Enzo PCH Redux
 

The story keeps getting better. One report tells of finding a clip from a Glock 40MM. 40mm? Bofors? And from ABC7.com:

MALIBU - The plot continues to thicken today in the mystery surrounding the crash of a $1 million Ferrari on Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu, a sheriff's sergeant said.
"It's like a James Bond story," said Sgt. Philip Brooks of the Malibu/Lost Hills Station traffic detail. "But I just want to find out who was driving the Ferrari."

Brooks is heading up the investigation to find out if Stefan Eriksson of Bel Air was at the wheel of the red Ferrari Enzo when it crashed into a pole off Pacific Coast Highway on Feb. 21 at an estimated 160 mph.

The impact caused the car to split in half and nearly disintegrate, but Eriksson suffered relatively minor injuries.

A bloodied Eriksson was found in the passenger seat and told authorities that the driver was a German man named Dietrich who fled on foot into the Malibu hills.

"Yesterday Eriksson came to the station with his attorney David Eldon and voluntarily provided a DNA sample taken with a mouth swab," Brooks said. "We want to see if his blood matches the blood in the Ferrari."

Results are expected for a few weeks.

The blood was only found on the driver's side of the car, not the passenger's side.

On the advice of his attorney, Eriksson did not make a statement yesterday.

After the crash, Eriksson told deputies examining the wreckage that he had been a passenger in the Ferrari and there was a street race with a Mercedes.

Brooks said that Eriksson had told deputies of his friend Trevor, who was a passenger in the Mercedes.

"Based on the evidence, we don't believe there was a Mercedes or any race. There was a sole vehicle driving too fast on Pacific Coast Highway," Brooks said.

He has not been able to prove that Eriksson was the driver of that Ferrari.

But he said that "the plot thickened" as the investigation continued.

He said that Trevor -- he has a last name but is not releasing it -- said he was a friend of Eriksson and gave as his home address a boat slip in Marina del Rey.

The boat in that slip was a $14 million yacht, maybe the biggest in the harbor. And the name of the registered owner is Carl Freer.

Eriksson's name was linked by several European newspapers, including the Guardian of London, to Freer for their involvement in the collapse of a prominent video game company in Sweden in which investors lost millions of dollars. Eriksson was reportedly sentenced to a long prison sentence in that case.

Another unnerving development -- Trevor was at the scene of the accident on PCH and asked a good Samaritan to use his cell phone to report the crash, Brooks said.

"An hour later the good Samaritan found a magazine to a 40mm Glock which had been stuffed under the car seat and reported it to us," Brooks said.

Brooks said that investigation also revealed that in September, Eriksson had brought two Ferrari Enzos into the country in San Diego -- one a red one and the other a black one. He also brought in a Mercedes SLR, a $600,000 vehicle.

Brooks said that the red Ferrari and the Mercedes have since been described as stolen, because the initial down payment on them was allegedly a fraudulent one through a company owned by Carl Freer.

And then there's yet another wrinkle, Brooks said.

"At the scene of the accident, two associates of Eriksson showed up flashing badges from Homeland Security. Obviously, at the time the deputies were overwhelmed and didn't check out the badges. Eriksson also produced a business card describing himself as a deputy police commissioner with the San Gabriel Valley Transit," he said.

That entity is actually a privately owned security company, Brooks said. It consists of two vans used for paratransit working out of a garage across the street from the Monrovia Police Department.

The badges were apparently issued by the paratransit company, Brooks said.

Trevor told the deputies that Eriksson was part of the agency's anti- terrorism forces and that he was working on new facial recognition software for Homeland Security, Brooks said.

The sergeant said there was one additional piece of information.

The Ferrari company in Italy told Brooks it could fix the broken red Ferrari for a mere $200,000 to $300,000.

Many people had been upset at the destruction of the million dollar Ferrari, which is regarded as one of the finest race cars ever made.

Brooks told ABC7 that if it is determined that Eriksson was indeed the Ferrari driver, the most he could be charged with is possibly misdemeanor DUI and reckless driving, along with providing false information to authorities.



The best part, a mere $200,000 to $300,000 to fix it.

$200k-$300k, LOL. Good one. Gotta wonder where these reporters get their info...

They're expending an awful lot of effort on this. If it was Joe Sixpack in a b!tchin Camaro, nobody would GAFF irrespective of the speed.

My favorite...

"At the scene of the accident, two associates of Eriksson showed up flashing badges from Homeland Security. Obviously, at the time the deputies were overwhelmed and didn't check out the badges. Eriksson also produced a business card describing himself as a deputy police commissioner with the San Gabriel Valley Transit," he said.

Seriously. The guy crashed *his* $1M car into a pole. Pay for the pole, sweep the bits into an envelope which he can take home and let's all move on with our lives.

If nobody is hurt but the driver, his ego and wallet is there really a crime to investigate?

The Enzo is built to take break where its hit, the entire car need not be replaced in a hard hit. My 944 on the other hand, crunches the entire car in a hard hit, and is much more expensive relative to the value of the car.

Also keep in mind, an Enzo's 1 Million value comes from the fact someone cannot just buy an Enzo, thats significantly more then they cost new. Ferrari's markup is I think close to 50% on a car, so that repair cost doesn't surprise me at all.

50% markup on what?

When they put the car back together, they are going to be missing a hose. :D

ROTFLMAO

Tervuren - Take a close look at the crash photos. Now factor in labor and replacement part costs (both much higher than actual assembly costs). I know someone in the area who put his $350,000 F40 into a pole a few months ago. Repair cost: $200,000. And it wasn't hurt NEARLY as much as this Enzo.

Hehehehe... good one Chris :)

and
"They're expending an awful lot of effort on this. If it was Joe Sixpack in a b!tchin Camaro, nobody would GAFF irrespective of the speed."

I agree with the above, but you have to admit that this makes for good entertainment!
-Jeremy

The F40 was not designed that way. On a forum I visit there is a guy who works at an official Ferrari work shop, one of the fe places Ferrari will sell the stuff to fix something like this. That is what he said about an Enzo on one that chrashed some time ago in Florida. (The one posted as part of a fake news story on teenage driver's here a wee bit ago).

Rick, Ferrari's profit margin on a car, even including development costs, is very very very high. I'd have to check, but I think they made somewhere between 100-200K on each F40, including costs to design/produce and tooling for the car.

The F40 does not use the compartmentalized design of the Enzo, a hit with it can put the entire car out of whack, same as when my 944 was schrunched. The Enzo, areas snap and break, and those that don't, likely do not need fixing/replacing. An F40, you have to unbend the car.

Isn't obvious...

The driver was abducted by aliens!

You guys should get out more often.

http://www.pelicanparts.com/support/smileys/pint1.gif

20 years.... Hard to belive it's been that long already... Wow

Um, this whole thing is weird. Deputies were "overwhelmed" by a single car crash? I can see being overwhelmed during something like the WTC attack, but this?

Please.

I'm sure the Homeland Security division is the big, bad, hidden, all-powerful group that smaller police forces are afraid of, so I'm thinking that's what might have had them overwhelmed.

Guys,

Their is an animation video out on Yahoo news that shows how the Enzo split in half. It's quite cool. Wish I could post a link but I can't access the video links. Check it out.

http://www.yahoo.com/s/280417 - See if this works.

That animation reminds me of Flight Similator circa 1990

Here's CNN's version of the story. It just goes to show that just because you're rich enough to own an Enzo (or a Porsche for that matter), doesn't mean that you're smart enough to drive it, nor honest enough to deserve it.

Anyone notice that this "Homeland Security Taskforce" agent has skipped the country that he's supposed to be protecting??? Too bad the pole didn't hit about 6 inches further forward in the car.

Sure, it was only a single car crash, but by the end of the day it sounds like it might escelate to...
- Speeding
- DUI
- Reckless Endangerment
- Fraud (?)
- Impersonating a federal agent

I'm no lawyer, but it sounds like this guy is a target rich environment for law enforcement officers.

The story just gets better. Looks like there was a second person in the car, and he was videotaping.

Wonder what "World's Wildest Videos" will pay for that?!

Oh, and our hero, Stefan, was apparenty designated a 'law enforcement official' after providing video cameras to a transit agency. After passing a background check that apparently missed his prison sentence for counterfeiting.

All about it:

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-ferrari16mar16,0,6869781.story?coll=la-home-headlines

What is so "James Bond" about a rich, drunk guy smacking up his toy, then lying about it to the police? I'd try the same thing, but I doubt I'd get the press he got...

I think the guy was refering to the clips found. Which to me is nothing strange, after all, we do have the right to keep and bear arms. So although odd to some, with how I grew up, its nothing of note enless he used it to target, shoot, and kill someone.

Poor guy is running out of cars :)LA Times

You have to register to see that link you provided...There is no way I am giving the LASlimes any positive attention, so I will not register.

What does it say? From what I understand he had 2 Enzos.

Ferrari Owner Is Minus His Second Car
Stefan Eriksson's priceless Enzo was totaled in a crash last month. On Sunday, his very pricey Mercedes was impounded.
By David Pierson and Richard Winton, Times Staff Writers
March 28, 2006


Stefan Eriksson's famous exotic car collection keeps shrinking.

First, the former European videogame executive's rare Enzo Ferrari was destroyed in a mysterious crash Feb. 21 on Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu.

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Then, on Sunday, he lost his 2005 Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren, valued at more than $400,000. Beverly Hills police confiscated the vehicle after Scotland Yard said the car might have been stolen.

The officers stopped Eriksson's wife, Nicole Persson, 33, about 2:30 p.m. on the corner of Beverly Drive and Wilshire Boulevard because an officer found the car's European license plate suspicious.

The officer then discovered that Persson lacked a driver's license and that the car was not registered in the United States.

"We contacted Scotland Yard and subsequently learned that the car was perhaps stolen" out of the United Kingdom, Lt. Mitch McCann said.

The entire incident was caught on tape by a 13-year-old exotic car buff who has filmed Eriksson's vehicles in the past.

Beverly Hills authorities said they didn't have details of the British police case.

But Los Angeles County Sheriff's Sgt. Phil Brooks said that an unidentified financial institution says it owns the Mercedes and that a financial institution in Scotland says it was the owner of the Enzo.

This leaves Eriksson with only one of the three exotic cars he imported to the United States late last year, Brooks said.

"He brought in through San Diego two Ferraris and the Mercedes and said they were show cars and that he was not going to drive them on the streets," Brooks said.

Last month's crash prompted both an accident investigation and a probe by the Sheriff's Department's Homeland Security Division.

Although no one was injured in the crash, the investigation has generated significant attention because of the strange circumstances and the fact that it destroyed one of only 400 Enzo Ferraris ever built.

Eriksson, who lives in a gated Bel-Air estate, told deputies who arrived at the scene that he was not the driver and that another man, named Dietrich, had been behind the wheel.

Eriksson said Dietrich fled the scene.

But detectives said they were skeptical of his version of events.

Investigators have taken a swab of Eriksson's saliva to match his DNA against blood found on the Ferrari's driver's-side air bag.

Eriksson also told deputies that he was a deputy commissioner of the police department of a tiny transit agency in the San Gabriel Valley.

A few minutes after the crash, two men arrived at the crash scene, identified themselves as homeland security officers and spoke to Eriksson at length before leaving.

According to Car & Driver magazine, the Mercedes SLR McLaren is capable to going 200 mph and can go from 0 to 60 mph in 3.8 seconds.

The car didn't just capture the eye of Beverly Hills police.

Spyder Dobrofsky, a 13-year-old car enthusiast, happened to be at the scene of Sunday's traffic stop and switched on his camera.

The teenager has photographed cars in Eriksson's collection before and knew immediately that the McLaren was his.

"The car really stands out because of the British plate," Spyder said.

Spyder said Eriksson's wife was with a young child when she was pulled over.

On the tape, Spyder asks the tow truck operator called to remove the Mercedes where he's taking it.

The man jokes: "To my house."

Ha Ha!

thanks

ha! This story takes more turns than a Mullholland twisty. So...what was little 13 year old "Spyder" (interesting name) doing on the scene at that time? Just happened to be there....or is he a teenaged auto paparazzi in disguise?

Poor Stefan...his life is crashing down around him.