If you are ready to pay top dollar for a rare supercar, make sure you have the necessary driving skills to enjoy your time behind the wheel; otherwise, it can end up in a disastrous, heartbreaking situation. Case in point, a first-generation Ford GT owner in Florida crashed his recently purchased supercar into a palm tree because he was “unfamiliar with how to drive stick shift,” the local police stated. The 50-year-old Boca Raton resident named Robert J. Guarini was reportedly taking the beautiful supercar with the Heritage Edition package out for a spin at around 6 pm when he lost control after downshifting. According to the police report, the Ford GT had a head-on collision with a palm tree that left the supercar significantly damaged.
It is believed that Guarini was out on a drive without his phone and he had to ask for help from a nearby security guard after the incident as needed a ride back home, after which he informed the authorities about the accident. The police report goes on to state that Guarini told officers the crash was caused by inexperience with a manual transmission and it’s unclear if the vehicle was crashed at high speed. However, Road & Track managed to reach out to the Ford GT owner who claimed that the accident was caused due to multiple factors, including old tires, muddy pavement, and fresh detailing. Guarini also told R&T the crash occurred as he shifted up into second gear from first, not while downshifting.
A whole bunch of pictures of the crashed Ford GT were uploaded on Facebook by a user named John Peddle, showing the extent of the damage received by the supercar. The front of Ford’s halo car from the mid-2000s seems to have taken the majority of the hit, which seems to have triggered multiple airbags and disabled the vehicle. The impact was also big enough to throw the car into the middle of a sidewalk. What’s interesting is that the Ford GT was purchased at a Barrett-Jackson auction in Palm Beach in early April for $704,000.
According to the police report, the vehicle was yet to be registered and wasn’t insured when it met with the accident. But Guarini denied it claiming the car was covered under an umbrella policy and was not carrying the documentation when the crash happened. Nevertheless, the 50-year-old has been issued a citation for driving with a suspended license and a warning for operating an unregistered vehicle. Given the fact that a little over 4000 first-gen Ford GTs were ever made, fixing or replacing the rare supercar might prove to be a challenge.
