Journalist test drive cost him $174,000

fast_eddie_72 wrote: In reply to bearmtnmartin: Where did you see that? An original 917 wouldn't be a "kit car".

Piper owns a genuine 917, but the car in question wasn't it, it was a perfect replica with real 917 running gear. There are a lot of 'continuation' style cars competing in historic events in Europe now. These cars are built exactly the same as the originals, including all parts, materials, technology etc., but they aren’t the real cars. It’s become accepted as it’s impossible to legislate against.

The key here is that he was instructed not to exceed 7000 rpms Had the motor let go at 5K then the owner of the car would be footing the bill but with specific instructions to a driver that is supposed to have experience with older cars I put the blame on the driver. He should know the the type of machine he was getting in to and problems that the trans could cause and driven the car accordingly.

I have also driven man many cars that were not mine and it has always been with the understanding that if I ball it up I pay for it. I see no difference here. Especially when this was not a race this was a photo op and there for there was no need for the driver to get anywhere near the danger zone.

From the judges description of the personalities involved dare I say I bet it did not go down as we are being told. This hopefully set a president for other drivers to take stock of what you are doing and get the red mist out of your head especially when it is not you car and it is just a photo op. Really good drivers can turn it on and off and know the difference between an exhibition and a race. I am betting that this Mark Hales (never head of him before) may not be able to. He was looking at it as his opportunity to re start his career and make a name for him self. When in reality he was not the star of the show (never was going to be for that matter) the cars were the stars that day and the driver was only going to be at best a foot note. So I side with the owner on this one. it sounds like the driver was an idiot that got caught being an idiot and he should pay for it. Other drivers should take note and learn from this.

I think the key is the alleged verbal contract between owner and writer where owner claims writer agreed to reimburse for any damages. Judge agreed with writer.

"Such events happen all the time; the old car's owner gets publicity for his ride, and the writer or magazine gets exclusive, and sometimes incredible, shots of antique machinery at full wail." The only thing at full wail here was the owner.

Another example -- it's almost always a bad idea to drive someone else's car without a VERY CLEAR understanding (written/signed) of who's responsible for what.

Appleseed wrote: If I had to pay that, I'd keep every part that was replaced. Every last damn piece. You know, for spite.

I like it.

The way I see it, if it was a malfunction with the car the journalist is in no way responsible, end of story.

Chris Harris' article says that there was no in-car footage recorded so it's one person's word against another. If it was the journalist's fault then it's more of a gray area, but if it wasn't a clear gross mistake on the driver's part I don't think he should be made to pay for it.

I once drove a Kia that would go from 5th to 2nd with a buttery smooth shift when you meant to to into 4th, to go into 4th you had to apply some rightward pressure on the shifter instead of just letting it center, in which case it was likely to pop into 2nd, and you couldn't feel any synchro slippage or anything, your first sign that something was wrong was when you came off the clutch. Now if a driver blew the engine with a high-rev 5-2 downshift in such a car you couldn't really blame them.

Anyone else read the judgement?

• the car was insured. However, the insurance specifically had engine/transmission damage excluded
• it was not a "hoon" session. It was for a fluffy article. The car was essentially rented so the journalist could profit from it.
• the driver claims the car had a gearshift fault. However, many other qualified drivers drove the car shortly before and after and it exhibited no gearshift problems
• the driver did not do any technical investigation into the gearbox or provide any sort of proof of the gearbox fault
• the driver admitted to the insurance company - quite plainly and in a signed statement - that it was driver error and then tried to smokescreen over that once it came back to bite him

Piper isn't necessarily a multimillionaire. He owns a valuable car, but he also has for some time. I don't know when he bought it, but it's quite possible it wasn't worth a huge amount at the time. There's a difference between buying a million dollar car and having your car become worth a million dollars.

Driven5 wrote:

Keith Tanner wrote: The only difference here is the number of zeros. If this had been a $40,000 car and the journalist had done $1500 worth of engine damage, would you expect the owner of the car to just shrug his shoulders?

Generally speaking yes, although it would also be considered in good taste to help help as much as possible with wrenching the repairs. If somebody can truly afford to own a car, they can afford to fix it when it breaks. And if they are willing to let anybody (including themselves) drive it in anger, then they are willing to risk that person breaking it. Accidents happen to even the best of drivers, especially on old cars with tempermental gearboxes. If this is disagreeable to the owner, they shouldn't agree to any such activities in the first place. Since it's only zeros, would it be justified to financially ruin a man and his family over a $1,500 engine repair on a $40,000 car, when it was obvious before ever choosing to hand over the keys that he could never afford any meaningful repairs on the car if he did accidentally break it?

And this is exactly why people don't get to drive the Targa Miata when they ask. It's a fairly extreme machine, and people assume that because I own it, I can afford to have it destroyed. What they don't see is approximately 5 years of effort and scrounging going into the machine instead of a big fat check. I certainly don't trust anyone else to wrench on it, especially after they break it. The whole "if you can afford to own it, then you can afford to have me break it" attitude does not cut it.

$1500 could do a lot of damage to someone financially, it all depends on where they start from. It's up to the driver, given the opportunity to rent a vehicle, to exercise appropriate caution.

If you're just doing a photo shoot, have a 7000 rpm redline and you're not familiar with the car - then give yourself a 5000 rpm redline. The pictures will look the same, and if you miss a shift and overrev by 1200 rpm you'll still be safe. No, it's no fun. But if you're driving a car that's worth 5 times as much as your house (or your trailer down by the river) perhaps this caution would be justified.

poopshovel wrote:

Nathan JansenvanDoorn wrote: Let’s change this a bit. You give your car to a mechanic to find a problem that requires a test drive. He damages the car. Who do you think should pay? What if he can’t afford it? After all, you let him drive the car, you knew something could happen.

That's what insurance is for. Apples and oranges.

Not really, IMHO - how the mechanic pays (through insurance or not) isn't really relevant to whether the owner of the car pays or the mechanic. The journalist was driving the car for personal gain as part of his business. He's not insured for that particular failure but chose to take the chance. Driver error resulted in an expensive failure. Don't get me wrong, it REALLY sucks, but that's why these things need to be in writing. Don't forget, it sucks for the owner of the car too!

Whenever I've loaned out any of my vehicles it's expressly been understood that it's a "you break it, you buy it" situation. I don't care if the motor spontaneously explodes. If it explodes while you're driving it, you pay to fix it.

If there was clear evidence of an over rev, that's driver negligence and he got what he deserved.

+1 to what Keith said. You guys need to read the actual judgement, and not just the one-sided takes from other journalists.

I can see both sides. Personally, I don't drive a car I can't reasonably afford to pay for. I don't offer a drive in a car that I can't afford to lose. If either scenario would bankrupt me or cost me my house, I wouldn't do it.

Playing with sports cars is not inherently practical or sensible. Both parties need to determine their threshold of acceptable risk. Plenty of people enjoy gambling and lose their fortunes and their houses every day.

As a driver or owner, don't ante up if you're in over your head.

All that aside, I absolutely agree with Keith. In the rare cases that I accept an offer to drive someone else's car, I keep it at 5/10s. The fun is over real quick when bad things happen.

Javelin wrote: +1 to what Keith said. You guys need to read the actual judgement, and not just the one-sided takes from other journalists.

wait, are you implying that not only do journalists not always simply tell the truth and nothing but...but they also are willing to bend the truth to cover up for each other?

outrageous accusations are outrageous

Javelin wrote: +1 to what Keith said. You guys need to read the actual judgement, and not just the one-sided takes from other journalists.

Here's a take from another journalist in the UK (who also happens to be the instigator of my favourite 911 forum) - his take is a little different than the ones from the "hooners" like Chris Harris:

http://www.ferdinandmagazine.com/piper-v-hales-porsche-917-judgement

The link to the article about David Piper makes for pretty interesting reading, especially in the context of what seems to have happened to the 917.

I'm vaguely acquainted with a couple of motoring journalists in the UK and a lot of them even tend to advise against lending your cars or bikes to journalists - this is not the first time something like this has happened because someone wanted to get better "hooning" pictures and the car came back with mechanical damage or in a different shape than it was when the owner dropped it off. That you get to buy new tires after a lot of journalists are done with your sports car is pretty much a given. This might not be such a big deal if you're, say, FoMoCo and the car is paid out of your marketing budget, but if you are a small time collector or an owner who built up the car over a few years, this can be a big issue.

In at least some of the cases I heard of, there were also issues with the repair costs that ended up making a bunch of lawyers some money and/or the owners were left high and dry because the cost of them lawyering up was too high given the value of the car.

Don't get me wrong, I love good auto journalism but this whole thing reminds me of one of Tim's editorials a while back about driving other people's cars.

The 4.5 liter 917 made 580 hp. That would require around 9500 RPM for qualifying. In race trim, it had to be turning 8000+ for the entire 24 Hours of Le Mans. Even the 5.4 turbo used in the 917/30KL turned 8500 for CanAm qualifying and 8000+ for the race.

No way a single 8200 RPM blip blew a healthy 4.5 up. There was something seriously wrong with that engine before Hales drove the car.

In reply to chaparral:

In theory yes, but it also possible Piper didn't have the engine prepped for such a high state of tuning. I would imagine the costs for prepping and maintaining an engine with a 8000-9000 redline would be a fair bit higher than one with a 7000 redline. And if he's not trying to go out and win LeMans, there would be no reason to.

I don't like even driving my g/f's cars for this reason. I know if the car even hiccups it'll be my fault and I'll have to fix it. Somebody's car who I barely know? It gets handled with kid-gloves.

chaparral wrote: No way a single 8200 RPM blip blew a healthy 4.5 up. There was something seriously wrong with that engine before Hales drove the car.

And you know that because?

Either way, given that he was told not to rev it over 7k but clearly did, isn't the "butbutbutbut I should have been able to do that" excuse a bit of a moot point?

mr2peak wrote: This is EXACTLY what business insurance is for. I'm sure the policy to drive irreplaceable race cars is high, but that's part of doing the job correctly.

It might be high but it ain't 174 grand.

Ian F wrote: I don't like even driving my g/f's cars for this reason.

He he he.. . . . Get married then no matter what happens it is your fault even if she is driving.

dean1484 wrote: He he he.. . . . Get married then no matter what happens it is your fault even if she is driving.

No kidding... she blew up her Spitfire engine... it's my fault somehow...

In reply to BoxheadTim:

Because it blew up when revved to 1000 RPM below the factory power peak, which has to be somewhere below the "don't ever go above this speed, not even once, and if you do please tell us immediately so we can start tearing it down" engine speed?

chaparral wrote: In reply to BoxheadTim: Because it blew up when revved to 1000 RPM below the factory power peak, which has to be somewhere below the "don't ever go above this speed, not even once, and if you do please tell us immediately so we can start tearing it down" engine speed?

There is obviously somthing more to this than we know. It apears that there is a history of these blowing up if you go over 7K

From the court judjment said: (2) before he went off on his own, after a photo shoot, to test the car the Defendant was specifically instructed by the Claimant and Mr Webb, to ensure that the care was not over revved beyond 7,000 RPM by missing the synchromesh gears, otherwise the engine would break as notoriously happened in 1970 involving Jo Siffert and then Vic Elford when the Porsche team lost two 917’s at Le Mans. The Defendant accepts that he gave this assurance as he was ‘not competing and was not under pressure to deliver a fastest lap.’

That's a history of them blowing up when grossly over-revved. 1000 RPM below the qualifying power peak, which has to be at least 300 RPM below "kaboom" in order to make use of the peak power, doesn't qualify as "over-revved".

Read the judgement, folks.

The ruling took all the available facts into consideration and the judge decided the journalist did little to nothing to prove his case. In fact, he (the journalist) changed his story and previous depositions prove it. The man admitted, in writing, that his error caused the engine to over-rev.

Additionally, there was no attempt (by the journalist) to inspect either the engine or gearbox; it's hard to perform an autopsy without a body.

It sucks for Mr. Hales but for someone with years of experience driving old race cars, he still screwed up and is now being held responsible. This is one of those teaching moments where everyone needs to learn the lesson.

dean1484 wrote: Really good drivers can turn it on and off and know the difference between an exhibition and a race. I am betting that this Mark Hales (never head of him before) may not be able to. He was looking at it as his opportunity to re start his career and make a name for him self.

This argument makes absolutely no sense...A 62 year old former racing driver turned journalist trying to restart his career by putting two rare old cars on the track together for a few photo ops? I don't think so. In my opinions, Occam's razor doesn't necessarily point to him really 'hooning' the car either...But rather just getting too complacent with the gearbox as he got more comfortable and familiar with how the car drove. It's also possible that he additionally overestimated his remaining skill level for handling such a machine even when driving at less than full tilt, but that's still a pretty presumptuous assumption. To me there is a big difference between driver error and driver negilgence, and I have seen no proof that this was the latter.

Keith Tanner wrote: And this is exactly why people don't get to drive the Targa Miata when they ask. It's a fairly extreme machine, and people assume that because I own it, I can afford to have it destroyed. What they don't see is approximately 5 years of effort and scrounging going into the machine instead of a big fat check. I certainly don't trust anyone else to wrench on it, especially after they break it. The whole "if you can afford to own it, then you can afford to have me break it" attitude does not cut it.

The 'attitude' you reference is completely misquoted and misinterpreted, and is in no way an attitude that was previously shared...In fact you already live by the attitude that others, including myself, have noted.

If you drive it on some type of racing venue, at some level you MUST be able to afford it being damaged or destroyed as a result. If you can't, you have no business even driving it in anger yourself. HOWEVER, that in no way means you can afford (or stomach) to let others damage or destroy it either. And if you can't, you subsequently also have no business letting them drive it on a race track...Which exactly as you already stated, you don't because you can't, and proves just how intelligent you are. The owner of the 917 did.

Hopefully the outcome of all this isn't that more owners of those great cars will now keep them parked in their garages, never to see the light of day. If it was my 917, I'd drive it to the grocery store at 8000RPM, but hey, that's me.