Enzo Totaled

[FeZ]

some shocking pictures

http://forums.vwvortex.com/zerothread?id=2272249&page=1

[chris]

How did it happen? Did it have a tyre delamination?

That's unbelievable damage. I've seen F1's in huge high-speed accidents and they've never sustained that much damage.

But it is a timely reminder that even Enzo Ferraris with the most sophisticated of driver aids can not save you from your own stupidity. These cars are not toys, drive them the wrong way and you'll be having a very big accident.

[FeZ]

No idea. I did not find any more info on that, but it must have hit some wall or something at insane speed.

[chris]

I'll bet somebody will be able to find out exactly how the accident happened, the ECU in this car (also stores highly detailed telemetry for download) will paint the picture of what happened. I would be interested to know the decelleration forces.

The bit of tyre on the road doesn't quite look like an Enzo Ferrari front tyre..

Edit: Okay, so the crash was at around or between 255-280km/hr. :eek:

Edit 2: Reports seem to suggest the same car was seen/heard in the area the day before being driven very quickly.. Perhaps this was a new driver, just purchased this car?

[Frank N. O.]

I couldn't stand reading the whole other thread so I'll just ask here, how was the driver or any other living creature that was involved? Idiot or not, if that person hit someone else it's not their fault. Do agree with Chris comments that ESP cannot save a car from an idiot driver. One has to be in control of the car the whole time and only focus on driving, not surfing the internet, fix the hair, mess in the glovecompartment (a man in a silver Golf-3 Variant actually did that on the freeway and if I hadn't pulled into the emergency lane he would have hit us!! When he was on side of us he still had 1/3 of the car in our lane:mad: ). I've seen too many ads saying and showing that a car can't slide out of control with ESP and that's not true, heck they even show the car staying in line of the sharp turn and that's definately a big lie! Furthermore cars are way too insulated with regards to sound and physical feedback imho. You can't feel the speed. Ok rant over, sorry, but I get shocked when several times a week nearly being hit by a car, especially when my mom who looks at the drivers where I look at the car's movements says the driver isn't usually even looking in our direction and we have the right of way always, I don't take chances.

Frank

[FeZ]

I couldn't stand reading the whole other thread so I'll just ask here, how was the driver or any other living creature that was involved?

Well the title of that thread says "An Enzo wreck, 41 year old driver dead"

[Frank N. O.]

I didn't notice that sorry :(

Frank

[VQ]

What would you need to hit for that sort of damage? can't see any tress or poles or anything, poor bloke, isn't the enzo steel construction? the MCF1 would be slightly better as the resin is probably a bit stronger then the steel.

[Frank N. O.]

As far as I know the Enzo is a CF construction like the McF1 and according to what I scanned and confirmed by Chris' updated post above it did at least 255 kph if not more, no comment. Someone said theid been in Milan the day before and a Enzo driver gunned the engine to 8000 rpm next to the cafe and they saluted him and then he raced down a side-road in downtown and he thinks that's the guy that crashed since there are so few cars and appearently the crash was nearby.

I can't believe how many made flameposts about no car should be able to go to pieces nowadays and that cf wasn't as good as steel and the one person that posted about Mr Newton basically got totally ignored (I'm sure people here know what I mean by Newton right?). One even said a racecar would never break up like that, imho that just shows how little that person has ever watched anything. Needless to say several people also brought up american build quality.

Frank

[VQ]

You do mean newtons laws right?

Well, everything can disintergrate, just needs higher speed/heat, cf has the disadvantage of having a lower melting point then steel does, unless it's like a lighter metal, like alluminium, but yeah, the heat of something on there can do it, but it must have it hard sideways.

[Frank N. O.]

Yes I meant the general aspects of physics, that everything will break if the force excerted is big enough, and crashing at 250+ kph would do it, especially if the car got caught in the grass, and possibly started rolling over and at that speed it would've rolled a lot of times and that would be a lot of energy there.

Frank

[chris]

You do mean newtons laws right?

Well, everything can disintergrate, just needs higher speed/heat, cf has the disadvantage of having a lower melting point then steel does, unless it's like a lighter metal, like alluminium, but yeah, the heat of something on there can do it, but it must have it hard sideways.

It didn't burn this turn, the impact force must have been very severe to make it come apart as it did.

[Commander]

It almost looks like it came apart at the seams... Don't those cars literally split in half for engine overhaul? Anyway, at 250 Km/h + even a volleyball-size boulder in the ditch would have made that car into an airborne centrifuge, flinging it's parts everywhere. Any vehicle can only be made so safe while trying to factor in the random elements and obstacles of a normal road. At least on a race track, the track too is laid out to work in conjuction with the car's safety features. Bottom line is that nobody should be driving that fast on a public road regardless of the vehicle.

[chris]

I don't think it does. But I know all the bodywork easily and readily can be removed for servicing, I've seen an F140 sitting on stands at a static display with all the bodywork removed. :eek:

Mighty impressive looking seeing one of those with no body covering all the interesting bits. :cool:

But I agree, going so fast on a public road is just silly. Okay, autostrada or autobahn then it's okay, but on a normal road this is crazy.

I do know in the previous F130 (aka F50) the car consisted of a central carbon-fibre monocoque, with the engine bolted directly to that and acting as a fully stressed part of the car, with the transmission behind the engine, and the rear suspension coming off from that, in an identical form to the related F614 F1 car.

It was a good design for high performance, but terribly bad for refinement - the engine vibrations went straight through the monocoque. :eek: On the Enzo I think they tried to avoid that problem. Indeed, they appear to have made the Enzo quite a timid machine in relative terms, something that is reluctant to bite the driver in the manner of earlier, more unforgiving beasts like the F40 (aka F120). The Enzo seems to have such high limits that when it does finally let go and loses control, it happens in a mighty big way.

But in any case, F40, F50, Enzo Ferrari and Mclaren F1 are definately not for the inexperienced driver. The F1 in particular doesn't forgive driving errors (much like Formula 1 cars before they got traction control).

[KyzrSoze]

The truth is that the car is designed with a heavy slant toward lightness and performance not occupant safety. Not that safety is ignored by any means, but while the lightweight high tech materials used are plenty rigid compared to conventional materials, resistance to collision damage is another story. The carbon fiber tub that ties everything together shattered on impact, and the cruder steel and aluminum subassemblies remain relatively intact.

[chris]

http://www.wreckedexotics.com/mclaren/mclaren_040202_003.jpg

That's an F1 that was involved in a high speed accident. If you notice, it didn't break in two, although it is heavily damaged the cabin structure remained totally intact. I suppose it's a matter of the design differences of these two cars. The Enzo isn't done quite the same as the F1.

It's hard to believe how strong the F1 is, especially considering it only weighs 1138kg (with 266kg of V12 engine included in that figure). In an accident, the entire back and front deforms horrifically, but not the passenger cabin.

[VQ]

Generally supercars are some of the safest vehichles around, I mean they are wide and low, good for centre of gravity, they generally have the best brakes in the world, and the integral roll cage and 4 point harness almost always keeps drivers safe, on the track at least, which is why rally drivers die and not many track racers die anymore.

[chris]

That's true. They generally have to over engineer them because of the fact they are getting so fast these days.

The top-line super-sportscars (as opposed to normal supercars like Pagani Zonda) are getting so fast that if you put slick tyres on them, you could lap in the same times as the majority of entrants in FIA-GT these days.

The safety of the passengers in the F1 relies on the occupants having fastened their seat-belts properly. You can't have them loose, you've got to have them done up tight, so in the event of an accident you can't shift in your seat.

[NFSracer]

I doubt any car steel or carbon fibre would save the occupants at speeds like that. CF shatters correct? And metals bend. Either way the occupants wouldn't be saved. And the Enzo is probably a safe car in normal collisons at lower speeds. Same with any car really. The faster you go, the more the danger increases in any car. We've all seen the pictures before of many cars torn to bits by a high speed crash. The only differance is this Enzo broke in half rather than bending in half. So the driver either gets crushed inside the car or in this case probably thrown from the car, which even happens in cars that didn't break apart. Just my opinion....

[chris]

CF only shatters in the applications where it is used for bodywork.

You don't see F1 cars shattering in accidents, only the wings and non-important bodywork but the bit the driver is inside is extremely strong, so much so that even 300km/hr+ accidents won't deform it at all.

I can rattle off any number of severe accidents where the carbon fibre tub of an F1 car did its job, protecting the driver. The Renault at Silverstone last year, Takuma Sato's accident in the Jordan at the A1 Ring, Jacques Villenueves heavy accident at Spa Francorchamps one year in the Williams (at Eau Rouge no less), Luciano Burti in the Jaguar in Melbourne (another big accident), the accident last year at Monte Carlo (multi-car accident ultimately caused by the smoke from Taku Sato's blown engine). And who was the driver a few years back that had a huge crash at Blanchimont at Spa Francorchamps (around 280km/hr head on shunt). There are more, but they are too numerous to list.

[Justin Martin]

CF only shatters in the applications where it is used for bodywork.

You don't see F1 cars shattering in accidents, only the wings and non-important bodywork but the bit the driver is inside is extremely strong, so much so that even 300km/hr+ accidents won't deform it at all.

Carbon fiber shatters in any application, it's simply a matter of placing enough force on it. It is a brittle material, albeit a brittle material with exceptional strength. A F1 cockpit can easily shatter, and quite possible might have in this crash.

Remember the recent crash of a Ferrari F1 car at Laguna Seca? And that's not the only example that I can think of where that has happened to a carbon fiber tubbed open wheel car...

[Commander]

And, as I stated before, racetracks a engineered to work in conjuction with the race car's safety features, public roads don't offer that same piece of mind. You won't find boulders, long dense grass, phone poles, discarded bottles or other garbage on a race course. Any section of public road has far too many random obstacles to be able to make a car truely safe; especially at high speeds.

Anyone remember the disgruntled U.S marine who stole a tank and went on a rampage? You'd think a tank would be able to handle whatever a public highway had to throw at it, but it was ultimately a 2 1/2 foot concrete road divider that ground the tank to a halt. Why? Well, I don't imagine there are a whole lot of concrete road barriers on the battlefield, so the tank was never engineered to negotiate such an obstacle at full throttle. Who knows what may hae been lying in the ditch waiting for that rogue Enzo, but I bet my leftie the car designers never factored it (the obstacle) into their safety tests. Again, driver error, and certainly not the car at fault. Who knows, maybe if the same thing had gone wrong on a closed course race track, the damage may not have been so extreme...

[VQ]

wouldn't the f1 cars have intrusion bars as well in the carbun tub?

would think a tank coudl take that, neve heard aobut that incident though, I mean in rough terrain it'd be worse wouldn't it?

[chris]

F1 cars are actually just a tub, although it's a very heavily construction one. They do have a roll-over protection bar, but that can be even more danger than it is worth. If the car flips over, and that roll-bar digs into a gravel trap, you get instant broken neck.

That last bit was from a Martin Brundle describing his nasty accident at Albert Park one year where his car rolled over.

[VQ]

V8 Supercars are very good in accidents, look at all the Holdens rolling (not that it's good they roll) the drivers walk away with almost no injuries and nothing major, but the ford drivers end up injured from a roll, same with nascar, but they have a lot more bars then a V8 SUpercar does and is jsut a fibreglass shell.

[KyzrSoze]

Now I am wondering - are there wide variations in carbon fiber? I mean, are there more exotic versions for racing versus street use?

[VQ]

Don't think so, maybe finer sheeting of it and higher qaulity resin that has a shorter life but is stronger, but not much else.

[Smokey!]

Looks like someone broke the speedlimit :rolleyes: . He should have driven on the track not the road. Probably played to much Need For Speed. Or else Ferraris are just VERY fragile and are torn apart when hitting small things at 80 km/h.