Journalist Puts BMW I8 On Its Roof in Mexico City

Ronnie Schreiber
by Ronnie Schreiber

In light of Bark M.’s post on the possible propensity of Fiesta STs rolling over while autocrossing, and TTAC’s tradition of commenting when autojournos manage to wreck press cars (disclaimer: I once brushed a Fiat Abarth’s wheel against a curb), we bring you this report from Wrecked Exotics. A so far unidentified journalist taking an early production BMW i8 for a test drive near Mexico City managed to roll the gas-electric hybrid supercar, leaving it bottoms up.

Cars with battery packs tend to have very low centers of gravity so it takes a bit of effort to roll them. From the photos published at Wrecked Exotics, it looks to me like the driver, who reportedly was uninjured in the wreck, may have misjudged a corner and hit a stone retaining wall, causing the car to flip.

The other day, Matt Hardigree of Jalopnik posted a pretty detailed look at the business of providing press cars to journalists, including the fact that the cost to supply a single car to a single journalist for review purposes is non-trivial, averaging hundreds of dollars and sometimes running into four figures. My guess is that this will be a fairly expensive review for BMW.

Ronnie Schreiber edits Cars In Depth, a realistic perspective on cars & car culture and the original 3D car site. If you found this post worthwhile, you can get a parallax view at Cars In Depth. If the 3D thing freaks you out, don’t worry, all the photo and video players in use at the site have mono options. Thanks for reading – RJS

Ronnie Schreiber
Ronnie Schreiber

Ronnie Schreiber edits Cars In Depth, the original 3D car site.

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  • Bufguy Bufguy on Jul 04, 2015

    As Jerry Seinfeld would say "that's a shame"

  • Eyeflyistheeye Eyeflyistheeye on Jul 04, 2015

    I wonder what Donald Trump has to say about this.

    • See 1 previous
    • Corey Lewis Corey Lewis on Jul 08, 2015

      @VolandoBajo I could not believe when I heard some of his quotes about Mexicans on the radio. What completely xenophobic moron. Furthermore, how many votes does he think he's gaining with that kind of attitude?

  • Varezhka Maybe the volume was not big enough to really matter anyways, but losing a “passenger car” for a mostly “light truck” line-up should help Subaru with their CAFE numbers too.
  • Varezhka For this category my car of choice would be the CX-50. But between the two cars listed I’d select the RAV4 over CR-V. I’ve always preferred NA over small turbos and for hybrids THS’ longer history shows in its refinement.
  • AZFelix I would suggest a variation on the 'fcuk, marry, kill' game using 'track, buy, lease' with three similar automotive selections.
  • Formula m For the gas versions I like the Honda CRV. Haven’t driven the hybrids yet.
  • SCE to AUX All that lift makes for an easy rollover of your $70k truck.
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