Posted on 11/27/2006 5:35:59 PM PST by LibWhacker
THE Russian billionaire and parliamentarian Suleiman Kerimov was in a critical condition in a French hospital yesterday after crashing a Ferrari Enzo only hours after buying it.
Listed by Forbes magazine as the 72nd richest person in the world, Mr Kerimov lost control of the £500,000 car on Saturday afternoon on the Promenade des Anglais in the French resort of Nice.
The car hit a tree, burst into flames and was destroyed.
Mr Kerimov, 41, was flown by helicopter to a specialist burns clinic at a hospital in Marseilles.
A spokesman for the hospital authority said his condition remained "worrisome", and added that he was breathing with the aid of a respirator. Doctors would not know whether his condition had stabilised for another 48 hours, he said.
A 31-year-old woman who was in the car with Mr Kerimov was named as Tina Kandelaki. Nice police identified the injured woman as having the same name as a prominent radio and television host in Russia, but could not confirm it was the media personality. The woman suffered burns on her thighs and hands. She was treated and released from a Nice hospital on Saturday, before returning to Russia.
A police investigation into the crash is under way.
Mr Kerimov bought the Ferrari Enzo in Nice earlier on Saturday, police said. Witnesses told investigators that the car had been weaving in and out of vehicles at high speed on the Promenade des Anglais, Nice's best-known thoroughfare, police said.
The vehicle span out of control on the wet road before hitting the tree.
Mr Kerimov, engulfed in flames, pulled himself out of the car and rolled on the grass, the police said.
Mr Kerimov is a member of pro-Kremlin ultra-nationalist Liberal Democrat Party in the Duma.
The party's leader, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, has insisted that there was nothing suspicious about the crash.
Mr Kerimov is worth £3.7 billion, according to Forbes magazine, whose annual survey of the world's richest people put him at No 72 and made him the 11th richest Russian.
He was born in Russia's southern region of Dagestan, near the troubled region of Chechnya, and owns big stakes in gas monopoly Gazprom and Russia's largest bank, Sberbank.
Mr Kerimov leaped into the top league of Russian billionaires in the late 1990s, several years after he started to borrow aggressively from banks to buy shares in state companies, betting that the value of his investments would rise over time.
He is married with three children, but he is regularly linked by Russian tabloids to some of Russia's most famous young women.
Russian media reported last year that he paid £500,000 to fly the pop stars Shakira and Christina Aguilera to Russia to celebrate his 40th birthday.
Possible. But the article says Kerimov was "pro-Kremlin." Could be payback for the recent killing in England. Or maybe Kerimov was just a bad driver.
Tell me the news, baby. Tell me anything you want.
Picture at #17 :-)
Boy, with that in the passenger seat I might have crashed it too...not able to concentrate on the heel & toe thing. Or whatever...
This fits the thread:
http://www.wreckedexotics.com
'You might want to hold on to this one (IOU). It's for the car'.
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I've been there. Right along the beach. Typically, it would be crowded with sun-worshippers.
What's with this recent spate of rich suicide kings wrecking expensive cars??? Jump off a freakin' building if you wanna die, but leave the keys to the Enzo on the ledge!
for the tifosi among us:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=xXRk_fp31Bw
After seeing the pic of Tina, an old joke came to mind:
Q: How do you feel about sex after sixty-five?
A: It's great, but it causes a lot of wrecks.....
I had read earlier that he had borrowed the car from a friend. Doesn't matter I suppose, it's still a tragic end to a remarkable vehicle. Perhaps he should have been driving a Koenigsegg CCR. It's got a full carbon fiber uni-body and is at least as impressive as the Enzo. Oh yeah, and the driver is barely older than I am so I guess it sucks that he's all mangled and burned, huh?
I wonder if he checked crash test results with Consumer's Union or J.D. Powers before buying that car? He should of had a Lincoln Town Car or Mercury Grand Marquis.
Think she would have had anything to do with the guy if he was a street sweeper?
No ashtray. No radio. All your attention must be on driving. Guess they forgot about Tina.
Actually, if you have been down that street, it also may have been the topless sunbathers along the beach that distracted him. It is a cool street with lots of disractions. Maybe he missed the turn to get into the casino which is just off the prpmenade as well.
Dang ... Splat!
I'm glad no one else was hurt.
"I wonder if his, uh, er ... "thingy" got burned? Well, inquiring minds want to know."
Well, the accident happened in Nice. So, I gather we can assume it was French fried.
He musta been tryin' to copycat the rollover swerve in the new Bond movie.
"But I could do it and not––OH SH&*%$##(*&@&!!!!"
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