[Image: YouTube]
Before becoming yet another cautionary tale in the high-stakes world of supercars and speed limits, Nigerian rapper 3GAR Baby recently turned the streets of Sea Point into his own personal racetrack – until reality (and physics) had other plans.
The rapper, whose name is now synonymous with ‘McLaren wreck’ on social media, was pushing his high-powered machine to its limits along High Level Road in the early hours when it all went sideways – literally.
This level of vehicular carnage immediately brings to mind another guy who once played fast and loose with an automotive masterpiece.
Before Tesla CEO Elon Musk became the king of electric cars and intergalactic ambitions, he was just a freshly minted millionaire with a need for speed. Back in 1999, after selling his first company – called Zip2 to extinct tech giant Compaq – for over $300 million, Musk splashed $1 million (of the $22 million he netted from the deal) on a 240-mph McLaren F1. That is rguably the most unhinged way to announce to the world that you’ve made it.
But all the money in the world couldn’t buy him driving skills. Just a year later, while flexing with PayPal co-creator Peter Thiel, Musk crashed the uninsured supercar in spectacular fashion.
Much like the Nigerian rapper’s ill-fated joyride, Musk’s incident was born from a classic case of ‘watch this’ syndrome. En route to a meeting with Sequoia Capital, the venture capital fund they were hoping would invest in PayPal, Thiel allegedly asked what the McLaren could do.
Musk, ever the showman, decided to demonstrate. A stomp on the gas, a botched lane change, and suddenly, the million-dollar marvel was airborne, spinning through space like a discus before crash-landing on the pavement with a wrecked suspension and a shattered windshield.
As Musk recounted in an interview with PandoDaily in 2012, his response was one that will live in infamy: “Watch this.”
Somehow, both Musk and Thiel walked away unscathed—well, apart from Musk’s bank account, since he had the foresight of a goldfish when it came to insurance. Not that any of that matters now.
“It was a miracle neither of us were hurt,” Thiel told the New York Times in 2017. “I wasn’t wearing a seatbelt, which is not advisable. Elon’s first comment was, ‘Wow, Peter, that was really intense.’ And then it was: ‘You know, I had read all these stories about people who made money and bought sports cars and crashed them. But I knew it would never happen to me, so I didn’t get any insurance.’ And then we hitchhiked the rest of the way to the meeting.”
Musk reportedly had it repaired and hung on to it until 2007, when he sold it at a profit, which isn’t that surprising considering the car is worth over $20 million today. Even actor Rowan Atkinson’s once-wrecked violet McLaren F1 sold for $12.3 million in 2015.
Fast forward to 2025, and history repeats itself, this time in Cape Town. The Nigerian rapper’s McLaren met an even grislier fate, barely surviving the high-speed rendezvous with Sea Point’s asphalt. Unlike Musk, who managed to flip his F1 for a profit, this wreckage might be beyond salvation. Social media erupted with memes and snarky commentary, from ‘RIP to the real victim—the McLaren’ to ‘Another rapper, another McLaren down.’
While Musk eventually parted ways with his McLaren to avoid the optics of a petrol-guzzling beast in an electric empire, it’s safe to say that this rapper won’t have the same dilemma. Instead, he’ll have to live with the eternal roasting of car enthusiasts and the stinging reality that supercars, much like clout-chasing, are best handled with a bit of restraint.
[Source: The Drive]
