YouTuber crashes $1.3 million McLaren Senna days after purchase
A video from California showing the moment of an accident involving a McLaren Senna is quickly gaining traction online. Just a few days earlier, a YouTube automotive channel host who owns a fast-food chain acquired the car.
Photos and videos showing wrecked supercars or automotive icons always tear the hearts of petrol heads. This time is no different, as the victim is a McLaren Senna. A car that looks phenomenal in action is definitely not an easy machine to handle. Its heart is a 4.0 V8 double turbocharged unit generating up to 800 hp.
However, it's hard not to shake your head at the video recorded in Los Angeles, which gained significant popularity on Reddit in just a few hours. The McLaren driver wanted to show off in front of onlookers recording his car. He thus performed a pirouette in the middle of the public road and then tried to drive away with screeching tyres—well, tried.
The car slipped out of the driver's control and veered to the right. Then it went onto the pavement and, with great force, hit a building, which was incidentally a Lexus dealership. It did not look good.
In the next shot, we see the aftermath of the collision. The front of the car, especially its right side, was severely damaged. However, if the carbon monocoque had a good impact, "the patient would live."
Who was behind the wheel during the wreckage?
Netizens quickly figured out who was behind the wheel of the car. According to many Reddit users, it was Edmond "Mondi" Barseghian — founder of the Houston Hot Chicken fast-food chain and a YouTuber with an automotive channel. As of writing this article, he has 190,000 subscribers.
Just four days before the accident, Mondi posted a video in which he boasted about purchasing the McLaren Senna. The showcased model looks exactly like the one later wrecked in Los Angeles, so the dots connect very well.
Of course, one could assume that the YouTuber wasn't driving the car at the time of the crash, but his previous antics behind the wheel make this doubtful. He had already completely destroyed a brand-new Hummer EV after driving it just a few miles, and he had also totalled a Porsche 992 GT3, though in that case, he wasn't at fault for the collision.
The wrecked McLaren Senna isn't the first such incident in his career. However, the insurer should not deem it a total loss this time—we're talking about a car worth at least $1.3 million, or about £1.05 million at current exchange rates.
