Massive supercar crash in Japan

The internet's been fizzing all day today with reports of a very painful, very expensive 14-car crash on the Chugoku highway in Shimonoseki, Japan. Largely because it involved a convoy of Ferraris. And a Toyota Prius.

The lead driver of said convoy, which was journeying to Hiroshima for a supercar meet, attempted to change lanes but hit a barrier, spun out and caused all the cars to crash horribly, embroiling a Toyota in the process. Luckily, nobody was injured. But it remains a deeply troubling sight.

Something else has also unsettled us.

Depending on your news source of choice, there were eight Ferraris involved, three Mercedes-Benzes, a Nissan Skyline and a Lamborghini Diablo.

Now, we've had a look at all the footage and we can only identify six Ferraris (two 355s, a black 360 with racy bolt-on parts, a red 360 with racy bolt-on parts, a 430 Scuderia and a cocaine-white 512 Testarossa). But no Lamborghini. Or Skyline.

What's got us most confused is the estimate of these destroyed cars collective worth. If you believe The Telegraph, the total adds up to as much as £2.6 million, while BBC News claims 300 million Yen (or £2.46 million).

So we fetched our calculator for a bit of Top Gear maths.

We've taken the average price for a decentish version of each car and arrived at the following.

2 x Ferrari F355s = £100,000
+ 2 x Ferrari 360s with go-faster bits = £180,000
+ 1 x Ferrari F430 Scud = £125,000
+ 1 x Ferrari 512 Testarossa = £80,000
+ 1 x Toyota Prius = £22,000
+ 1 x Mercedes W126 = £4,000
+ 1 x CL 600 = £6,995 (Well, that's what Jeremy paid for this one)

= £517,995

Not £2 million, is it?

Now, our Top Gear maths may be wrong (wouldn't be the first time, would it). So if any Japanese speakers can shed any more light, or we've missed something, let us know in the handy box below

Here's more info from a Russian news channel: