Are you sure?
Didn't he trash a Mini while bumping a Reliant Robin?
Mr Bean prangs £650k McLaren
Blackadder star Rowan Atkinson narrowly "cheated death" last night after pranging his £650k McLaren F1, and crawling from the supercar's burning wreckage. That's more or less the Daily Mail's version of what happened on the A605 at Haddon, near Peterborough, when Mr Bean wrapped his expensive motor round a tree and a signpost …
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Friday 5th August 2011 13:10 GMT Grease Monkey
Mail Fail
Usual Daily Mail sensationalist rubbish. According to the local fire brigade there was a minor fire after the accident from which Mr Atkinson walked away. How do you get from that to the Mail's report? As usual, lazy journalism coupled with a desire to believe the worst in every story.
When they heard the story they *could* have picked up the phone and checked a few facts with the authorities, or they could have fleshed out their few bare facts with some sensationalist nonsense. Which would the Fail normally choose?
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Friday 5th August 2011 14:20 GMT Anonymous Coward
@ good news
...bad news. Burning carbon fibre is nasty stuff. Causes cancer (probably), doesn't prevent it.
Sorry - forgot we were talking in 'Daily Fail'...
"Burning Carbon Fibre threat to humanity...Mr Bean causes lifespans shorten over the globe, and 'NHS over-stretched' outcry! Government unprepared for toxic carbon fibre death cloud!"
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Monday 8th August 2011 08:38 GMT Nuke
Sensationalist?
You don't need to rely on the Mail's description, just look at the photos - assuming they are not faked, and I doubt even the Mail would do that.
The fact is, from the pictures and that he was hospitalised, this was a serious crash. Any one who goes off the road and hits lamposts has "cheated death" in that there has been a significant chance of death. Whether or not there was any fire afterwards does not alter this fact.
Anyone whose car leaves the road with no other vehicle involved is at fault, unless the cause is a mechanical failure or oil on the road.
Sounds to me that this idiot was going too fast, or maybe using his mobile, and thereby endangering others that might have been you or me. I hope that if this established he is done for dangerous driving.
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Friday 5th August 2011 14:52 GMT Anonymous Coward
Update
After further examination of the pics, I'd wager that's a write off.
Especially given the whole rear end of the car is missing, and it won't have contained a spare wheel and some golf clubs. Which reminds me...the engine bay is gold insulated innit? ...where did he crash? I might have to go "assist with the recovery".
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Monday 8th August 2011 08:42 GMT Ilgaz
It is F1
What makes McLaren special is, it has formula 1 class technology but it is also ordinarily used on road. For example, you don't throw away motor after one day.
Of course, there are cars in its league now but McLaren was the first.
(revenge of car analogy)
It is like having a Cray or a mainframe in your house with ordinary power and cooling.
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Friday 5th August 2011 13:38 GMT spl23
Cruddy tabloid journalism
The Times has a photo of the damage, and there is no evidence of fire at all visible. Although I can confirm the sentiment above - it's definitely not going to buff out. Most of the front left wing is ripped off.
Actually, I'm trying to work out how hitting a lamppost with the front left wing of a car whose engine and fuel tank are both mounted behind the driver's seat could ever have resulted in a fire?
And as for it being a "miracle" that RA got out - the F1 was the first car ever to pass MIRA's frontal impact into a concrete block test and still be driveable afterwards. Gordon Murray was so confident in the structural integrity of the carbonfibre tub that he wanted to sit in it while the test was being carried out...
Interestingly, both the Times and the Torygraph mention RA's Ford Falcon racing car, and both misspell it the same way...
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Friday 5th August 2011 14:18 GMT Jellied Eel
This will only mean anything to WoT players.
"Actually, I'm trying to work out how hitting a lamppost with the front left wing of a car whose engine and fuel tank are both mounted behind the driver's seat could ever have resulted in a fire?"
His car was a special 'World of Tanks' version.
Or, he was smoking a pipe and had a lap full of vintage cellulose ping pong balls at the time of the crash. If anyone wants to lend me an F1, I'll happily attempt to reproduce this accident and fire though.
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Friday 5th August 2011 15:39 GMT Grease Monkey
Fire
"Actually, I'm trying to work out how hitting a lamppost with the front left wing of a car whose engine and fuel tank are both mounted behind the driver's seat could ever have resulted in a fire?"
Nobody seems to be saying the impact caused the fire. Maybe the fire caused the accident or maybe a failure caused both the fire and the accident.
Even so you'd be surprised what can cause fires in cars like that. An oil spillage on the exhaust manifold might be enough to ignite the oil. If there's enough flamable material close to such a minor fire this can start a larger fire. Murray always claimed that he used a normally aspirated engine because it was more controllable than a turbo charged engine, but there are those who suggest he couldn't contain the heat successfully with the big engine in such a small engine compartment. And with a carbon fibre body and tub he really needed to contain all that heat, turbos would have made it impossible.
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Friday 5th August 2011 13:38 GMT Anonymous Coward
re; hot laps
After Atkinson beating Tom cruise round the top gear track, it's possible to say
Johnny English is faster than Nathan Hunt...
but not as bizarre as thinking... Mr Bean is faster than Days of Thunder's Cole Trickle.
Was Rowan brushing his teeth or changing his trousers when the recent prang occurred?
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Friday 5th August 2011 14:20 GMT Anonymous Coward
Blackadder Goes Second
I'm sure I read years ago that Atkinson had crashed a sports car, possibly even written it off. It may even have been another McLaren. Does anyone else remember this?
How curious that a person should buy an expensive sports car capable of giving F1 racers a run for their money and then exceed the speed limit...
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Friday 5th August 2011 18:41 GMT Andrew Garrard
I too remember, oh, wait...
Would that be the crash of the same car that is referred to in the Reg's article? Despite what the tabloids have to say, Reg journalists 1, readers 0.
The Sun is blocked by work's firewall, but in the other images it doesn't look that bad. It was wet yesterday - it may just have been an accident, or for all we know it crashed while avoiding someone in a white van coming the other way on the wrong side of the road. I'll be interested to know if Rowan explains for those of us who can only dream of owning one of these (and kudos if he admits it was just his fault).
I hope it's not a write-off, though - some vehicles are classics. I work not far from where some cretin managed to write off a (hired) Veyron a few years ago.
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Monday 8th August 2011 08:38 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Blackadder goes many-fold
It seems he crashes a high performance sports car every few years, whilst the rest of us would get banned after the first:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/485692.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/1430754.stm
http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Sky-News-Archive/Article/20080641298233
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Friday 5th August 2011 18:14 GMT Giles Jones
Fly instead
Not the first time he's smashed it up.
But you have to ask why? given the state of our roads and the traffic on them you're better off learning to fly a helicopter and fly yourself around rather than spend money on a car you can't do more than 70MPH (legally) in.
I'm sure Rowan can afford to.
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Monday 8th August 2011 12:05 GMT James Hughes 1
Moron. Try looking him up.
Atkinson is a spectacularly good driver - much better than you. He has been racing cars for many years and racing them well (he has raced Aston's and now races historics). He has a collection of fast cars (the F1 has done over 37k miles - all his own), and has had the occasional prang. So what? I've owned cars for almost as many years as he has, and probably crashed more than he has. Some my fault, some the other cars fault. Accidents happen, whether you are in a slow or fast car, or whether you are a good or bad driver.
He doesn't need lessons. You do. In getting your facts straight.
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Monday 8th August 2011 12:40 GMT jake
@James Hughes 1
"He doesn't need lessons."
Assumes facts not in evidence. Quite the contrary, in fact.
"You do."
Of course. I'm always learning. That's why I teach. Home tracks are Sears Point (four wheels in various configurations, mostly) and Thunderhill (two wheels, mostly). Care for a lesson?
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Monday 8th August 2011 17:02 GMT James Hughes 1
I could do with race lessons
I'm a bit rusty, certainly not as fast as Atkinson, but then my race car isn't as fast as his. And I keep crashing it. Although the last one wasn't my fault.
Still, its a long way from Snetterton to Sears Point..
Atkinson races, he's good at it. Look him up. That should be the facts you need. You have made an assumption from a Daily Mail article and some pictures. Not a good starting point for assumptions.
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Tuesday 9th August 2011 08:34 GMT jake
@James Hughes 1
He might be good at it, but he needs to keep it on the track. I haven't had a prang in a car or on a bike on the street in three decades. ::knocks wood::
When I was 20 years old, being the only gear-head nephew, I inherited my childless Uncle's DeTomaso Mangusta. It had already been entered in the Monterey Historic Automobile Races, so being young, brash & annoying I drove her down to Laguna Seca to participate.
As I entered the paddock in a cloud of tire smoke, a certain small Scottish race car driver noticed the child in the classic car ... and grabbed my ear (literally!) as I got out. He very carefully explained that that kind of stuff should be kept on the track, and then volunteered to drive me around the track in my car. Five hot laps of lecture (vocal and demonstration) later, I finally realized that being quiet, slow, smooth and steady was actually the fastest way around the track ... I will never be able to thank Jackie Stewart enough for that simple eye opening lesson.
Later, I took both street and track classes from Skip Barber, which cemented my personal philosophy on driving ... When you're on the track, go fast without breaking anything. When you're on the street, concentrate on getting to the destination ... it'll be there when you get there.
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Wednesday 10th August 2011 09:50 GMT jake
Frankly, TeeCee ...
I'd rather my Uncle was still around. He died all too soon in a rock fall in Yosemite, aged 45. Thirty years on, and I still miss the heck out of him. He helped my with my first rebuild (Bultaco dirt bike engine/trans when I was nine years old), and my first restoration (a 1950s hotrod Model-T with flathead Ford when I was 14).
The Grey Goose is still with me, though ... I plan to be buried in her.
OK, not really. She's going to my daughter :-)
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Monday 8th August 2011 08:31 GMT Dave Bell
Looks pretty bad for the car
The photographs used by The Sun make the car look a write-off. OK, I don't know the economics of this, but no engine or rear wheels visible when the front end is lefted onto the recovery truck: that's a really major job.
As I recall the rules, it's likely to be such a major job that DVLA might not consider it the same vehicle afterwards.
Still, if it came apart on that scale, and the driver was still walking, the engineers did a damn good job.
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Monday 8th August 2011 08:48 GMT bogwart
Plank
He doesn't deserve a car like that. It's the second time he's stuffed it into the scenery or other traffic and he should really consider a Ford Ka or something similar for next time. Only 106 of these amazing cars were built, and you'd be doing very well to buy one for £650k, particularly as a mint version went a couple of years ago for £2.5 mill.
If you can't drive it, old bean, you shouldn't have bought it. Delusions of adequacy again.
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Monday 8th August 2011 12:18 GMT James Hughes 1
As stated in a post above
Atkinson is a very good driver. He has had the F1 since new, covered >37k miles in it. Since he has also raced cars for some years he is perfectly capable of driving it - much more so than you. He is also perfectly capable of insuring it. It will go back to Mclaren and be rebuilt.
Jealous much?
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Biting the hand that feeds IT
