BEIJING: A Lamborghini and Ferrari crashed in a high-speed road race in Beijing as the “Fast and Furious 7” movie opened in China, the latest luxury car accident to provoke controversy today.
Pictures of the mangled wreckage of a lime green Lamborghini, a damaged red Ferrari and other high performance cars in a tunnel in the Chinese capital emerged online following Saturday’s crash, which police said left one person injured.
A high-speed Ferrari crash in the capital in March 2012 killed the son of Ling Jihua, a close ally of then-president Hu Jintao. Two women passengers, one of them naked, were both injured
The incident added to public perceptions in China of corrupt and high-living officials, and Ling has since been investigated for graft and dismissed from his post.
“What are their names? Who are their fathers?” one poster asked on Sina Weibo, China’s version of Twitter, after the latest crash.
It happened at about 10pm (1500 GMT), police said, during heavy rain, two hours before “Furious 7” broke the record for midnight screenings on its launch in China, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
“Were they in a hurry to watch Fast and Furious 7?” one netizen said.
A report by news portal Sina said at least one of the drivers was a student and that residents had complained about cars racing in the tunnel, which is near Beijing’s emblematic Bird’s Nest stadium.
Beijing police drew derision from Chinese netizens for referring to the cars involved as a green and red “small passenger-carrying vehicles”.
“These sure are valuable vehicles,” one poster wrote.
Lamborghini’s sell for around $800,000 in China, and Ferrari’s for around $500,000.
A 21-year-old driver crashed his Ferrari at high speed in the Chinese capital in February last year, killing a passenger and injuring another.
