The average auto insurance payout for vehicle damage in the US is just under $6,000. Most of the time this will either cover repair costs or be enough to write the vehicle off completely. But what if you crash a hypercar?
Every few months, videos of someone crashing something obscenely rare and expensive seem to crop up on social media. Some of these crashes are total wrecks, while others are seemingly minor but still undoubtedly expensive.
Many of these crashes were a simple skill issue. The person behind the wheel just couldn’t handle the vehicle they were driving. Others could be down to bad luck, and one was even an attempt at insurance fraud that saw the owner down one $2 million hypercar and facing a year in jail. Here are five of the most expensive accidents in recent years.
Ferrari F40s are not easy to drive
View this post on Instagram
We’re pretty spoiled in the modern era. Advancements like traction control, stability control, and anti-lock brakes mean you can throw even the most average of drivers in something that has over 500 horsepower without them immediately killing themselves in a fireball.
The Ferrari F40 is not one of these vehicles. The performance vehicle, which first hit the road back in 1987, does not have traction control, ABS, or any other kind of assistance system. Those are for lesser mortals who have no business getting behind the wheel of something like this.
Unfortunately, they do. Which is why we saw someone stack Lando Norris’ F40 in the hills above Monaco while trying to tackle a left hand curve. In a similar incident, a 24-year-old dealership employee managed to borderline destroy an F40 in a tunnel near Stuttgart the year before.
The damage in both cases is estimated to be between $2.5 million and $3.2 million. Which is about as much as the F40 costs in 2026.
Neither is the Dodge Viper
The Ferrari F40 isn’t the only performance car that famously lacks any kind of driving aids while packing an excessive amount of power. If anything, the first-generation Dodge Viper is even more dangerous.
One owner in Ohio got to experience this first hand when attempting to drag race an Acura Integra at a stop light. Throttle control is everything when you don’t have a traction control system holding your hand, so absolutely gunning it tends to be a bad idea.
The driver found this out when the V10 put a bit too much power through those back wheels and the Viper was subsequently sent spinning off the road. After almost wiping the Integra out, it smashed head on into a street lamp, destroying the entire front end of the vehicle.
Thankfully, the driver seemed to be fine. It’s currently unknown if the Viper, which sells for around $200,000, was repaired or went to join so many of its brothers in that big junkyard in the sky.
You need to look after your Rolls-Royce
View this post on Instagram
The Rolls-Royce Cullinan is a magnificent vehicle. It’s large, fast, stylish, and outlandishly luxurious. But it’s also a Rolls-Royce, so any repairs it eventually needs are not going to be cheap. For example, each individual rim can cost up to $4,000. The umbrella in the door can set you back $2,000. And if you severely damage anything in the engine bay, you’d best find somewhere to sit down.
In July 2026, a driver was navigating through Casino Square in a black Cullinan Series II when they struck a retractable bollard. It became a case of a very stoppable force meeting an immovable object, with said bollard instantly disregarding the SUV’s bodywork and cracking something that may be quite important behind it.
The jury is still out on what exactly broke, but the scene was quite dramatic as the Rolls began leaking large amounts of blood red fluid. At best, it may have taken out a power steering line. Which is still an expensive fix on a Cullinan but not the end of the world. At worst, it could be a transmission fluid cooler.
Now this may already seem bad, but it gets worse. Firstly, it wasn’t just a base Cullinan Series II. The $500,000 SUV seems to have Masonry’s widebody package fitted to it, which isn’t cheap and is now heavily damaged.
Then you have the fact the driver kept the vehicle moving. If it was just very red power steering fluid, this is likely fine, but if it’s transmission fluid then the driver may have caused more damage than the initial crash. Transmission fluid both lubricates and cools the gearbox. If you’re running said gearbox without it, you’re probably causing a lot of damage. A replacement ZF 8-speed automatic transmission costs around $23,000 and then you have to factor in labor.
All in all, it’s a pretty expensive fender bender.
People crash McLaren F1s a lot
Remember Rowan Atkinson? Famous for playing characters like Edmund Blackadder and Mr Bean, the comedic actor was the proud owner of a McLaren F1 at one point. The F1 is one of the most expensive vehicles in the world, and Atkinson managed to crash his twice.
The first incident occurred in 1999 and involved Atkinson rear ending a vehicle at low speed. The vehicle had to be sent back to McLaren’s Woking-based factory for repairs as the carbon fiber hood and fascia were damaged. Still, that’s not the strange part. Imagine just going about your day when Mr. Bean rear ends you in what at the time was the world’s fastest road car.
In 2011, things were a bit worse. Atkinson hit a wet patch of road and lost control, the vehicle hit a tree, a road sign, and ended up with its rear end in a ditch. To make things worse, it then caught fire. Atkinson was uninjured.
But you can’t really write off a McLaren F1, it’s at that point where paying McLaren to rebuild it is cheaper than paying out its estimated market value. So it was sent back to the factory where it took McLaren the best part of a month to assess the damage and give the insurance company an estimate. The $1.4 million repair bill was around 40% more than the car originally cost, but far less than it was worth in 2011. It remains the highest car insurance claim ever recorded in Britain.
In 2015, Atkinson finally sold his F1 to someone who seems to be a bit more careful with it. This may be another mistake as the vehicle has doubled in value since.
Not all of these crashes are accidents
Back in 2009, a man swerved his $2.2 million hypercar into a Texas lagoon while swerving to avoid a low-flying pelican. The vehicle, a Bugatti Veyron, was a total write off. Its W12 engine flooded with saltwater and destroyed. Unfortunately for the owner, the thing about the pelican was a total lie and another vehicle had the footage to prove it.
It’s also alleged that the engine was left on deliberately after the vehicle hit the water. The w12 ran for around 15 minutes after the crash, causing most of the damage.
Initially, Andy Lee House received a settlement of $600,000 from his insurance company. But after the video surfaced, that insurance company filed a fraud case. After an investigation House pled guilty to wire mail fraud. He was sentenced to a year and a day in federal prison and forced to pay his insurance company the $600,000 back.
Japan may have the record for most expensive pile up
Crashing a Ferrari 430 Scuderia is bad. The supercar is worth between $750,000 and $1 million so any damage you do to it is likely to be catastrophic. But things could always be worse, as a “60-year-old businessman” in China found out back in 2024. The 430 Scuderia was part of a 28 sports car “convoy” traveling between Kyushu and Hiroshima.
The surface was wet, and the convoy was traveling at speeds around 100 mph when the ‘Rari decided to change lanes and lost traction. It hit the median and bounced back into the road. Right in front of the rest of the convoy.
The subsequent pileup included seven other Ferraris including a 430, 360 Modena, F355, and a Testarossa. A Lamborghini Diablo was also involved in the crash. A few non-supercars also got involved with three Mercedes-Benz’s, a Toyota Prius, and another Toyota also crashing.
Ten people were taken to hospital with minor injuries, but no major injuries or fatalities were reported. Ten drivers were later charged with speeding in relation to the incident.
While the pile up sounds bad, things aren’t as terrible as the internet made it out to be. Rumors were flying around putting the total repair bill as high as $28 million, but estimates from outlets like Top Gear and Motor Authority put the total closer to $4 million.
