A US man has millions of reasons to regret talking on his mobile phone while driving after submerging his ultra-rare supercar in a saltwater lagoon.
The Galveston Daily News reports the Texan businessman was touring a real estate development when a pelican swooped in front of his $2.5 million Bugatti Veyron, causing him to swerve towards the waterway.
At the same time, he dropped the mobile phone he was holding and — despite a V16 engine with quad turbochargers driving all four wheels — was unable to regain control of the vehicle before it hit a patch of mud and skidded into the lake.
He later told salvage experts that the hand-made 736kW engine gurgled like an outboard engine for about 15 minutes before dying.
Police and firefighters blocked the road until the vehicle was extracted from the 70cm-deep waterway.
The Bugatti Veyron is the fastest road-legal car in the world with a top speed of 407km/h — and it is also one of the rarest.
Only 200 have been made and the crashed car was one of only 15 imported into the US.
And despite the stratospheric price tag, the Veyron actually loses money with every sale: the development program was so expensive that a break-even price would be closer to $4 million.
It is believed parent company Volkswagen only persisted with the program because of the status and technical advances involved.
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