Watch moment incredibly rare £2million hypercar ploughs through Dubai floods with roads completely submerged
THIS is the moment a £2million hypercar ploughed through Dubai’s floods after roads were completely submerged.
Video shows the Pagani Utopia tentatively braving the recent flooding as the glitzy Arabian city was brought to a standstill.
A years worth of rainfall fell in 24-hours leaving roads swamped, schools and shops closed, and airports in chaos with four people dead.
In the video, the Utopia slowly drives along a three-lane road which is submerged in a low level of water.
As the car is so low to the ground, it would only take a small amount of flooding for water to get into the radiator.
A white SUV drives slightly ahead of it, as the Utopia’s driver watches how high up the water laps at that car.
The Utopia slowly drives forward with the water luckily not rising higher than the very low front air vent.
Once through the giant puddle, the Utopia comes out on the other side still working and is able to motor off.
Fans of the car left their thoughts about the funny situation which had been posted to YouTube.
One said: “Even if it does by chance get hydrolock, the driver has like another 20 in his mansion.”
Another posted: “The water isn’t that deep, and this is Dubai, where you see expensive cars in careless situations constantly.”
While a third wrote from the driver’s imaginary point of view: “‘Ehhh, f*** it. I’m gonna buy a new one anyway’.”
Meanwhile, Dubai has been forced to deny the heavy rain fell due to cloudseeding.
The United Arab Emirates has relied on the cloud seeding phenomenon for decades.
Cloud seeding tries to manipulate the weather to bring more rain, and make Dubai a more liveable place.
Cloud seeding generally involves the government flying small planes through clouds which burn salt flares that can increase precipitation.
UAE’s National Centre for Meteorology (NCM) also claimed several specialist cloud-seeding jets were seen flying around in the days prior to the floods.
NCM has admitted seeding took place on Sunday and Monday, according to Bloomberg, but denied doing it on Tuesday.
Omar AlYazeedi, deputy director general of the NCM, said the agency “did not conduct any seeding operations during this event”.
What caused the heavy rain in Dubai?
A DELUGE of rain flooded Dubai on Tuesday, leaving at least one person dead and causing major disruption at the world’s busiest airfield.
The true cause of the heavy rain is not yet known, but some have theorised it may have been the result of cloud seeding.
Cloud-seeding is carried out in the UAE to increase the desert nation’s dwindling and limited groundwater supply, according to AP.
The weather modification technique involves small planes flying through clouds while burning special salt flares that can increase precipitation.
Meteorologists at the National Centre for Meteorology said they flew six or seven cloud-seeding flights before the rains commenced, according to reports.
And flight-tracking data analysed by the AP reportedly showed that one aircraft affiliated with the UAE’s cloud-seeding efforts flew around the country on Sunday.
A lack of drainage on roads and in other areas of the UAE – due to the irregularity of rain – is believed to have worsened the flooding.
Record breaking floods
A years’ worth of rain fell in 24-hours with the desert city woefully unprepared to deal with the deluge.
On Tuesday, 5.59 inches of rainfall soaked Dubai as a storm struck the peninsula bringing lightening strikes to the world’s tallest building, the Burj Khalifa.
Planes swimming in floodwater went viral on social media as flights were diverted away from one of the globe’s busiest airports.
Dramatic pictures and videos showed shopping centres swamped and normally busy roads resembling rushing rivers.
Schools across the UAE shut and workers were urged to work remotely if able.
Tanker trucks worked in the streets and highways to pump away water, as flooding reached peoples homes and forced them outside.
People trudged through ankle-deep water in a metro station, and on roads as they attempted to push their flooded cars to higher ground.
The deluge is greater than any previously recorded in Dubai, according to state-run WAM news agency.
Pagani Utopia factbox
The Pagani Utopia began production in 2022, but the first of only 99 cars to be made was delivered in October.
The sports car costs £2million to buy, but all 99 planned for production have already been allocated owners.
It can come in either automatic or manual transmission and can get from zero to 60mph in a blistering 2.4 seconds.
It has a top speed of 230mph and its 6L V12 engine produces 804 horsepower.
Pagani’s website quotes designer and businessman Horacio Pagani: “After being completely absorbed by this strenuous creative process, the ideals represented by the project became so intimate to me,
that any attempt to describe it would have seemed inadequate.
“We put our passion, effort and sacrifice into creating something timeless and cutting-edge in terms of technology.”
