Rare Ferrari totaled in million-dollar crash

MALIBU, Calif. — Authorities are investigating the circumstances behind a crash on Pacific Coast Highway that destroyed a rare Ferrari Enzo estimated to be worth more than $1 million.

The red Ferrari was going at least 100 mph when the driver lost control and struck a power pole, investigators said. The car — one of only 400 made — shattered, with its engine coming to rest on the highway.

Sheriff's investigators identified the owner as Stefan Ericksson, 44, of Bel Air, who escaped the wreck with only a cut lip.

"For $1 million, you get a very good passenger-safety system, and apparently in this case it did work," said Sgt. Philip Brooks of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.

Authorities said Ericksson told them that he was a passenger and that the driver was a German acquaintance he knew only as Dietrich, who he said ran into the nearby hills. A three-hour search failed to turn up anyone. Only the driver's-side air bag deployed, Brooks said.

"He destroyed one of the finest cars on Earth, maybe the finest," said Ferrari owner Chris Banning, a Beverly Hills writer who is finishing a book on the cult of sports-car racing along winding Mulholland Drive.

"It's like taking a Van Gogh painting and burning it."

Gil Lucero, a Mountain View, Calif., telecommunications company executive who is president and Pacific region chairman of the Ferrari Club of America, said only 399 Enzos were at first scheduled to be assembled at the factory, each priced at $670,000.

But a final car was built and donated to Pope John Paul II and later sold to raise $1.275 million for charity, Lucero said.

Ferrari fan Wally Clark, a Villa Park, Calif., insurance broker who owns two Ferraris — neither of which is an Enzo — said used Enzos currently fetch between $1 million and $1.5 million.

"I think the price went up another $100,000 with today's crash," he said.

The Enzo model "is a very serious car" whose 660-horsepower V-12 engine can accelerate from zero to about 65 miles per hour in about four seconds, Clark said. It can exceed 217 miles per hour.

"They'll burn rubber in every gear. You need to know what you're doing if you drive them on the street. You can't be blowing past people at 180 miles per hour on the freeway. You'll cause chain-reaction crashes behind you. I don't know who the yahoos were in it. It's a damn good thing they weren't killed."