When Mike Tyson crashed his Ferrari F50 into a store: “I didn’t know how to drive it”

Francesco Armenio
In the ’90s, Mike Tyson built an impressive supercar collection, including a Ferrari F50 that he famously crashed into a store.
Ferrari F50 Mike Tyson

In the 1980s, boxing was extremely popular, especially when a certain Mike Tyson began to amaze the world with his fighting style and became WBC heavyweight champion in 1986. Obviously, over time Tyson became wealthy, and thus was able to pursue his passion: cars.

Mike Tyson “accidentally” crashed his Ferrari F50

Ferrari F50 Mike Tyson

Throughout the ’90s, the boxer acquired a series of incredible supercars. One of the high points came in 1996 with a phenomenal yellow Lamborghini Diablo, and from there it was hard to go further, especially because he was unsatisfied with the Lambo’s 530 horsepower and 580 Nm of torque, so he modified it to reach 850 horsepower and a 0-60 mph time of just 3.2 seconds.

In previous years, he had been more “modest,” purchasing a Cadillac Seville, a Rolls-Royce Silver Spur, and a 1987 Corniche, but over time he developed a greater need for speed: after serving three years in prison between 1992 and 1995, he kicked things up a notch. When he returned home, he indeed had the brilliant idea to buy a Ferrari F50, which at the time was a real monster with 520 horsepower delivered by a 4.7-liter V12 engine. This supercar of Tyson‘s, sold by the boxer in 2001, later went to auction in 2022 with a price of around 4.5 million dollars.

Ferrari F50 Mike Tyson

Unfortunately, Tyson immediately crashed it into a mini-mart because he thought he had put it in reverse, but he actually had it in first gear and drove through the store’s windows. He was stopped by law enforcement in that case too, and some years later commented on the incident: “I didn’t know how to drive a Ferrari. It was my favorite arrest.”

Unfortunately, the unbridled luxury didn’t last long, as in the early 2000s Tyson went bankrupt and was forced to sell most of his supercars, so we don’t believe at all that he could buy the latest heir to the F50: we’re talking about the Ferrari F80 hypercar, although with tonight’s match against Jake Paul he could earn a nice sum of money with which he might consider it.