I8ABMR

http://www.autoblog.com/2012/10/03/t...-mysteriously/



The mysterious case of the drowned Bugatti Veyron has taken another turn toward the strange.

Before we get too far ahead of ourselves, let's bring you up to speed: Andy House, who owns an exotic car repair shop called Performance Auto Sales, crashed his Veyron into a lagoon in Texas after allegedly being distracted by a low-flying pelican... or something. Naturally, House turned a claim into his insurance company for the totaled supercar to the tune of $2.2 million, which is likely more than the car is actually worth.

Shortly thereafter, video surfaced of the crash, with nary a distraction in sight. The next makes-you-go-hmm moment occured when reports surfaced of a new Veyron, along with a pair of Lamborghini coupes and a Porsche 911 GT3, landing in House's garage. The estimated cost of these supercars, according to Jalopnik, is $2.2 million. All of this made Philadelphia Indemnity Insurance Company's insurance fraud lawsuit in 2011 – two years after the incident – come as little surprise.

So, the latest: For some completely unknown reason, the lawsuit between House and his insurance company has been delayed. Jalopnik reports that nobody, including the office of the Galveston Court Clerks, has been able to explain why the trial did not start as planned. That said, as soon as we find out more, so shall you.

bagwell

LOL, mysteriously delayed....I'm sure House's lawyer requested/filed to delay.

ashtray

iTrader: (12)

I read the same thing twice?

I8ABMR

Its funny because when I watched the original video I didnt see the bird that the driver said he was avoiding

adamls2

Lol my boss told me this story not too long ago. I can't imagine driving a 1.6 million dollar car into a lake on purpose, but hey, I guess people will do some crazy things theae days

Lil4X

Last time I heard about this case it wasn't clear whether Andy House was the present owner or was selling the car for the owner of the car. He appears to deal in exotic cars from the backwater town of Lufkin Texas, 140 miles Northeast of Houston. House was said to have been in a real cash bind at the time, and that's probably a regular situation for someone in the business of flipping exotics one at a time.

The salt marsh near La Marque where this incident occurred on the Northbound service road along I-45 coming up from Galveston is home to a lot of birds, primarily cranes and pelicans who find the tidal wetlands an excellent source of small fish and crabs. Although the service road runs within a couple hundred feet of the Interstate at this point, that segment is seldom used by vehicle traffic. At high tide the roadway runs within a hundred feet of the water, so it wouldn't be unusual for a bird to pass low over the roadway at this point, however none seems to be visible in the video. It's more likely that Andy grabbed for his phone that had fallen to the floorboard and, unfamiliar with the quick steering of the exotic, simply ran off the road at a fair rate of speed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=M4Usx-XQqfg

As a long-time fisherman and dune runner on our local beaches, I can attest to the fact that a car driven into salt water will soon be driven to the crusher. Unless it is completely disassembled, cleaned and dried it won't live long, if at all. This Veyron is or soon will be junk.

At the time of the incident, most people around here thought this was an insurance scam to collect on a car he was probably seriously upside-down on. I don't see how collecting the insurance would be better than selling the car, but maybe it had some serious mechanical issues something else that made it difficult to market conventionally. I seem to remember the insurance company being the complainant in this dispute, and if memory serves, it wasn't one of the big five, so a million or two total loss will certainly make the issue worth pursuit. I don't know the terms of the insurance policy, but Andy House might be on the hook for considerably more money if it turns out the crash was entirely the result of his own negligence.

mmarshall

Lil4X is correct. Pelicans do live in the marshy areas of East Texas (as they do in much of the coastal Southeast). But that alone, IMO, is not an excuse for losing control of and wrecking an expensive supercar, unless a bird of that size actually hit the car and shattered something. Birds like that have been known to bring down large aircraft if hit in just the right places....the Air Force, for example, lost a B-1 bomber and its crew to a Pelican.

Infra

iTrader: (1)

We wish so, but in this case negligence would amount to proving the guy purposefully drove into a marsh. That would be pretty difficult to prove, and his insurance company is more likely disputing the value of the claim rather than the cause of the claim.

Lil4X

Well, I'm hesitant to accuse Mr. House of insurance fraud, but that's essentially what the insurance company is claiming. Perhaps, thinking the water was a bit deeper, or the mud less sticky, the damages would be more apparent, but the car is now so badly damaged from un-tended rust, that salvaging it will involve re-manufacturing it. The interior is a total loss having been soaked in muddy saltwater, and rust has started to appear on all ferrous metal parts.



Photo credit Jalopnik

Motor Trend thought at the time that the Veyron would be OK after drying out. Evidently they didn't understand the difference between a clear lake and a muddy salt marsh. 1 foot of saltwater + 2 feet of mud = part out. At least somebody was around to capture the car's rather spectacular end . . .


Photo credit Motor Trend

bagwell

exactly...no way to PROVE it was purposely done...altho they can keep questioning/badgering him and bring his financials into the questioning as well, but if he never admits it was intentional - insurance has to pay up (whatever value is deemed appropriate).