Toasted McLaren F1 Makes Baby Jesus Cry

Oh, the humanity!

Ok, so apparently if you are taking your McLaren out of long-term storage, make sure you have a Halon fire extinguisher (or 6) handy. This unlucky chap sprung his F1 from the lockup after a six month nap, and it turned into a veritable roman candle very quickly. Make the jump for more photos of the carnage.

The tears of every clown in the world won't make this right.

The sad thing is, as you can see above, the car was a total loss. Luckily for unlucky owner in question, it was insured for $3 million, and valued at $2 million. If it turns out this is an insurance scam, I’ll be the first to grab a pitchfork and torches. That nefarious insinuation aside, it is a tragedy that it was destroyed, as only 106 were produced.

[Source: Jalopnik]

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Official teaser photos of the new BMW X1

We are days away from the official unveiling of the BMW X1 production model and BMW has already started to release some teasers. While the official X1 Facebook page has been setup for quite some time now, the first “almost” official photos of the X1 just made their way onto the journalists’ hands last week during the press pre-view test drive which took place in Mallorca, Spain. With the X1 launch, BMW will introduce a new color for this small SAV: the Marrakesh Brown.

A bit surprising that the car still wears some camouflage since it was spotted fully uncovered just a few weeks back during a movie shooting in Germany, but that’s just another story. The production version of the X1 will be shown for the first time to the general public at the Frankfurt Auto Show in September.

Despite receiving some negative reviews in the beginning, mostly from BMW fans, recently the opinion current has changed and many of us started to see the value in this new model and started to embrace it. BMW X1’s marketing campaign runs under the name “This is your world..”, coming from the idea of a small SAV, an urban vehicle geared towards a younger demographic who enjoy outdoor activities as well and would still like to use a spacious car to transport their surfboards, skis, snowboards or climbing equipment.

Since the X1 will go on sale in Europe only, those of us that live in the U.S. will have to wait until late 2010 before seeing the car on our roads. Initially, the X1 will launch with the following powerplants:

• BMW X1 xDrive20d - 177 horsepower - 8.4 seconds 0-60 mph - Max Speed 132 mph (213 km/h) - 40.5 mph (5.8 liters / 100 km)
• BMW X1 xDrive23d - 204 horsepower - 7,3 seconds 0-60 mph - Max Speed 138 mph (223 km/h) - 37 mpg (6,3 Liter / 100 km)
• BMW X1 xDrive28i - 6.7 seconds 0-100 - Max Speed 142 mph(230 km/h)

The car will be offered in the beginning with the BMW xDrive system, but in the future, a rear-wheel drive model will follow. Pricing is unknown at this time, but it will most likely be set between the 1 Series and the X3.

The X1 Concept version revealed at the Paris Auto Show last October, was also shown recently at the BMW PGA Championship.

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