Taking 100K Camaro For Joyride – Didn’t End Well
Oh this one hurts if you’re a Camaro fan. Remember the scene in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off when the two guys at the parking garage took the Ferrari for a joyride? Well something like that happened in real life – and oh it didn’t end well. A dealership in Connecticut is in a WORLD OF HURT, after a couple of employees took a rare, 2018 Chevy Camaro out for a joyride . . . and totaled it.
This was NO ordinary Camaro – it was a 2018 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1E Hendrick Edition (you know, Rick Hendrick?) with a supercharged 6.2 liter motor and only 989 miles on it. So what could go wrong? The owner had taken it to the dealership for some kind of service. He gave explicit instructions that the car was NOT to leave the lot. That didn’t happen.
Taking The Camaro For A Joyride
A service advisor and another employee took the car out . . . floored it to nearly 90 miles per hour . . . lost control . . . and crashed it into a guardrail. The car had been appraised at $97,000 . . . and it was a complete loss. (my right eye is twitching as I read about this – such an amazingly rare Camaro and they totaled it). Could’ve learned how to drive like the guy in Cleveland going backwards on the freeway, right?
The driver was ticketed in the crash, but the dealership is in much bigger trouble, because the Camaro owner has filed a lawsuit against them. Here’s part of the report from Automotive News:
The Camaro’s factory track data recorder showed that in the seconds before the crash Sebastian (the dealership mechanic) “gunned the engine and lost control of the high-performance vehicle he should not have been driving,” the May 31 complaint said. The data recorder also showed that Sebastian wasn’t wearing a seat belt.
Sebastian’s behavior was “deliberate and reckless” and “highly unreasonable conduct,” the complaint said. It said he knew or should have known that only a “highly experienced driver who is capable and knowledgeable about the car’s capabilities and dangers” should operate it.
The suit alleges that H & L Chevrolet didn’t take reasonable care of the car, including failing to instruct employees not to drive it on the road and failing to properly supervise “the simple task of diagnosing and repairing a broken clutch switch.” It asserts the dealership is liable in its capacity as Sebastian’s employer.
(Coincidentally, there’s an even stronger “Ferris Bueller” connection, because there’s currently a sequel in the works called “Sam and Victor’s Day Off” about the two valets who took the Ferrari out for a joyride.)
