Money doesn’t buy smarts…
We’ve all seen the horror posts of the well-meaning wife who puts diesel in her husband’s beloved sports car. We’ve also read the news stories about gas stations which accidentally filled the gas storage tanks with diesel. Well, this story of a multi-millionaire who filled his McLaren F1 GTR with diesel is even worse considering only 28 were ever built. With the explosion in just regular F1 values, the GTR is worth a ridiculous sum, so it was certainly a painful mistake.
Check out the latest Motorious Podcast here or wherever you listen to your podcasts.
As told by Instagram account fanchracing, he and the boys decided to go for a little Sunday jaunt in the UK a few weeks ago. He jumped in his extremely rare McLaren F1 GTR and his friends jumped in their Porsche Carrera GT and Ferrari 488 Pista. It’s a rough life, what can we say.
They stop for a “quick” refueling, but the McLaren wouldn’t start again. Of course, we know the reason was the guy put diesel in the tank, but he thought it was just a British supercar being cranky. Yeah, that’s definitely a thing, but not this time. An F1 specialist who happened to be in town came to take a look but couldn’t diagnose the problem.
After the supercar was towed to a shop, the problem was finally discovered. Now, anyone can absentmindedly do something stupid when distracted, but we have to say we’ve never confused a diesel pump for a gas pump. The handles here in America are green and it’s something you’d absolutely notice. According to the internet, in the UK diesel pump handles and hoses are black, setting them apart from the green handles on the gas or petrol pumps. But in this story the guy says the nozzle he grabbed was blue, so apparently that means it was diesel? Our apologies if that isn’t correct – we haven’t refueled in Jolly Ol’ England and so we’re relying on second-hand info.
He said in his home country of France the diesel pumps are gross and smelly, so since this one wasn’t it threw him off. At least in his post he says he feels incredibly dumb, has been mocked by his gearhead friends, and that even his dog laughs at him. Fair enough.
