This Car Saved My Life

When The Mclaren He Was In Drove Off A California Hillside, Sean Evans Thought It Was All Over. The Car’s Designers Had Other Ideas.

- Sean Evans

FUUUUU –

We’re airborne. I’m a passenger in a supercar with the roof down and we’re hurtling down the side of this mountain. I noticed the speedometer at 170km/h before I saw the road snake hard to the right, a sickening feeling flooding my body as we start . . . flying. My eyes clamp shut, I bear-hug myself, willing my 1.8m frame to disappear.

– UUUUUCK! I am going to die. I assumed if I ever died in a car, I’d be the one driving. Let it be quick. I don’t want to slowly asphyxiate after breaking my neck. That would suc –

A massive impact jerks the car around. My butt lifts out of the seat but the seat belt pins me. It feels like piano wire trying to split me. Ambient light seeping through my clenched eyelids vanishes. It’s dark, and we’re still careening at extreme speed.

Did we just roll? Are we upside down? We are inverted and not slowing down. Another enormous bang and we’re right side up again, per my internal gyroscope. We’re still airborne and there’s a moment of nothingness, just whooshing wind and that stomach-dropping feeling, like on an amusement park ride that plummets you 15 stories in five seconds. Is this like the eye of the storm, the calm before shit gets real? Will the landing be what kills me? When will we lan—