Autoblog

It wouldn't be correct to say that all Ferrari drivers can't drive. What we can say is that a lot of Ferrari drivers are probably not short of ego, and also probably have little idea of what their cars can do when pressed. Combine a robust confidence with a watching crowd, add a high-powered and sometimes testy car, thrown in a little bit of ignorance... and a pole.. and what you get is the image above.

A man in Australia pulled out of a garage in his Ferrari 360 Spyder, took his chance to impress some gathered folks at cafes lining the street, and floored it. The car, as they say in the business, got away from him. The pole in the median did not. We're never happy to see (another) wrecked Ferrari, or to see a man carted away from his toy by the police, so to you kids with Ferraris, please learn from this and stop the madness.

Our favorite part of this picture is that, having made his boo-boo and probably realizing what he's in for, the driver is still just sitting in the car, although the guy in the blue shirt flexing in the background also gets a special mention... Thanks for the tip, Sam!

[Source: EHOWA]

Somewhere, a father in Melbourne weeps. There were 16 Ferrari 360 Challenge Stradales imported to Australia and New Zealand. There are now 15. A proud dad gave his son the keys to his so-rare-it's-almost-extinct Ferrari, and his son got a little too frisky with the audacious redhead. She didn't appreciate his advances, he lost control of the situation, and that little redhead introduced him to a pole... at a high rate of speed by the looks of it.

And as if that didn't beat all, the kid had to call home. While news crews watched. And filmed. Only to have newspapers and blogs spread the story around the world. No word on what his father said, but it probably rhymed with "Why I oughta @#%$*&%!"

Police say the driver was speeding, which means he must not have seen these commercials. But now, at least, he has a theme song, so sing along: "To you other kids all across the land, take it from me, parents just don't understand..." Thanks for the tip, Patrick!

[Source: Sydney Morning Herald]

BMW has announced it will offer a free four-year subscription of its BMW Assist service to the North American market starting with its 2007 models. It will cost the automaker $80 million in subscription payments, but that's well worth it, according to BMW spokespeople, who say that keeping owners signed onto a service that provides so many safety and convenience benefits is just a "BMW thing to do."

The device is an internal cell phone that relays car diagnostics or emergency information, like an airbag deployment, to a call center in Texas. The system rivals General Motors' OnStar, which has tiered subscriptions that allow owners to specify everything from emergency assitance to a virtual concierge.

[Source: Automotive News]

 

A lightly-camouflaged Dodge Nitro was tooling down the streets of Toledo, Ohio, when, BAM, the little 'ute struck the back of a semi after blowing a stop sign. Or so the story goes. The vehicle, which isn't available for public consumption yet, had something of an impromptu debut when it got into the little fender-bender courtesy of an engineer who was later ticketed for the incident. The Nitro's accident occurred near Jeep's Toledo plant, which will churn out dent-free examples for Dodge showrooms later this summer.

[Source: WTOL-TV]

(Thanks to Muamer for the tip)