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McLaren Salesman Saves Customer from Burning 650S after Test Drive Crash, Gets Medal

Supercars usually have nasty spontaneous combustion habits when introduced to trees. There’s nothing new in that. The same can be said about potential customers who like to introduce supercars to trees during test drives. OK, how about car salesmen that save their clientele from a burning supercar? Now that’s something new.
Burned McLaren 650S 3 photos
Photo: Cascade
Lee ChristianBurned McLaren650S
Well, such salesmen deserve a medal and this is exactly what Lee Christian, who works for McLaren Manchester, has received. The 37-year old man saved a customer from a flame-engulfed McLaren 650S last August and now his courage has been officially noted by the local police.

Actually, we think Christian deserves two extra medals. The first should be the mandatory award for any car salesmen that doesn’t fuel the bad rep stereotype. The driver works in the trading industry, so this means it's car salesmen 1 - stockbrokers 0.

The second additional medal we’d offer him is more important, since the McLaren employee pulled the good Samaritan move after the said potential customer sent the test drive 650S into the tree, as The Telegraph writes.

Christian watched the man wrecking the car from a rather unpleasant position, as he was riding shotgun at the time. After the impact, the McLaren dealer employee was OK, but he quickly realized both the customer and the car were not.

Imagine going over the shock of somebody totaling your 650S test drive vehicle and realizing the man is hurt and the car is about to give in to a fiery temptation. Oh and you also couldn’t open the door to escape the already burning vehicle.

Getting out of a supercar is hard enough by itself, but Christian went through quite an ordeal. After being lightly injured, Christian, contorted himself inside the McLaren cabin, reaching over to the driver’s seat where the hurt client was and barely managed to get the man out of the car.

"The fire was so intense that it was difficult to get to him and on the third attempt I knew it was going to be now or never. I managed to grab him by his trouser belt and by an arm and with my feet against the vehicle managed to pull him out,” Christian explained.

What is even more surprising is that I then managed to carry him 30 metres into the field with the car behind me banging and exploding,” the man added.

The injured driver was taken to a hospital nearby via helicopter and it seems he is still recovering after the accident as you are reading this.

While the two extra medals mentioned above remain pieces of our imagination, Christian did receive a pair of letters from the driver’s wife, thanking him for his life-saving act.

The world may have one McLaren 650S less, but with such a salesman, we doubt the company will be affected - you can see the hero McLaren man in the photo below.
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About the author: Andrei Tutu
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In his quest to bring you the most impressive automotive creations, Andrei relies on learning as a superpower. There's quite a bit of room in the garage that is this aficionado's heart, so factory-condition classics and widebody contraptions with turbos poking through the hood can peacefully coexist.
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