Minor injuries were reported, and no other cars were involved in the incident. Police closed half the road to carry out an investigation at the scene. Cars were towed away two hours after the crash.
It looks like the Mercedes-Maybach, an S 580, will most likely need a new rear right-side door, sill, and rear fender. But it will surely live to drive around a VIP passenger again. The S 580 is powered by a 4.0-liter V8 engine, which generates 497 horsepower (503 metric horsepower) and 516 pound-feet (700 Newton-meters) of torque. Resources are sent to all four corners via a nine-speed 9G-Tronic automatic transmission.
The luxury sedan is capable of accelerating from 0 to 62 mph (0 to 100 kph) in 4.3 seconds, from 0 to 124 mph (0 to 200 kph) in 16.2 seconds, and from 0 to 186 mph (0 to 300 kph) in 78.3 seconds. It runs the quarter mile in 12.4 seconds on its way to a top speed of 155 mph (250 kph).
Photo: Effspot | YouTube
The Ferrari driver should be happy that it wasn't the other way around. Getting hit by a 4,883-pound (2,215-kilogram) massive limousine would have probably sent them to the emergency room.
The Ferrari F355 is a classic, so fixing that one is going to be terribly expensive. The hood is crumpled, the front bumper is broken, the pop-up headlights and front fenders are a mess. Furthermore, the airbags were deployed. The owner is going to wait for a lifetime for the service shop to find those parts if they decide to fix it. It's not every day people go out there crashing classic Ferraris.
The Italian carmaker kept the model in production at the Maranello factory between 1994 and 1999. The sports car is set in motion by a 3.5-liter 5V F129 V8 engine, linked to either a six-speed manual or a six-speed F1 automated manual. There is no information on which one this car is equipped with.
The rear-mid-mounted V8 churns out 375 horsepower (380 metric horsepower) and 268 pound-feet (363 Newton meters) of torque. Maybe it does not sound like much by today's standards. But the F355 from the 1990s does 0 to 62 mph (0 to 97 kph) in 4.5 seconds, which makes it just 0.2 seconds slower than the 2023 Mercedes-Maybach Maybach.
It needs 13 seconds for the quarter mile, while the needle of the speedometer goes all the way to 179 mph (288 kph). Back in the '90s, carmakers did not electronically limit the top speed to 155 mph (250 kph) or below.
Speed limitation or not, the insurance companies that will have to deal with this crash taking place in Tokyo are definitely not going to be happy about it.
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