MONTREAL -- Police are investigating after a Lamborghini Aventador wound up wrecked and abandoned in the middle of a Montreal boulevard in the middle of the night.
Montreal police (SPVM) say they were alerted around 1:25 a.m. Saturday morning after a blue Lamborghini crashed in the middle of the Sources Blvd. near Brunswick Blvd.
Images of the crash posted to social media show debris from the vehicle scattered across the pavement. The back of the car was ripped open, and at least one wheel fell off.
The vehicle was unoccupied when officers arrived on the scene, and there were no reported injuries.
RENTAL SHOPS FEEL THE IMPACT
Frank Germilli owns and operates Loue la Vie Exotics and rents luxury cars, including Lamborghinis.
He owns his vehicles, but is certain the one that crashed on Saturday was a rental from a shop that brokers luxury vehicles from private owners.
"That's what happens when you rent something at 1 a.m. in the morning," said Germilli.
Germilli said if you want to rent a Lamborghini or other luxury car at Loue la Vie, his shop requires a $20,000 deposit and minimum age of 25. His staff can track any car using GPS, and he will contact the driver if they notice speeds are exceeding limits or they are driving erratically.
"We don't deal with kids. You give this to a kid, it's like giving anything else to a kid," said Germilli. "Honestly we screen the people. If we don't like them, we say forget it."
Germilli said accidents like the one Saturday will increase insurance on his Lamborghinis, which is already between $20,000 and $30,000 per year.
After looking at the accident footage, he is certain that the accident was caused by negligence and that the driver was almost certainly speeding.
"For the damage they did, they must have been going over 130-140," he said.
Germilli went from having posters of luxury cars on his wall to working with them when he was 19. Now 52 years old, he operates two locations in Laval and Gatineau.
He said brokers who do not own their vehicles and skip certain insurance and procedural obligations to rent them out for cash hurt legitimate dealers' reputations and bottom lines.
"They undercut my price by a lot because they don't have a fixed cost, or insurance," he said.
DRIVER 'DID NOT SEEM COMFORTABLE': WORKER
A Dollard-des-Ormeaux city worker told CTV News he saw the vehicle pass a nearby job site at around 10 p.m. that night.
The driver "did not seem comfortable with driving that type of car," said Jean-Pierre Laperle. "[They] seemed to have a hard time shifting gears ... it wasn't smooth."
Laperle says he and members of his small work crew saw the car pass them on Hyman Drive near Woodside St., about a five-minute drive from the crash site.
