Mark Hales Ordered to Pay $174k After Rare Porsche Blows Up

[Sanji Himura]

Normally when a auto mag wants to take a few photos of a rare car, these matters are usually done by handshakes, not lawyers.

Retired racer and private collector David Piper has one such car, a Porsche 917, the very same 917 of Steve McQueen and Le Mans fame. Piper was one of the few who were injured with the Porsche team the first year the maker won the title.

The man on the other side of the deal was British Journalist Mark Hales. Hales paid Piper $3,200 (USD) to have a track day with his 917, taking photographs of it racing a Ferrari of a similar year.

Then the engine blew up in the Porsche.

Piper claimed the cause was human, the two had agreed to keep it under 7,000 revs, but Hales overworked it by reving it to 8,200 revs, thus blowing up the engine.

Hales, who is no slouch with vintage racing machines himself, claims that the gearbox mis-shifted, and that Piper verbally agreed to cover all repairs himself.

A British judge ruled in favor of Piper, ordering Hales to pay $74,000 in damages, and $100k in court costs, a ruling that could force Hales into bankrupcy and out of home if this holds up. There is also a collection fund being raised by enthusists for the fine.

Source: http://autos.yahoo.com/blogs/motoramic/writer-ordered-pay-174-000-rare-porsche-blows-210104855.html

 

[Beeblebrox237]

That seems a bit harsh. If the guy can afford it, why not fix his own car? Sure, Hales may have done something wrong, but I doubt that he deserves this for his mistake. If he even made one.

 

[Tornado]

And just like that, the entire concept of classic car comparison tests died out.

 

[Keef]

This is why contracts were invented. It's not hard to pencil an agreement on a notepad.

Nevertheless, that court cost surely must be a typo? If courts are that expensive in the UK then why on earth does anybody use them? Preposterous.

 

[Cano]

And just like that, the entire concept of classic car comparison tests died out.

This, absolutely. I'll push the next classic car I'm sent to photograph.

 

[sumbrownkid]

Dang David Piper, having trouble paying the bills?

 

[homeforsummer]

Nevertheless, that court cost surely must be a typo? If courts are that expensive in the UK then why on earth does anybody use them? Preposterous.

Depends on the type of case, but that's a result of Hales having to pay Piper's costs as well as his own.

It's a bloody awful situation for Hales and it's looking like he'll lose his house for it - all over a few details that Piper conveniently forgot to mention in court. That, and Hales' lawyers were apparently useless.

It shouldn't be the end of classic race car tests though. There are a couple of good articles on why that shouldn't be the case here and here. Essentially, most vintage and classic car owners aren't as morally reprehensible as Piper.

Luckily, the motoring community is building up behind Hales, and it looks like some people are organising fundraising to help the guy avoid bankruptcy. I know I'll be contributing if something is put in place.

 

[Stotty]

here

Anyone who has an interest in car magazines, car journo's and how they work, should read this article by Chris Harris on Piston Heads... explains how the mega rare (and almost uninsurable) racing cars end up in magazine features.

Hales was at fault – the gearbox wasn’t in top form, he knew this, and he miss shifted on a 2nd - 3rd change, didn’t engage the gear properly and buzzed the engine as it spun on the sychro’s.

However, the case isn't really as cut and dried as Hales is the victim and Piper the nasty rich guy... I met Piper (along with Richard 'Dicky' Atwood) a couple of years ago at a Porsche launch event and spent 10 minutes or so chatting to him – he was a complete gentleman. And as many have commented on PH, Hales is a legend in both motoring journalism and historic racing… something has happened in the background to make this personal on Piper’s side.

As HFS, I will also be making a contribution to Hales appeal fund as I want to be able to read articles like this in the future.

 

[niky]

Jesus. I can't imagine ever having to pay that much for a blown motor.

Agree that it's Hale's liability. You've got a very fragile, rare and... priceless... racing car on the race track for a photoshoot, last thing you want to do is drive it anywhere near its limits. Or even up to 8/10ths. Or even beyond walking pace...

 

[boiltheocean]

It's best if you read the judgement yourself before reading those self-confessed biased articles. Hales didn't put up the best of arguments and his story altered at times during the case.

Personally I think Piper could of been more lenient with this, he must know of the risks of running such an old car and the fact that accidents like what Hales was using as a defence can happen. Also he was probably aware of Marks financial situation and that this case could bankrupt him. I'd of split the repair 50/50 between both parties before it even got to court.

 

[homeforsummer]

something has happened in the background to make this personal on Piper’s side.

I agree, there's an element of that somewhere. Worth mentioning that circumstance does play a part in someone's attitude though - Piper may be a gentleman at a meet'n'greet, but bankrupting someone on the basis of something that - to Piper - is pocket money certainly calls his character into question.

Agree that it's Hale's liability.

It's a tricky one. Piper obviously trusted Hales to drive the car - you don't just let any old fool into your priceless classic. Hales' reputation for such things is unsurpassed - Nik Mason has let him behind the wheel of his 250 GTO several times, and those are worth a hell of a lot more than a bitsa of old 917 parts.

Any owner of a classic like that knows the risks involved. Holding Hales solely liable for the destruction of an engine full of 40-year old parts seems a little harsh - mistake or not, it's something that's almost as likely to happen in the pit lane as it is at speed on the track.

As for Hales making mistakes in court and what have you, that's probably understandable. His livelihood was on the line. Having read the judgement, it seems like the courts don't entirely understand how features like this are orchestrated.

While naturally biased, Harris and Frankel's columns are quite enlightening, particularly Harris's - no journalist can afford to cover the costs of a mechanical failure like that, and occasionally even the insurance to cover it is incredibly high - that the court judged the test was "entirely for the defendant's benefit" is absolutely laughable. Beneficial in terms of trying to make a living, but Hales hardly stood to gain massively out of it. Less so than Piper would for having his car featured in a bunch of top classic magazines, and he was paid £2k for the privelege of even that.

I'm with Stotty here. There's definitely something behind the scenes to have turned what appears to be a fairly common gentlemans' agreement in the industry, into something sour.

 

[Stotty]

Original post deleted as it was mainly rubbish!

As I thought more about the launch event and the interview that Piper and Atwood gave, it occurred to me that I'd got my drivers completely mixed up (my memory ain't what it used to be - possibly early on set alzhiemers ).

Piper was the Privateer and Atwood the works driver... it was Atwood I spoke to at length at the event.

Piper had enough wealth back in the 60's and 70's to buy numerous works spec cars directly from Ferrari and Porsche (including a 250LM and a number of 917's - it's said he has the only 1 owner 917 in existance!) and run his own team at a Sportscar World Championship level (he even ran some F1 races too). I remembering him talking about going to see Enzo Ferrari to buy cars.

Someone with a level of personal wealth able to do this is clearly has means well beyond the vast majority.

With this in mind, my opinion is now that under any normal circumstances, Piper should have stood the rebuild costs - he must have been aware of Hales finacial situation and the implications of forcing him to pay.

Makes me think even more that there's more to this behind the scenes than we know.

Atwood was a complete gentleman, I never got to speak to Piper... though on stage he was eloquent, informative and very funny.

 

[analog]

I remember reading an article about David Piper in a classic car magazine a couple of years ago where it was made clear he was foremost a farmer (and still worked as a farmer at his age as he enjoyed it) and lived on a farm (a farm littered with 917 and exotic Ferrari-parts mind you) and I too got the impression the cars he collected over the years were more important to him than the value they represented (and he sure not even remotely paid what they're worth these days).

I don't know anything about this case and so I'll refrain from any comments, the first part therefor wasn't aimed to defend Piper in any way.

 

[Kent]

I don't see what's so difficult about this...

Go rent a car, damage it, see who is left with the bill.
I promise you, the car rental place will say it is your responsibility (that's why they offer you insurance ).

Bankruptcy shouldn't be a consideration here, that's just bad luck. However, violating the terms of your agreement (not to exceed 7k rpm) and then trying to dodge the bill... Not cool.
If the guy is so close to bankruptcy why is he trying to go out racing million dollar race cars any way?

Finally I just want to mention that this is a good lesson about how to negate damage. If the driver/renter had just paid the bills for repair he would have had far less to pay but since he wouldn't step up and take responsibility the bill ended up being 174k.

 

[homeforsummer]

Go rent a car, damage it, see who is left with the bill.
I promise you, the car rental place will say it is your responsibility (that's why they offer you insurance ).

Not quite as simple as that. This isn't going out and renting a Focus, being a berk and crashing it, and then having to foot the bill - this is a 40-yr old race car, known to be frail in its day, with no other purpose than to be driven on race circuits.

It's also owned by someone who can apparently afford to run it (given that Hales has to pay for "lost use" - presumably, Piper can afford to "use" it if that's the case). It's a car with high likelihood of something going wrong, being driven by one of the most experienced guys in the business, with prior history of driving lots of other peoples' priceless cars with zero issues.

If the guy is so close to bankruptcy why is he trying to go out racing million dollar race cars any way?

What a daft, ignorant comment.

So you'd be absolutely fine covering a $174,000 bill? That'd be enough to bankrupt most people - it's hardly being "so close to banruptcy". I doubt most people expect some rich dude to sue them for hundreds of thousands of dollars...

And, as if it needs saying again, it's Mark Hales's job. He is a journalist. He is paid to write about incredible cars like this because the rest of us don't get a chance. If he doesn't drive them, they stay locked away in museums, or get taken out every so often by incredibly wealthy people for fleeting public glimpses.

The entire classic car magazine business relies on owners not sueing the crap out of people on the off chance something goes wrong.

Finally I just want to mention that this is a good lesson about how to negate damage. If the driver/renter had just paid the bills for repair he would have had far less to pay but since he wouldn't step up and take responsibility the bill ended up being 174k.

Another idiotic comment. I'd be surprised if Hales could happily spunk the original £40k on the engine rebuild, let alone the full whack of the court settlement. If someone is accusing you of negligence and you have grounds to believe mechanical failure was the cause of the engine blowing up, you've every right not to pay up, and every right to defend yourself in court. It's just highly unfortunate that the court went against Hales.

Read up on this a bit more, please. This isn't just "some guy is a crap driver and blows up expensive race car". This is "Incredibly experienced driver and journalist is trusted enough to drive a priceless race car and unlucky enough to be in the seat when it goes pop".

 

[Tornado]

The entire classic car magazine business relies on owners not sueing the crap out of people on the off chance something goes wrong.

And, on occasion, new cars too if the manufacturer doesn't want to give magazines one to test.

 

[homeforsummer]

And, on occasion, new cars too if the manufacturer doesn't want to give magazines one to test.

True. That's Chris Harris's only way of getting Ferraris since his little outburst on Jalopnik...

Edit:

For anyone interested, @TrackDriverMag on twitter has set up a paypal account for donations to Hales. Think they're putting subscription money for the mag towards him at the mo too.

 

[MatskiMonk]

Looks like this was handled wrongly in the first place... if you're driving a car worth 1.5m you make sure you've got something in writing, or you have sufficient insurance. It's a big shame for Hales obviously, and Piper could be more gentlemanly about it.. but points of law are what count.

I wonder what Nick Mason would have done had it been the Ferrari?

 

[avens]

That seems a bit harsh. If the guy can afford it, why not fix his own car? Sure, Hales may have done something wrong, but I doubt that he deserves this for his mistake. If he even made one.

So if I blow your personal car's engine by over revving it, you, the owner, should pay for it regardless? There's this thing called consequences you know.

And don't start with "but the guy is a millionaire" and "poor journalist can't pay that" arguments.

 

[homeforsummer]

I wonder what Nick Mason would have done had it been the Ferrari?

What pretty much anyone would have done is how it's been handled in the past - if someone crashes, one or the other person has insurance. If something goes pop, the (usually incredibly wealthy) owner puts it down to inevitability and gets it sorted themselves.

So if I blow your personal car's engine by over revving it, you, the owner, should pay for it regardless? There's this thing called consequences you know.

And don't start with "but the guy is a millionaire" and "poor journalist can't pay that" arguments.

You're yet another person missing the point.

A) The court case centres on whether it was negligence or mechanical failure. The first instance is unlikely, given Hales's experience (it's not unlikely that he over-revved the car - the argument is whether he did this because he ignored Piper's request, or whether the car broke and forced an error). The latter is highly likely, given that the 917 is a fragile racing car with 40-year old parts.

B) In every other such case, the owner would shrug their shoulders and foot the bill, unless the driver had been a complete dope and done something stupid. And again, we can rule out the "Hales is a dope" scenario - he's an experienced racer with over 150 victories and several decades of racing, writing and instructing experience.

Gentlemens' agreements are how things are done in that bit of the industry. If you've ever read or watched anything by EVO, Drive, Octane, or any of those sort of shows/magazines, that's how most of their content is generated.

There is more to this case than meets the eye. And seriously, read Harris's piece. It explains why insurance isn't the answer to the whole situation. It just isn't viable sometimes.

 

[Tornado]

So if I blow your personal car's engine by over revving it, you, the owner, should pay for it regardless? There's this thing called consequences you know.

And those consequences were known by both parties going into the test.


"Hey, for an article I'm going to drive your 40 year old race car that was known for being rather temperamental even back in the day when Porsche's very best engineers were constantly hovered around it like overprotective soccer moms. Something may break on it for no other reason than it is being driven." The "Something may break on it" part should be understood by the person lending the car to be a possibility without automatically assuming if something does break that it's because the driver was being an idiot.

 

[MatskiMonk]

Insurances that cover the car might not be a workable option but if he's a freelancer I would have thought he might have an arrangement to limit personal liability, and if it's not viable to do this, then you should ask yourself is it really worth it in the first place? Based on what Chris Harris said then they may well say, "yes it's worth it" because the flip side of the remote risk that something will go wrong, is that you get to spend your days driving cool cars and writing about it.

 

[Stotty]

This is the post Mark Hales made directly on Piston Heads on Monday - I doubt many have seen it as it was deep inside a 26 page locked thread.

Mark's version of events (primarily written in the 3rd person)...

I have since learnt to add the words THE FOLLOWING IS WITHOUT PREJUDICE.

Chaps; thanks for the kind words but if I may, I'd like to proffer a completely factual account. I have hardly ever posted on a forum but in this case, sadly, I am in a position to know.

The test was a joint effort between two publishers (Octane/Dennis, and 911 and Porsche World/Auto Italia/CHP).

The 917 part of the test was a commercial arrangement and the fee was split between Octane Magazine and the rest. The other car in the test (Nick Mason's Ferrari 512S) was provided on the understanding that out of pocket costs were covered.

There was an agreement between Piper and Hales as to the terms of the hire. Piper knew that crash damage was covered by insurance which was provided by Octane Magazine but there was a very specific discussion about damage to the engine in the case of an overrev. The Porsche 917 has a very tricky gearshift which caught out top level drivers like Vic Elford and Jo Siffert. This is well documented in the history books

Hales regularly gets to drive cars like this because his reputation is well established and his experience with different cars is extensive. He is not however, and never has been in a position to indemnify any damage. This is well established custom and practice in the historic race car world.

Piper agreed that the mechanicals would not be covered.

This was an agreement between gentlemen and was not written down. Piper chose not to remember the conversation in court.

On the day, the 917's gearshift was particularly difficult, especially shifting into third. Hales came straight into the pits to report this to Piper's mechanic. Hales was told that this was a matter of adjustment (the implication being that they didn't have the time or the inclination to make that adjustment) and please to be careful.

Hales found that if he held his hand on the gearlever and released the clutch, the overrun would tell him if and when the gear was engaged. Sometimes it wouldn't and he had to go back to second and try the shift again at lower revs. Not an ideal way to get the feel of a 917.

Later in the day, Hales short-shifted from second to third to make sure the gear was changed before the next corner but didn't hold his hand on the lever long enough. The car drove on the synchromesh for a fraction of a second then spat the gear out and the engine overrevved.

In court, the mechanic chose not to remember the visit to the pits or the conversation that took place there.

This is all a matter of public record, as is an invoice which was produced in evidence, bearing the date February 30th. The issuer of the invoice also misspelt his own name.

Piper spent £63,000 in lawyer's fees and was predictably successful in the High Court.

Hales made some very silly mistakes since the event, and was badly served by less expensive lawyers.

Octane Magazine made a financial offer of settlement. This was declined and there was no further discussion.

Piper has since sold the car for £1.3million which is entirely his prerogative.

Hales is now facing bankruptcy and likely to lose his house.

 

[boiltheocean]

So he finally admits to his mistake, after going to court and fighting a losing battle because he could never afford as good a lawyers as that of Piper (which he should of known). I'd like to point out that his recollection of the court proceedings is untrue as the mechanic and Piper did remember the visit to the pits (it's in the judgement) but accounts of the conversation differ.

I'd also like to add that if he was in such doubt about the gearbox, aware of it's past troubles at Le Mans and was aware of the 'You break it, you mend it' verbal agreement the two had, why didn't he stop?

I feel sorry for Hales and even now if I were in Pipers position I'd only be asking for half of the rebuild costs. However I find it difficult to believe that a man of considerable motoring and journalistic authority has to resort to public donations to pay this off, you give charity to African children for christ sakes, not some journalist in a bigger pile of debt that he initially had because he wouldn't admit to his own mistake. Surely he could borrow from wealthy friends (of which he will have several) or secure the payment by selling of part of his company of which is own 100% of the shares?

 

[homeforsummer]

So he finally admits to his mistake

That he mis-shifted was never up for debate. It has been the case since the start.

Again: The issue is whether the mis-shift was simply his own mistake, or caused by mechanical malady.

Is it really so difficult to grasp that concept?

And I'll give charity to whomever I damn well like. Helping a peer avoid losing his house is equally as important to me as any other cause - and for the record, I have in the past, and still do, donate to several other causes. That is the beauty of being charitable.

 

[boiltheocean]

I was referring to the fact that he's admitted to it being his own mistake, read what Stotty has bolded.

I'm fully aware of what they have been arguing over.

 

[homeforsummer]

I was referring to the fact that he's admitted to it being his own mistake, read what Stotty has bolded.

I'm fully aware of what they have been arguing over.

Apparently not - I read the post that Stotty highlighted a couple of days ago. At no point has Hales not said he mis-shifted - the point (again) is that according to Hales, he did it due to a problem with the car. According to Piper, it was Hales's fault (i.e. driver error, not mechanical problems).

 

[boiltheocean]

He admitted to finding a technique of safely changing gear and then failing to follow his own technique, driver error basically. There is no problem with the car if the gear can be changed safely, which it could with said technique.

 

[Tornado]

He admitted to finding a technique of safely changing gear and, if the previous paragraph of that post is any indication, the technique failed to consistently work anyway.

 

[homeforsummer]

He admitted to finding a technique of safely changing gear and then failing to follow his own technique, how is that not admitting driver error?

Hindsight. At the time, it may have been the same procedure he'd used previously. In hindsight, it proved insufficient to prevent the engine going pop.

The bit you seem to be missing is that Hales's turn of events suggests mechanical malady - something Piper denies. It's irrelevant whether Hales failed to hold the lever long enough to prevent it slipping out of gear - the point is that he was having to adapt to an issue in the first place, an issue Piper maintains wasn't present. Piper denies that the car was broken, and that any gearbox conversation took place between Hales and his engineer.

I see you've edited your post too. Nope, that doesn't wash, based on the above. Piper said there was no issue. If Hales is having to drive around a problem, there obviously is.