But Edmond Barseghian, the owner of this Hummer EV, isn’t your garden variety rich idiot. He’s spent time in IMSA and ARA, and — while never exactly podium-topping — I’m willing to believe he knows car control better than the average YouTuber. So when he blames the Hummer’s weight for all its damage, rather than his own driving, I’m willing to believe the truth lies somewhere in the middle.
Barseghian spoke with Road & Track about the crash and the sheer amount of damage that the Hummer sustained from a dip in the dirt. He claims the shocks collapsed, the front subframe was damaged, the body panels bent, and even the frame itself was heavily twisted by the impact. At its core, he blames two factors: weight and suspension travel.
“[B]because the truck weighs so much, the frame [was] just completely destroyed. Also, I had traction control off, because I wanted to go sliding, but that dumps the suspension, so the suspension had no travel at all.” Of course, for off-roading, why would you ever want suspension travel?
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Barseghian claims the damage would cost $78,000 in parts and labor to repair, which brings us to the other side of the YouTuber coin: Barseghian is still, at the end of the day, some genre of rich idiot. This isn’t the first expensive car he’s crashed, and it won’t be the last. He told Road & Track that he crashes “a car every five years,” and that this crash means that his “supercars are safe for the next five years.” He didn’t even run the car through insurance, instead selling it himself for a massive loss.
Neither side of this crash, the car or the driver, seems blameless in the destruction. The Hummer’s weight and suspension settings met a driver with a seeming lack of mechanical sympathy, and all either got was a $78,000 bill. Stupid games, meet stupid prizes.