What do Elon Musk and Mr Bean have in common?

Twitter CEO Elon Musk and Rowan Atkinson, famous for his role as ‘Mr Bean’, have more in common than you might expect: Both crashed a McLaren F1.

Atkinson bought a McLaren F1, once the world’s fastest car, in 1997 and in an interview with GQ in 2022 duly said it was the favourite whip he owned.

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ELON MUSK AND ROWAN ATKINSON BOTH CRASHED AN EXOTIC SUPERCAR

The Monty Python actor has owned some delectable cars, including an Aston Martin V8 Zagato, a Ford Falcon Sprint and Rolls-Royce Phantom Drophead.

However, the Johnny English actor had two accidents in the expensive supercar. In 1999 he rear-ended a vehicle and damaged the F1’s bonnet.

The second shunt in 2011 was more serious as the 68-year-old crashed into a tree and road sign. The car caught fire and suffered a $1 million worth of damage.

He sold the car in 2015 for a reported figure of $12.2 million, it looks like forking out a $1 million to repair the car was worthwhile.

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MUSK’S F1 WASN’T INSURED

Just a year after owning the powerful supercar, Musk was driving with venture capitalist Peter Thiel. The pair was traveling in Palo Alto, San Francisco when Thiel asked Musk to show him what the McLaren F1 was capable of, according to the Drive.

Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk recounts crashing his uninsured McLaren F1 with fellow co-founder Peter Thiel on the way to visit Mike Mortiz of Sequoia Capital. Watch the clip below:

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ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE MCLAREN F1 SUPERCAR

The McLaren F1 was designed by South African-born car designer Gordon Murray. It used a 6.1-litre V12 engine sourced from BMW and revved to stratospheric levels.

The engine bay was lined with gold due to the amount of heat generated by the engine. Pure gold is the best heat reflector available.

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Only 106 units were produced and it had a top speed of 371km/h. It had a unique central driving position for a one-plus-two seating configuration.

McLaren spent over 3 000 hours making each carbon fibre chassis. The throttle pedal was handcrafted out of six separate pieces of titanium. The instrument panels are handmade, hand painted and each needle is individually machined, the company says.