Fast and furious in Beijing: Lamborghini and Ferrari involved in expensive car crash

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

Police said the drivers of the Ferrari and Lamborghini were jobless.

Chinese Suba Weibo commentators mocked the incident: “Socialism is so good that it allows unemployed people to drive supercars,” one said.

The crash happened on the same night as the seventh stunt-filled Fast and Furious movie opened in China.

Beijing police earlier drew derision online for referring to the cars involved as green and red “small passenger-carrying vehicles”.

BEIJING // Online speculation mounted in China on Monday as police detained the “unemployed” drivers of a Lamborghini and Ferrari that crashed in Beijing as the seventh stunt-filled Fast and Furious movie opened.

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 20-year-old surnamed Yu from Changchun in the north-eastern province of Jilin drove the Ferrari, while a man surnamed Tang, 21, from Beijing, was in the Lamborghini, police said, adding that both were jobless.

“Socialism is so good that it allows unemployed people to drive supercars,” one posting said on Sina Weibo, China’s version of Twitter, mocking the country’s system of Communist rule.

“What are their names? Who are their fathers?” another Weibo user asked.

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.

The latest crash happened at about 10pm, police said, during heavy rain. It occurred two hours before Furious 7, which was partly filmed in Abu Dhabi and produced with local partners Abu Dhabi Film Commission and twofour54, 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 Weibo user said.

Furious 7 hit $800.5 million at the worldwide box office in just its first two weekends. The huge opening is thought to be at least partly a result of audience interest in star Paul Walker, who died in a car crash in November 2013. Walker was the passenger in a 2005 Porsche Carrera GT that crashed into a tree and burst into flames. Investigators blamed the accident on “unsafe speed”.

Earlier reports into the crash in Beijing said at least one of the luxury vehicles’ drivers was a student, and that residents had complained about cars racing in the tunnel, which is near Beijing’s Bird’s Nest stadium.

Beijing police earlier drew derision online for referring to the cars involved as green and red “small passenger-carrying vehicles” in a statement released Sunday.

“These sure are valuable vehicles,” said one posting.

But Monday’s police statement identified the makes of both the Lamborghini, which sells for around US$800,000 (Dh2.93m) in China, and the Ferrari, which can cost around US$500,000.

A 21-year-old driver crashed his Ferrari at high speed in the Chinese capital in February last year, killing one passenger and injuring another.

* Agence-France Presse