Ferrari California nabbed at 231km/h; impounded
July 13, 2009 by George Skentzos
A new Ferrari California, said to be one of only two in Australia, has been impounded by police after a Perth-based motoring journalist was caught travelling at 231km/h through the West Australian wheatbelt.
The Italian supercar, valued at almost $500,000, has now been impounded after Financial Review motoring writer Rod Easdown was detected at more than double the posted speed limit around noon today.
The car, owned by the importer Ateco Automotive, has now been impounded for seven days under the new hoon legislation, which means its duties among the various West Australian media outlets will be put on hold.
Police have charged the 57-year-old male driver, from Wembley, with reckless driving.
A police spokesman said: “The incident should serve to remind drivers that regardless of a car’s capabilities, excessive speed is a contributing factor in about 60 people dying on our roads each year.”
Edward Rowe, public affairs manager, Ateco Automotive Australia, told CarAdvice that; “At this point we have no comment to make as charges are pending.”
With the CarAdvice team restricting its high-speed driving to private facilities or German autobahns it reminds us that supercars in Australia essentially rely on reputation alone.
Source: PerthNow
Print it: 
Its fair to say that his career is goooone.
A Falcon, Mazda6 or Accord Euro or Accord V6 could get to that speed. Don’t need a Ferrari ~
Idiot.
pfft.
why the hell do u care if i crash and die..it’s my life,as long as i dont kill another,that is if he doesnt kill another=P
Having lived in country WA until I was 19, I would say he is very keen doing that sort of speed with all the wildlife around. What I want to know is, how did the cop catch him in a 6 cylinder Falcodore?
Arush of blood perhaps – I do feel he should have booked some time at the AHG track in Perth and left the rest of the test at legal speeds.
Having said that let him/her who is without guilt cast the first stone!
This sort of speeding kills. Lucky he didn’t lose it (especially if there was someone else around).
Surprising that he’s been charged with “reckless driving” rather than just “exceeding the speed limit by 121 kph”. The charge as stated would bring in a possible defence of driver experience at high speed, quality of car, prevailing road conditions etc.You could imagine the Financial Revue bringing in some high priced talent to defend him under the circumstances.
What a f—wit!!!…what ever the law brings down on him will not be enough!
Would be nice to see someone with financial resources take on the corrupt speed tax system.
I’m only astonished that more motoring journos don’t get caught. The cop will be grinning like an idiot. And who could blame him. Nice collar.
Journalist was just trying to test the third gear.;-)
Why, was he only using 3rd gear? :-)
Just think how hard/fast he was going when they did/nt catch him….lol
Funny thing is they have impounded a car that’s not even owned by Rod, it belongs to Ateco and should be returned to them.
Easdown, when he wrote for CarAustralia was one of the funiest journos around, the stories he wrote about pretty much anything always ended in a laugh.
Anyway, soon as this boils over, loss of d/l for a year or so he can have a merry old laugh about it.
LOVE this bit from C/A:
“With the CarAdvice team restricting its high-speed driving to private facilities”
Yeah right, go check the [excellant] video of your Aston Martin test…100kmh…lol, yeak ok, if you say so! :-)
Cheers
F-0
Doing 230km/h in a Ferrari isn’t the same as doing 230km/h in a Mazda 6. Ferrari’s are built for speed and he probably only felt like he was doing 80km/h.
Soon we will all be driving at 40km/h on every road.
Acfsambo^^^^
July 14th, 2009 at 7:22 am
This sort of speeding kills.
Doing 200kmh+ in a Ferrari that is designed and engineered for MUCH more than that speed is SAFER than the 10+ year old heap-of-s/hit doing 100knh on our roads…
Cheers
F-0
Chris remember the Falcadores cops use are all tuned to produce a lot more performance than stock. Other wise they would be using some imported American stuff to catch these hoons(not that this guy is one).
Review the archaic legislation and in future donate vehicles exceeding 50k’s over the limit to TAFE colleges for the students to practice panel bending/ beating and mechanical work on. New movie -Ferris Beuller goes to TAFE.
Hmm for this indescrepency, Ateco will punish him by giving him a GWM wingle as a drive car for 12 months.
Also be interesting reading the stories in the FInancial about the WA police force over the comming months
I live in regional WA. There is a road near where I live which used to mostly look like a patchwork blanket of different patches of bitumen. I used to drive my then car, a 20 year old totally buggered Volvo along it at the speed limit (110) very often in all weather with no concerns about it been a bad road.
Then one day this twit from Perth went along the same road in his new AWD turbo Porsce at 200 km/hr plus. I think he was trying to show his girlfriend what a stud he was.
The skid marks from where he lost control to where he crashed streached quite a distance. He survived, but killed his girlfriend.
Bloody Hero????
save the car, crush his career i say.
No they aren’t Shak. The engines on most cop cars are straight from the factory, it’s really only the wiring looms that are modified.
Whatever possessed him to actually stop…
Poor guy. I’d be willing to bet he knew the road well, and did a recce run before getting up to that speed. Also, I’ll bet my last dollar that he was concentrating very, very hard on his driving. Sure, 230 is fast, but was what he did any more dangerous than some idiot doing 120 in an 80 zone in a 25 year old Falcon in heavy traffic? I think not.
I bet Ferrari aren’t too concerned either (once they get their car back) – after all, they’d expect their cars to be driven fast, even in such a repressive country like Australia.
Oh, and at the risk of being a two-post nutbag, who says this should end his career? Who says a road tester has to be an automatic stooge for the government’s over-enthusiastic regulation of our too-low speed limits?
Flying High^^^^^
July 14th, 2009 at 1:28 pm
Whatever possessed him to actually stop…
Yeah, should have been shot for going so SLOW!
I think you know it was the right thing to do.
You cannot really outrun police, they have 2 way radios, choppers, road-view cameras etc[and God know what else?]
Anyway they would have been waiting for him at his home of office, not that many California’s on the road in W/Aust. Ateco would have told the police as much!!
The question is what will the judge give him as punishment?
Bet if he had his time again HE WOULD DO THE SAME!
Cheers
F-0
230kph in a modern Ferrari on an open road with plenty of visibiliy is a nice cruising pace.
I’ve driven that road hundreds of times. It doesn’t get easier with a recce. There are 10,000 places to die along there, and very little is sign posted at the maximum 110 km/h, simply because it’s so dangerous.
He’s a fool for doing it in any car.
Ateco Automotive and Ferrari will get a lot of free press from this incident. If Rod Easdown drove at more than double the speed limit, he should be banned from driving on public roads for a long time. The State Government should introduce legislation that will allow them to confiscate a hoon’s vehicle, even if it does not belong to them, and sell them at an auction to raised funds for road safety. Anyone that allow a hoon to drive their car should share the risk. Something drastic needs to happen to get the message through: your “thrill” my cost another person his/her life! Driving it is not an X-box game.
As if to prove my point, I see Corey Worthington has been nabbed for doing 124 in an 80 zone. Who do you think was the more dangerous – Easdown or Worthington? I know whose car I’d rather have been in.
And HB, leaving aside the fact that confiscating and selling a car regardless of who owns it will inevitably lead to injustices being done, what makes you think the government would put that money towards road safety? The money, as with all revenue raised on the roads, would go into consolidated revenue.
Clearly, no one really knows the facts of this case – excepting the Journo and the copper. However here are some reasonable facts and observations regarding this story:
1. Experienced motoring journo with more kms under his belt than most drivers ever achieve. Not to mention his experience in handling a car at speed and his experence in driving at autobahn speeds when on assignment in Europe.
2. Dare say that he probably picked the particular piece of quiet WA road on which to exercise the Ferrari’s legs. Given the car’s ability to spint to these speeds quite effortlessly and quickly, it probably happened on a relatively short and straight sectioon of quite country WA road;
3.This car is designed and engineered to cruise at these speeds for hours;
4. Yep, any speed kills – 40kmph, 60kmph, 100kmph, 120kmph, 213kmph. Speed will always be a factor in road deaths whilst many drivers drive at speeds in excess of the particular vehicle, environmental and driver experience paramaters. I would suggest that probably none of these are in question here. I heard a police report (Victoria) today that 40% of road fatalities involved some form of drug – alcohol, narcotics, etc.
I doubt that said journo would have bothered to undertake this “test” in most other cars. His experience would immediately tell him that most other cars are simply not able to perform at these speeds in a safe manner.
Australian’s need to start applying some critical thinking to this whole issue that speed kills, driver education, and the nonsense propaganda being bandied about by the police and state governments (using taxpayer money BTW). Otherwise we are just being dumbed down as a driving community.
Well said Tony. By reading all these responses, it seems like the governments attempt at dumbing down the population has been successful.
No one rational cannot deny that the Ferrari is a relatively safer place to be at 200+ in the right place.
I too have been passed by rusted,damaged heaps at more than the legal limit & yes the motor journo is probably more capable than myself.
But he broke the law & it is well documented what this car is capable of.So why do it on a public road?
DGS & Golfy said it all.
Unfortunately Mr Easdown regardless of circumstance will suffer the wrath of an increasingly PC bureaucracy. The fact remains he broke the speed limit and like many of us, rightly or wrongly, will have the book thrown at him.
There are lot of terrible drivers on the road and WA would stand out as one of the worst in this regard, so you can expect an even louder reaction from the ‘dumbed down’ as Tony so aptly put it, from here in the West.
Bad luck Rod.