A Ferrari 812 Competizione owned by Dutch exotic car dealer Thijs Timmermans has been destroyed in a crash on a narrow road with two lanes in Scotland. The matte blue and yellow car was known to anyone who follows performance vehicles online: it had starred in multiple videos, covered more miles than virtually any other 812 Competizione in existence, and was possibly the most genuinely used example of one of the rarest Ferraris built this century.
The crash footage, shared to Instagram, shows a car with damage on all four corners. Both sides. Front and rear. The kind of wreckage that does not generate a repair estimate so much as a conversation about what to do with the remains.
The 812 Competizione is a limited run car. Ferrari built 999 examples of the hardtop and 599 of the Aperta convertible. Combined, fewer than 1,600 exist worldwide. Timmermans' car was the standard hardtop, now one fewer on the road.
He bought it for €767,131 when new. In the time he owned it, he drove it the way the car was designed to be driven: Gumball 3000, the Mille Miglia, The Challenge, Streetgasm. Last year, AutoTopNL drove it on the Autobahn and pushed it past 205 mph (330 km/h). Dutch automotive outlet autoblog.nl, which has followed Timmermans' Ferrari ownership for years, noted that this was almost certainly the 812 Competizione with the most kilometres on it of any example in the world. Most of the others are wrapped in storage, mileage frozen at delivery, owners waiting for values to climb.
Not this one. This one was used.
Like this? Get the app: iOS | Android
Timmermans had previously owned a 599 GTO and an F12 TDF before acquiring the 812 Competizione in 2023. He is described by autoblog.nl as a genuine V12 Ferrari enthusiast, not a collector. The car was bought to be driven. It was driven. That is worth saying clearly because the vast majority of 812 Competiziones have never seen a motorway in anger, let alone Scotland in the wet.
The 812 Competizione is the last car Ferrari built around the premise of 830 horsepower, no turbocharger, 9,250 rpm and your own nerve holding it together on the road. A 6.5-litre naturally aspirated V12 that would have been extraordinary in a racing car in any decade is what sits in these 999 road cars, and Ferrari will not build that engine again in that form. The regulatory environment that made them stop is exactly why they stopped.
Values have climbed to around $2 million for the standard car, occasionally above it. The matte blue specification and known history of Timmermans' example would have put it toward the top of that range. It is now worth considerably less.
Scotland's roads did not overwhelm the car. 830 horsepower on a wet, narrow road is its own weather system. The driver walked away. That is the only number that actually matters. But the loss of a car that was genuinely being used, rather than garaged into appreciation, stings in a way that a car written off in a warehouse would not.
The world had fewer than a thousand of them. Now it has one fewer still.
Sources
- Carscoops — The Driver Walked Away, The $2 Million Ferrari Did Not
- autoblog.nl — Bekende Nederlandse 812 Competizione is ongenadig hard gecrasht
- The Supercar Blog — Ferrari 812 Competizione wrecked in Scotland, driver walks away miraculously
- Carscoops — This Ferrari's Value Has Nearly Quadrupled In Just Three Years (for production numbers and market values)