I'm so glad I had a 115hp Accord when I was 18.

I had a 200hp Cutlass Supreme when I was 17. Was a little too much fun. I somehow managed a 540 spin of a FWD coupe in the dry...without using the e-brake.

Chevy Citation + Iron Duke + Balky Craptastic 4-spd = The AntiHoon! Thou shalt be a humble driver.

(why it's relevant we still don't know). Well, duh. He has a gazillion dollars. He lives nearby. It was OBVIOUSLY his fault.

Call the lawyers.

Add three nude 19-year old semi-lesbian Ukrainian gymnasts and you have a perfect death scenario.

@Benson2175: Yep. I had a 115hp Golf. Fun as hell under 50mph, but I'm glad its short legs kept my momentum in check. My BAC% was a different story, however.

I had too much fun with my 185-horse V6 Camry. Too much fun, as in 130 mph on I-10 in the evening. In a curve. When I was 16.

In retrospect, maybe that was kinda dumb.

This is what happens to spoiled rich kids. My children will be getting their choice of any Non-Turbo Volvo under $2000 that their heart desires.

You guys were flying past me in my '84 Skyhawk with 88 horses, rampaging thru a 3 spd auto. My dad said 'absolutely not' to my wish for a '76 Trans Am...thank the gods he did, I got in enough close scrapes in the Buick as it was.

@ash78: Or just another night for your average 59 year old in the Netherlands.

@evolwun: No kidding. My oldest daughter has started making first car suggestions. She was rather dissapointed when I pointed to our '01 Windstar and said: "When you're 16 I'm buying a new car for Momma and you'll be driving that."

Yet another case study in the inadequacies of America's driver education system. Guy probably learnd on a front-drive Saturn. Accident avoidance maneuvers in a high horsepower BMW? Probably didn't pick that up anywhere.

@danhar2: And you were flying past me in my 81hp Fox GL. Unless, of course, you could also nudge past 110.

Kids and speed do not mix. Here in the Charlotte, NC area, drag racer Doug Herbert's 17 and 12 year old sons were killed when the 17 year old driver, on a 4 lane road, tried to pass a vehicle that was in the left lane (crossing the yellow line in the process), lost control and creamed a Hummer traveling in the opposite direction. The 17 year old's brand new MazdaSpeed3 virtually disintregrated killing both instantly.

Dibs on that engine!

I still think a Malaise era sedan with a big block V-8 with all emissions intact would be the perfect teenage car. Big and much safer than an econobox. 4000lbs., <<10mpg. Make them buy their own gas and they can't get too far from home.

My first was an 81 Buick Regal TURBO 170 HP, somewhat of a sleeper for the late 80's/early 90s.

Nobody has mentioned the fact the the parents of this kid have some responsibility here too... I know when I was 18 my father would have never let me and a carload of buddies out at night with a car like that. He would have only let me behind the wheel under a watchful eye or at a closed event like an autocross or track day. Sad thing is the parents will probably sure the owners of the airstrip for not securing it properly, leading to the cause of the death of their son. *rolls eyes*

@elhigh: My first car was an 86 Celebrity with the same 90-hp Iron Duke. I remember burying the speedo needle below visible portion of the gauge (it was a long 85-mph speedo). I could have fcuked myself up bad at that speed, heh.

@teargas: Might want to get a new tranny. I hear that one shifts kinda hard at 140 mph.

127hp 350 Chebby V8 w/ a suck-tastic 2-barrel carb. in a 5000+lb impala wagon (there was nothing light or hoontastic about it, except what you could do in the back)

Why do you think Mustangs and Camaros cost so much to insure?

@evolwun: ...and most parents would prefer their kids drive cars that are tragically uncool. I got the family wagon ('70 Custom 500). Two years later, when my sister turned 16, we de-commissioned grandma's '70 New Yorker hard-top sedan (metallic gold, black vinyl roof. and white leather interior. Something like 20k miles on the odo). Sis turned up her nose, and when I offered to trade her the wagon, she turned up her nose even higher. The New Yorker was traded for a low-mileage Subu 4-door...

@p161911:
see my post about my first hoontastic car!

hmm... as much as I wish my car was safe because it only had 80hp...i cant, I had a geo tracker (2 door hard top). which meant a small wind could have made fly on the bay bridge. now i enjoy my 160hp from my mazda3..

@danhar2: My folks baulked at the thought of an E30 316i, refusing on the grounds of service costs, so I was rocking a 60hp FIAT Punto when I was 18. I could've even ended myself in that if I'd tried hard enough.

I remember overcooking a bend on a coast road one night, which was quite scary. If I'd been going a bit harder, I'd probably have lost the back end, which would have led to shredding the car on some jagged rocks and ploughing into the sea. Nice.

@evolwun: I have an '87 740 GLE I'll sell you for $700.

I love the year of the lemming.

@Andrewpetty: Or just another night for your average 59 year old in the Netherlands.

Wow, found this from another automotive site... the driving records of all the occupants who died:

Josh Ammirato:
05/08/2006 1365EFW 1 UNLAWFUL SPEED 20-29 MPH
06/05/2006 6345SEZ 1 DRIVING WHILE LICENSE SUSPENDED
06/05/2006 6344SEZ 1 UNLAWFUL SPEED 1-9 MPH
01/23/2008 5243SKU 1 VIOLATION OF TRAFFIC CONTROL DEVICE

James Hime:
01/10/2005 4211DIB 1 VIOLATION OF TRAFFIC CONTROL DEVICE
07/26/2005 5014DLB 1 UNLAWFUL SPEED ON MUNICIPAL ROAD 15-19 MPH
12/13/2006 3592EFV 1 ATTACH UNASSIGNED TAG TO VEHICLE
01/02/2007 0320EWE 1 UNLAWFUL SPEED ON MUNICIPAL ROAD 15-19 MPH

Dustin Dawe:
12/21/2007 8968EZD 1 UNLAWFUL SPEED ON MUNICIPAL ROAD 15-19 MPH

Isaac Rubin:
07/24/2006 1261SEW 1 INSURANCE-NO PROOF OF
07/24/2006 1259SEW 1 CARELESS DRIVING
07/24/2006 1260SEW 1 DRIVER LICENSE-NO PROOF OF
01/10/2008 5581SKU 1 INSURANCE-NO PROOF OF
01/24/2008 5580SKU 1 DRIVING WHILE LICENSE SUSPENDED REVOKED

Retarded kids. I hope their parents are proud of themselves for enabling this kind of behavior.

i have to give it to the kid - he had a speedy car, but drove it crazily on a runway away from civilian traffic. sorry he died, but accidents happen, and at least he didn't endanger anyone who didn't make the consious choice to sit in the seat next to him.

I read the article and it was clearly obvious to forum members that he was an accident waiting to happen. If that kind of foreshadowing took place in a moving, people would dismiss it as overdone.

Didn't have to wait long, either.

@lemondriver: Too bad Tom Cruise wasn't visiting his follow $cientologi$t. Maybe HE could have done something...
[gawker.com]

Sad story. Wierd that they at least took the precaution of attempting their high speed run on a private runway instead of a public highway and still went flying off it. If I ever have a sports car and teen aged sons I am keeping the keys in a safe.

If the van is a rockin u better come a knockin.@JayP71:

102hp GTI, here. On top of that, getting into a low-speed, at-fault fender bender within my first month scared me straight. Well, that and my dad's threat that I'd be paying for my own insurance if I got any more tickets.

Knock on wood, but I still haven't had a ticket since.

@bigringd: Tom Cruise can't save you: [www.youtube.com]

On the other thread, someone arrived at a speed of 68 mph when they left the runway and about 78 mph when they hit the tree. The picture above refutes that. You don't get that kind of mass destruction and ripping of the steel structure at highway speeds.

The thread in question: [www.m5board.com]

I had the perfect teenager car. A 1988 red Chrysler Lebaron. 2.5L 4Cyl with just about 100HP by the time I got a hold of it (2000). It was fun, good on gas, girls always thought it was cooler than it actually was, and I couldn't get into this kind of trouble.

@Solo_Racer: The other Jalopnik thread, that is.

Learned to drive in a 1970 Olds 98 with a 455. Dad never bothered to balance the tires. Massive torque made it a lot of fun up to about 45 MPH, when the shaking reminded me how tender life really was.

Anyway, hope the parents of the driver won the popularity contest!

@LTDScott: Well, on the bright side, The Man won't be collecting on this fine:

"01/23/2008 5243SKU 1 VIOLATION OF TRAFFIC CONTROL DEVICE"

@brandegee: there's not much evasive action you can take once you're airborne off an 80-foot berm at 90mph, even in an M5.

Reminds me of a story I heard where a girl was passed at very high speed on an uneven surface by a brand new Elise. The Elise hits a bump, loses control, flies up and over a 30-foot embankment at the side of the road. The girl, freaking out, slams on the brakes, pulls over, and scrambles up the steep embankment, not knowing what scene of carnage is going to greet her.

Girl is surprised to find the Elise, still in one piece, floating in a canal. The driver has the top down, and is now standing up in his Lotus-engineered fibreglass dinghy (which is taking on rather a lot of water) and shouting in panic "What do I do? What do I do?". Girl advises the driver to swim for it, which he reluctantly does. Hope he enjoyed filling in the insurance report on that one.

(I'd love to believe that's an unembellished account, the person who told me claims to work with the girl in question).

My car when I was 16 was a Monte Carlo SS. Only halfway hoonworthy at the stock 180hp, it became a fully life endangering hoon mobile after some bolt-ons that brought it to approx 300hp.

Its was no M5, but it was plenty to hang er sideways at every turn.

I really truly hope the knee jerk politicians dont start lining up with ridiculous legislation as a result of this.

Id really hate to see everyone suffer because of a few hoons who vaporized themselves.

having a crappy car just makes the hoonage more creative. anyone can have fun in an M5, but do you have the balls to make a Lumina interesting?

every time i smell burnt transmission fluid, i think of that car.

Incidentally, what kind of speed could an M5 reach from standing on a 1.5 mile runway? I think speeds in the 140s were mentioned on the other thread. The news report said they'd been making multiple passes, and wondering if they were trying to hit 150mph, say, before hitting the brakes. And then pushed their luck too far.

He promised pictures in his last post, I wonder how long before they surface. I wouldn't be surprised to see a video of the night in question emerge. I guess it all depends on the recording media, and I've heard of SD cards surviving much worse conditions than this.

My 1987 Honda Prelude was fun (as my first car)... but not as fun as my father's 1997 Mercury Cougar (RWD & 4.6L V8 in New England rain and snow), which I drove before I got my own car.

They flew further then the Wright Flyer 1's first flight!