By Iain Gracie
A group of Japanese Supercar enthusiasts had an expensive Sunday drive.
What started with a Ferrari hitting a median barrier ended up as a luxury car pile-up and $4 million worth of twisted metal. A Lamborghini Diablo, six Ferraris, three Mercedes Benz and a Nissan GT-R were among the casualties.
The enthusiasts had been driving from Kyushu to Hiroshima along the Chugoku expressway in the convoy of Supercars and sports coupes when the unthinkable happened.
One of the Ferraris is said to have struck the median barrier before careening across the highway. The mishap triggered a series of collisions over the next 400 metres as the drivers approached a bend and piled into each other. Witnesses spoke of car parts flying everywhere.
Japanese TV news video of the crash aftermath shows the sports cars lying mangled on the road - a mess of twisted metal, broken glass and snapped alloy wheels - with several cars wedged up against metal barriers.
Ten people were hospitalised with minor injuries. The damage to respective wallets is expected to be much deeper.
The cars involved included at least two Ferrari F430s (one was the race-ready Scuderia, these days worth more than $400,000), two Ferrari 360 Modenas (each worth almost $200,000), two Ferrari F355s (each worth about $150,000) and a Lamborghini Diablo (one of the most expensive supercars of the 1990s and still likely to be worth upwards of $200,000). There was also a Nissan GT-R (the only current Japanese super-car) while the cheapest involved in the crash was a Toyota Prius hybrid, worth closer to $20,000.
3 News