Porsche Car Crash Cars

While we were nicely tucked in inside our homes doing our best to cope with isolation, some random dude decided it’s a good idea to take his 1 of 25 Gemballa Mirage GT out on the empty streets of New York.

Nothing wrong here, of course, as long as he remained within the confines of the law. Which he didn’t, causing him to end up crashing into multiple vehicles.

A replica Porsche 356 found itself swimming in a canal after getting unceremoniously dumped in the water by a delivery van. The incident was brought to our attention by London-based publishing company Unbound, which tweeted the aftermath of the incident that happened near the company’s headquarters. It’s unclear what happened after the replica 356 went for a swim, but it was eventually fished out, looking, as Unbound put it, “forlorn” after getting dumped into the water. Either way, it’s highly unlikely that it’s going to function as well as it did before it took a dip in the canal.

We all know the Nurburgring is one of the most dangerous tracks in the world. Mixing maximum speed with huge elevation changes, blind corners, and highly technical challenges, it’s no wonder Jackie Stewart dubbed this place The Green Hell. Throw in a slick racing surface and open lapping with amateurs, and things can get really ugly. Case in point, this 2-minute, 8-second video showing a first-person perspective of an incident that occurred earlier in the month, wherein a group of cars create a massive pileup around a fast section leading to Hatzenbach. After spotting cars stopped on track and a huge cloud of smoke, the driver shooting the video pulls off to the outside of the track, exiting his vehicle before attempting to flag down incoming cars and warn about the impending parking lot. Some cars manage to avoid crashing, while others spin out helplessly. One Porsche even slides backwards into the stationary racer that the cameraman had exited just moments prior.

The video was originally posted to Facebook by RE FS420, and has been making the rounds on the internet ever since. According to BridgeToGantry.com, the original cause of the incident was a blown coolant hose on a 911 GT3 RS, which spilled fluid on the track, resulting in several drivers losing control. In total, 14 cars were involved, with two drivers requiring hospitalization, one of which needed to be cut free from his Audi and airlifted to emergency care.

It’s a chilling reminder of what can go wrong when pushing a car to its limits. Stay safe out there, folks.

Meadow Walker, the 17-year-old daughter of the late Paul Walker, through her attorney, Jeff Milam, has reached a settlement with the estate of Roger Rodas amounting to $10.1 million over the death of her father. The settlement was actually reached in November 2014, one year after Walker’s death, but went unnoticed over the next 17 months, likely due to it being filed under “Meadow W.”

According to a statement released by Milam, the agreed-upon amount covers “a fraction of what her father would have earned as an international movie star had his life not been tragically cut short.” Walker’s tragic death happened in November 2013 when Rodas lost control of a 2005 Porsche Carrera GT that was traveling at speeds of as much as 93 mph. The Carrera GT ended up slamming into trees and a utility pole before burning beyond recognition. Numerous investigations about the crash determined that Walker survived the impact but was burned to death.

With this case apparently closed, the younger Walker and her legal team are turning their attention towards a separate lawsuit filed against Porsche AG. A separate lawsuit filed by Rodas’ widow, Kristine Rodas, against Porsche ended with a federal judge ruling in favor of the automaker because there was not enough evidence to support Rodas’ claim that the Carrera GT’s suspension had failed and that it didn’t have a racing fuel cell and crash cage.

For its part, Porsche has repeatedly maintained that it shouldn’t be held liable for Rodas and Walker’s death, arguing that the crash that led to Walker’s death was the fault of the actor because “knowingly and voluntarily assumed all risk, perils, and danger.” Porsche added that the Carrera GT Rodas drove was “abused and altered” and was “misused and improperly maintained.”

Meadow Walker’s lawsuit against Porsche is still ongoing, but if the results from the Rodas suit are any indication, her lawyers will need to present more competent evidence against Porsche to show that there was some wrongdoing on the part of the German automaker.

Continue after the jump to read the full story.

Just when you think you’ve heard all of the news from the New York Auto Show, something jumps out to surprise us. In this case, it is a video of a Porsche 911 Turbo that evidently caught on fire Thursday morning at the Sprawling complex. Rumor has it that the 911 that caught on fire was supposed to be part of a special presentation that would kick off on Friday.

There has been no official word about what actually caused the fire, but NBC 4 in New York has said that it was a small electrical fire. In the video we have here, we can see workers scrambling to extinguish the flames in an attempt to save the 911. As far as we know, nobody was injured in the fire, and some sources are indicating that there was very little damage done to the 911 as well. There are some other pictures floating around that show the 911 post-fire, and in those images, there is little damage to be seen, aside from the powder left over from the extinguishers. So, it’s possible that the owner of the car won’t suffer a total loss. With that said, go ahead and take a look at the video and see for yourself – it’s not every day a car catches on fire at an auto show.

Porsche’s may be liquid cooled these days, but apparently somebody at the Porsche Centrum Amsterdam dealership in Holland didn’t get the memo of how to properly fill the radiator and coolant tank. Full details have yet to emerge about exactly how this brand new Porsche 911 GT3 RS ended up nose first in the drink, but there are two rumors floating around right now.

At first, it’s easy to imagine a disgruntled employee driving the car of the edge to stick it to the man one last time before a highly fashionable discontinuation of employment. Of course, nothing that dramatic appears to have happened. One rumor blames a mechanic that made a mistake, and the other blames a body guy who was applying a stripe decal. Either way, the pretty Porsche in Gulf Oil livery ended up in a rather awkward parking spot.

According to RTL News, the managing director of Porsche Centrum, Hans Van der Valk, said, “The car was parked on the waterfront and a mechanic made a mistake when trying to get in the vehicle. That is very unfortunate, but it can happen. When there are people, mistakes are made.” Even more interesting is that Van der Valk believes the car can be saved, saying, “Only the tip was in the water and no one was hurt. There’s not much damage.”

Continue reading for the full story.

You ever have a bad day at the office? You know – forget to correlate the TPS report? Spill hot coffee on your lap as soon as you sit down at your desk? Get rejected by that cute new girl in accounting? Well, at least you didn’t put nearly a million dollars of hypercar into a concrete barrier.

Unfortunately, that’s what happened to Walter Rohrl recently, as seen in the above-featured video. All was going swimmingly, track conditions looking good, car performing well, until this flat-out right-hander threw the legendary driver an ass-out, one-way ticket to impact town.

Luckily, Rohrl was unhurt in the crash, thanks in no small part to his lightning-fast reactions and car-control skills. Watch the video, and you’ll see the 918 pitch sideways, prompting Rohrl to immediately react to try and gather it up. Unfortunately, the huge angle prevents the 918 from escaping damage, and what follows is an agonizingly long slide off the track, but Rohrl does well to minimize the inevitable physics equation.

Who is Walter Rohrl, you ask? The 68-year-old German is best known for his performances in the World Rally Championship, taking the overall title in 1980 and 1982, years popularly seen as some of the most brutal in the series history. Other stats include 14 rally wins, 31 podiums, and 420 stage wins. He drove for Fiat, Opel, Lancia, and Audi, and currently earns his euros as a senior test driver for Porsche.

Obviously, the man knows his stuff when it comes to performance driving, and frankly, if you put a lesser driver in the above-featured moment, the results would probably have been catastrophic.

I’m relieved Rohrl escaped unscathed, but still, it hurts to see a 2014 Porsche 918 Spyder meet a fate like this.

It’s not everyday that you see a supercar burning on the side of the road, but when you do, we’re used to it being either a Ferrari or a Lamborghini. Not this time though, as the footage above depicts a flaming Porsche for a change, filmed while it combusted in a Costco parking lot not far from the Hot Rod Magazine offices.

Bystander Robert Radke, who owns the coincidentally named mefiburn.com and also drives a Porsche, was on hand to capture the burning 911 Turbo S with his smartphone. "The car started smoking a few rows downwind of where I parked, I moved my car upwind of it and saw the flame action." Radke told Hot Rod Magazine. It seems that the owner of the smoking and then flaming Porsche came out of the store just a few minutes later, but the fire department couldn’t do much more than dowsing the flames and pry open some body parts to check for more hot spots.

The 560-horsepower sports car was obviously totaled. So far, the cause of the fire is a mystery, since the 2014 Turbo S involved has a different engine than the 911 GT3 models that were recalled for engine fire risk in 2014.

Continue reading to learn more about Porsche fires.

Sunday’s FIA World Endurance Championship race in Brazil ended in disaster for Mark Webber and his No. 20 Porsche 919. With less than 30 minutes left to race, Webber lost control in turn 14, hitting Matteo Cressoni in the No. 90 Ferrari 458 Italia, and slamming tail-first into the wall. The resulting crash led to a small fire amid the wreckage. Thankfully, both Webber and Cressoni were listed in “satisfactory” condition after being taken to a nearby hospital and are set for release this week.

With only minutes left in the six-hour endurance race, a restart was forgone, leaving the remaining drivers to finish the race under caution. While the crash is unfortunate, the events led to Webber’s Porsche teammate in the No. 14 Porsche 919 to cross the finish line first. The car was co-driven by Romain Dumas, Neel Jani, and Mark Lieb. This marks Porsche’s first victory in an endurance prototype race since 1989.

Following the Porsche over the finish line was the Toyota TS 040 LMP1 in second place and the Audi R18 E-Tron Quattro in third. While the Porsche took first place, the Toyota team took home the Manufacturers’ Championship with 289 points. Audi followed up with 244 points and Porsche came in third with 193 points. The Sao Paulo race is the end of the 2014 WEC season. The 2015 season starts April 12, 2015 with the Six Hours of Silverstone.

Supercars are always up for a riot on the roads with spinning tires, loud exhausts, and speeds in excess of insanity. Supercars are apparently also up for a good roasting, with tires melting off their rims, glass shattering, and Alcantara interior bits leaving the cockpit in a puff of smoke.

Porsche’s newest supercar, the $845,000 918 Spyder with its hybrid powertrain, hadn’t felt the burn until now. Cell phone video (from Dave and his lovely girlfriend) captures the inferno mid-event as the Porsche sits idly by at a gas station with flames engulfing its left-rear quarter.

While most supercars like to spontaneously combust on their own, this 918 is perhaps a victim of a refueling mishap. Maybe the owner forgot to extinguish his Cuban cigar before pressing that 93-octane button at the Ontario-based gas station. Or perhaps it was a jolt of static electricity built up from exiting the car. Either way, there is one less Porsche 918 in the world, and for that we grieve.

Pro Tip: Before filling up with gas, discharge yourself of any static electricity by touching a few bare metal items not near the fuel nozzle or gas pump, lest you become the topic of the next car-on-fire story. This is especially important as the weather turns cold.

I, for one, am proud of every single owner of a great, unique or exotic car who drives them regularly. These cars are special, and they get people interested in automobiles. It is also a special experience to see something so cool and rare in the car world go rolling down the street. Sadly, as there are other cars on the road, there can be damage to these nearly priceless pieces of automotive history. Case in point is Jerry Seinfeld and his 1973 Porsche 911 Carrera RSR.

Jerry is an avid car collector and Porsche enthusiast, but last week he sat and witnessed someone back into his pristine 911 RSR that was parked on the street. In a recent story in the Page Six section of the NY Post, Jerry recounts the entire terrifying, metal-crunching moment. He was sitting on a bench directly across the street from his parked car enjoying some coffee and the company of friend Nacho Figueras when the incident occurred. An older woman in a white BMW went to parallel park in the sport directly in front of the historic 911, but proceeded to back directly into the Porsche.

What followed was an obviously heated argument that ended with the woman fleeing the scene without providing any information for Jerry to use for insurance.

Thankfully, the car doesn’t seem to be destroyed, rather just mangled slightly, and I am sure Jerry will have it repaired and back on the road soon. Still, for a car that is only one of 49 in the world, it can be quit disheartening to see it meet the rear bumper of another car.

You can read the full account given by Jerry Seinfeld on the Page Six site linkedbelow.

Don’t let this stop you from driving these things, Jerry. We still love to see them, even if they get a little banged up from time to time.

Click past the jump to read more about the 1973 Porsche 911 Carrera RSR

We all knew that this would happen eventually. The only question was when it was going to go down. Six months after Paul Walker and Roger Rodas lost their lives in a car crash involving the latter’s Porsche Carrera GT, Rodas’ wife, Kristine Rodas, has filed a lawsuit against Porsche claiming that the design of the rare supercar contributed to the high-speed accident that caused the car to go up in flames.

In her lawsuit, Rodas argued that the Carrera GT was, for all intents and purposes, unsafe for its intended use "by reason of defects in its manufacture, design, testing, component and constituents." Rodas also contends that her husband was driving the car at only 55 mph at the time of the accident, contrary to the Los Angeles County Sheriff department’s investigation, which found the accident to have been caused by speed with investigators estimating that Roger Rodas was driving at speeds between 80 to 93 mph before the crash.

Shortly after the crash, Porsche even sent its engineers to investigate the Carrera GT’s remains only to find that the car itself had no problems.

It’ll be interesting to see whether Kristine Rodas’ lawsuit against Porsche has a leg to stand on. We are by no means trivializing the situation and we’re not going to disrespect her for taking this step. We just don’t see her winning this suit based on the results of the police’s investigation.

Maybe Porsche will just avoid the whole thing with an out-of-court settlement. We don’t know if she’s going to accept those terms, but at this point, you might have to take what you can get.

Click past the jump to read more about Paul Walker’s crash.

Hit-and-runs are no joking matter. It’s one of those things that can be clearly avoided if a driver is responsible enough to watch what the road while he’s driving. That and not driving while intoxicated. Very important to remember.

Even if there are a plethora of ways to prevent hit-and-runs from happening, the sad truth is they still happen. Far too often than it should.

Take this video for example. An indistinguishable hatchback appears to run over a motorcycle and like the idiot that he is, he tries to run away like nothing happened. Fortunately, a Porsche 911 sees the entire thing happen and decides that justice had to be served.

So the driver of the 911 chases down the culprit. It made for an interesting chase that involved a number of other cars and in the end, the offending driver gets cornered into coming out and facing the wrath of those understandably peeved drivers who witnessed the dramatic crash.

Good for these guys who did the right thing. Hopefully, the offending driver gets his comeuppance in the form of justice being served.

If you happen to be the proud owner of a 991 generation Porsche 911 GT3, don’t go anywhere near it. There have been a few reports of the car suddenly bursting into flames, and now it seems that Porsche has put a Stop Sale on the model.

Now most of this information is not confirmed, but the Axis of Oversteer team has one hell of a record behind it.

The latest GT3 in question was spending some on the road, as most cars do, when the owner noticed the low oil pressure warning. Then noises, smells and finally smoke. The 911 then proceeded to burst into flames and was destroyed.

This is the 5th incident of self-immolating GT3s in Europe and AoO is reporting a full dealer stop-sale for the time being. Now, the stop sale is not officially confirmed, and Porsche has yet to issue any kind of recall, but we are keeping our ears open.

If you have any extra details to help flesh out this story, feel free to contact us.

Click past the jump to read more about the Porsche 911 GT3.

On November 30, 2013, Paul Walker was involved in a horrific crash that cost him his life. Back then it was not known how Roger Rodas — the driver at the time of the accident and former race car driver — lost the control of the Porsche Carrera GT. It was pretty clear that speed was the main factor, but there was no official cause provided by the police.

Now, according to the final report from the L.A. County Coroner’s Office, it looks like the Carrera GT was driving at more than 100 mph before the moment of impact. Police officials said that the car was headed east on Hercules Street "at an unsafe speed, approximately 100+ mph," lost control for some "unknown reasons," and hit both a tree and a light post. The car then spun around another 180 degrees, hit another tree and burst into flames.

The same report stated that Rodas was not under the influence of any drugs or alcohol.

After his death, Universal Studios announced that the release date for the new series in the Fast and Furious franchise was moved from July 2014 to April 10, 2015.

This final piece is hopefully the final piece of news regarding this tragedy and serves as a reminder that no matter how good of a driver you are and how awesome the car is, always save the crazy driving for the race track...

Click past the jump to watch a cool tribute to Paul Walker.

Many people would do just about anything to get something that was once owned by a celebrity, but what this man — and we use the term "man" loosely — did is beyond imagination. Eighteen-year-old Jameson Witty took it upon himself to to own a piece of the 2005 Porsche Carrera GT involved in Paul Walker’s fatal accident.

Wanting to own a piece of the car that a celebrity was killed in is creepy enough, but Witty went a step beyond creepy and entered the complete douchebag realm in the way that he went about procuring this morbid memorabilia. According to the reports, Witty and an accomplice followed the tow truck that scooped up the Porsche’s remains and stole the Carrera’s roof panel (pictured above) while the truck was stopped at a red light. That, folks, is not only stealing, but it is also interfering with a police investigation and tampering with evidence.

According to police officials: "A witness saw a male exit a vehicle that was following the tow truck. The male grabbed a piece of the wrecked Porsche off the tow truck bed.’

Witty was arrested at his residence in California were the police found the red roof panel. Witty’s accomplice has already been identified, and he is currently arranging to surrender to police.

Both of them risk being charged with felony grand theft. We think it is safe to assume that the courts will give them probation, given the fact that they will receive plenty of punishment in the public sector. The comments on Jameson Witty’s iPhoneogram account show just how people feel about his stealing this piece of evidence.

Click past the jump to read more about Paul Walker’s tragic accident.

Today we come to you with a heavy heart with the announcement that Paul Walker, one of the stars of the Fast and Furious series, has died in a car crash. Earlier on Saturday, there were rumors that he had perished in a car accident, but the horrible news was confirmed Saturday at 10:14 p.m. on his official Twitter page.

According to the report and witness statements, Walker was a passenger in a red Porsche Carrera GT, which was driven by a friend of his. The car was apparently speeding, per the Los Angeles Sherrif’s Department’s report, and it slammed into a light pole.

By the time EMTs and other emergency personnel arrived on the scene, the Porsche was engulfed in flames. Walker and his friend, whose name was not released, were pronounced dead at the scene.

Paul is survived by a 15-year-old daughter and leaves millions of Fast and Furious fans with a heavy heart. Numerous Fast and Furious cast member expressed their emotions through various social media sites, including Vin Diesel, Chris "Ludacris" Bridges and Tyrese Gibson. He was just 40 years old...

Update 12/1/2013 10:20 a.m.: Reports are suggesting that the driver of the Porsche was Roger Roda, who was a close personal friend of Walker’s and a professional racecar driver who had participated in the Pirelli World Challenge. The crash occurred following a charity event that the two attended.

We can’t even begin to imagine how harrowing an experience it is to crash a car at high speeds. That’s the kind of scenario we wouldn’t wish on anybody, even our worst enemies.

But some people just don’t have the luck, or safety bearings, as other people. In this particular case, it was a combination of both things. At the recent Hellendoorn Rally in the Netherlands, driver Harry Kleinjan was driving a Porsche 911 RSR during the rally when the brakes presumably locked on one bend, sending Kleinjan and his navigator straight into a cement barricade.

But the crash itself wasn’t the scariest thing to happen to the two; it was what happened after it.

Upon hitting the cement barrier, the 911 RSR immediately shot off the ground, smacked the barricade another time sending the wheels off of the race car before flipping over and hurtling straight into a river on its head. It’s the kind of scary crash that you normally see in movie, except that in the latter’s case, those crashes are planned and staged.

Neither happened on this occasion but fortunately, both Kleinjan and his navigator escaped their all-too-real brush with death without any serious injuries.

In the end, that’s the most important thing and given how the 911 RSR pretty much flew off the track, them coming out of the ordeal with their limbs intact was a bigger win than crossing the finish line first.

Click past the jump to read about the newest line of this successful racer, the 2013 Porsche 911 GT3 RSR