Picture it: you're cruising through town in a $200,000 Lambo with your friend, blasting some sick beats and enjoying your fiscal superiority, when your back begins to feel a little warm. Well, it is hot in Seattle this week. But suddenly, you smell it. Smoke. What do you do?
Unfortunately, that hypothetical question crossed over into reality for the driver of this Lamborghini Gallardo LP 570-4 Superleggera this weekend, and right in the middle of downtown Seattle, Washington to boot. What started out as a puff of smoke graduated to a raging conflagration that consumed the entire car in less than ten minutes—and the whole thing was caught in glorious HD video on fortuitously-placed security camera.
The footage shows traffic stopped at a light on the corner of 7th Avenue and Union Street, about a block away from Seattle's massive convention center and less than a quarter of a mile from the city's famed Pike Place Fish Market. The white Lamborghini pulls into view, but remains stopped as the light turns green. That's when the driver hops out and opens the engine cover, and both smoke and some flames are immediately apparent.
Things go downhill from there. The man's passenger eventually bails as well (though only after an unnerving amount of time spent sitting in a car that's literally on fire), and after a handheld fire extinguisher fails to do the trick, the pair resign themselves to watching the supercar burn like kindling from across the street.
After a few more minutes, the Seattle Fire Department shows up and takes care of business, but it's clear the Gallardo is completely destroyed. In a final indignity, a firefighter rips off the previously-undamaged hood to check for any hidden hotspots.