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In one way, it's understandable that Ferraris make people go mad. They sure are very desirable cars and being mad about a Ferrari therefore is only human. However, I've noticed that in the case of us Swedes, Ferraris bring out a more literal form of madness. These three articles bear testimony to strange aspects of the Nordic psyche. Swedes love conformity, equalitarianism, safety and security. Beneath that lutheran, civilized, surface however, a rampant viking with a suppressed passion for excitement, adventure and rough action sits around moping. Therefore, it isn't perhaps much of a paradox that Sweden is home to...

LOS ANGELES – A mistrial was declared yesterday in the theft and fraud trial of a Swedish businessman who drew unwanted international attention to himself when he wrecked a rare $1.5 million Ferrari on a seaside highway in Malibu. After deliberating the case against Bo Stefan Eriksson, 44, for a little more than a day, jurors told Superior Court Judge Patricia Schnegg that they were deadlocked 10-2 in favor of conviction, said Jane Robison, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office. Prosecutors quickly announced they would retry Eriksson, who remained in custody. A pretrial hearing is set...

Today: October 16, 2006 at 12:45:12 PDT L.A. Ferrari Crash Driver Rejects Plea By ANDREW GLAZER ASSOCIATED PRESS LOS ANGELES (AP) - A Swedish businessman who authorities say crashed a stolen Ferrari sports car worth $1.5 million on Pacific Coast Highway turned down a plea deal Monday that would have had him spend two years and four months in prison. "I cannot agree that I stole the car because I didn't," said Bo Stefan Eriksson, 44, speaking through a Swedish interpreter in Los Angeles Superior Court. Details of the offered plea deal were not immediately released. Eriksson is charged with...

Authorities confiscated guns, badges and several police cars while serving search warrants today as part of their investigation into a tiny San Gabriel Valley transit agency that finds itself at the center of a growing investigation into the crash of a Ferrari in Malibu. Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies searched the headquarters of the San Gabriel Valley Transit Authority in Monrovia, as well as the homes of four officials. Sheriff's spokesman Steve Whitmore said today that detectives and prosecutors are trying to figure out why the men were connected to an obscure private company that provided rides to disabled people...

Detectives are trying to figure out why a handgun belonging to a reserve deputy for the Orange County Sheriff's Department was found at the Bel-Air mansion of the former European video game executive accused of crashing a rare Ferrari Enzo in Malibu in February. Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies confiscated the gun during a raid at the home of Bo Stefan Eriksson, who faces grand theft, embezzlement and DUI charges related to the accident. L.A. County Sheriff's Department spokesman Steve Whitmore confirmed Wednesday that the .357 magnum Smith & Wesson was registered to Roger A. Davis, a Newport Beach businessman...

Malibu -- The rich love their toys, and nowhere are such status symbols more plentiful or spectacular than in sun-kissed Malibu, where exotic sports cars are as common as double-decaf, low-fat lattes. So when a million-dollar Ferrari Enzo was wrecked here in February after a 160 mph joyride, it seemed little more than a celebrity smashup. And then the aliens turned up. Well, actually there were no aliens, at least not the little green kind. But there is a distinctly odd cast of characters from Sweden and elsewhere and a tale that has only grown more dense and bizarre as...

Malibu Mystery Races Away With Buzz Thursday March 02, 2006 It was a rare and exotic animal: a Ferrari Enzo, one of just 400 ever brought forth into this world. When you saw this thing coming, you didn't look away. If you wanted to own it, it cost you a cool $1 mil -- and it could earn you a whole lot of buzz. Last week, Swedish millionaire Stefan Ericksson slipped behind the wheel of his Enzo with, he says, a German named "Dietrich." They took the vehicle out on Malibu's Pacific Coast Highway. And they let that baby run....

As sheriff's detectives investigate last week's crash that destroyed a $1-million Ferrari, they are now looking into an obscure nonprofit organization that provides disabled people with transit in the San Gabriel Valley. The car's owner, a former video game executive from Sweden, told Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies at the scene of the Feb. 21 accident in Malibu that he was deputy commissioner of the San Gabriel Valley Transit Authority's police anti-terrorism unit, detectives said Thursday. A few minutes after the crash, two unidentified men arrived at the scene, flashing badges and saying they were from "homeland security," according to...

CBS) MALIBU, Calif. A section of Pacific Coast Highway was closed Tuesday after a single-vehicle car crash, officials said. Paramedics were sent to P.C.H. at Decker Road at 6:15 a.m., Los Angeles County Fire Department Inspector Ron Haralson said. By 8:35 a.m., one lane was reopened in each direction, according to California Highway Patrol Officer Francisco Villalobos. The vehicle, a Ferrari -- reportedly worth between $600,000 and $1 million -- was badly damaged. One person suffered a minor injury and was treated at the scene. "We have the passenger, who told us the driver did flee from the scene," Sheriff's...

A red Ferrari Enzo — one of only 400 ever made and worth more than $1 million — broke apart Tuesday when it crested a hill on Pacific Coast Highway going 120 mph and slammed into a power pole. The driver jumped out of the wreckage and ran into the canyon above, evading a three-hour search by a Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department helicopter and a mountain search-and-rescue team. The crash did not result in serious injuries. But it sent shockwaves through both the tabloid and exotic car worlds as one group wondered if the driver was a celebrity and...

Crash turns rare Ferrari into scrap From: Agence France-Presse From correspondents in Los Angeles February 22, 2006 A RARE $US1 million ($A1.36 million) Ferrari sports car belonging to a Swedish game industry mogul slammed into a pole during a high-speed street race today, reducing it to scrap metal, US police said. Police in the plush Los Angeles district of Malibu said the 2003 Ferrari Enzo, only 399 of which were made, was owned by Stefan Eriksson, 44, a controversial former executive of the failed handheld gaming company Gizmondo. The driver lost control of the Ferrari about dawn when it careened...

The mystery deepened Monday in the case of the puzzling crash last week of a $1-million Ferrari Enzo on Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu. Sheriff's detectives said Monday that they believe a gun's magazine discovered near the wreckage is connected to the crash, and they plan to interview an unnamed person who they believe was in the car with Swedish game machine entrepreneur Stefan Eriksson. The crash has also garnered the attention of a leading Scottish bank, which has informed sheriff's investigators that it may own the destroyed car. At the same time, detectives are trying to figure out why...

It was a SigAlert made for Malibu. A red Ferrari Enzo — one of only 400 ever made and worth more than $1 million — broke apart Tuesday when it crested a hill on Pacific Coast Highway going 120 mph and slammed into a power pole. The driver jumped out of the wreckage and ran into the canyon above, evading a three-hour search by a Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department helicopter and a mountain search-and-rescue team. The crash did not result in serious injuries. But it sent shockwaves through both the tabloid and exotic car worlds as one group wondered...