Earlier this week, a supercar collector by the name of Ben Chen wrecked a rare Gemballa Mirage GT in the streets of New York City. The bizarre incident was caught on film and showed Chen fleeing the scene after he rear-ended a parked minivan. Before long, however, the badly damaged supercar came to a stop and Chen was arrested.
As it turns out, this is not the millionaire’s first time crashing an exotic. In fact, he has crashed at least three exotics over the years and there are reports that he has crashed many more, The Drive reports, although this remains unconfirmed.
Chen’s first publicized crash came in 2013 while he was participating in that year’s Gold Rush Rally, an annual event he helped establish. While speeding along a highway in Texas, Chen lost control of a McLaren 12C and slid into a Discount Storage facility on the side of the highway. The British supercar was a rental and completely destroyed in the crash. Chen and his passenger remarkably escaped without any injuries. He was ticketed for reckless driving.
The second noteworthy crash on Chen’s driving record came in September 2016 and involved his Lamborghini Murcielago LP670-4 SV, one of just 186 examples thought to have been produced and one of only three in the United States with a manual transmission. This time, Chen was turned away from attending a car event in Westlake Village, California and ended up sliding the Italian supercar into a curb while “trying to look cool,” he told Wrecked Exotics at the time.
Photo Lambopower.com
Chen is known to own or has owned a number of other exotics. For example, he is/was the owner of a Mercedes-Benz CLK GTR, one of just 25 units ever produced and actually filmed scrapping its undertray while leaving a gas station a few years ago. He also owns a Bugatti Veyron Super Sport ‘Pur Blanc’ finished in black and white.
The Drive claims that Chen has been involved in a number of other expensive crashes, potentially one including his Bugatti Veyron Super Sport, a Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren tuned by Mansory, an Audi R8, and more. It is alleged that he may have even paid for photos and videos of those crashed cars to be removed from the Luxury4Play forum that he helped create but this remains unconfirmed.
Evidently, money does not buy you driving skills.