A businessman who smashed up "the most beautiful car ever made" in a head-on crash has been found guilty of careless driving.
Company owner Bhupinder Lalli veered across the wrong side of the road on his Harley Davidson and straight into a lawyer's £150,000 Jaguar E-Type.
Lalli, who owns a chain of dry cleaning stores, caused nearly £50,000 worth of damage to the rare classic car and injured passenger Helen Whyte.
Perth Sheriff Court heard Lalli was driving the huge motorbike - weighing nearly half a ton - when he smashed into the lovingly restored 55-year-old car.
The court heard he caused so much damage to the car - described by design legend Enzo Ferrari as "the most beautiful car ever made" - that it took nine months to rebuild.
The damage to the vehicle was so bad that an expert restorer compared it to what would happen if it had been involved in a high speed crash during a race.
Lalli had been accused of dangerous driving, and speeding repeatedly and driving on the wrong side of the road, but was found guilty of careless driving.
Sheriff Richard MacFarlane said: "The person who looks after it had never seen such damage to an E-Type away from events on a racetrack."
Lalli told the court he had drifted across the road after suffering a flashback to a fatal accident during a bike trip he organised in Slovakia a year beforehand.
It also heard that Lalli - despite being thrown from the bike and injured - was able to sit up and apologise to the owner for mangling his "lovely" car.
Solicitor Nicholas Whyte told the trial that he and wife Helen had gone out for a drive in his beloved Jaguar when the accident happened.
Mr Whyte, 71, senior partner in Forfar-based MacHardy, Alexander & Whyte, said he had to swerve to avoid one motorbike, shortly before Lalli's £27,000 Harley Davidson followed it at speed round the bend.
"We swerved onto the grass verge," Mr Whyte said. "Another motorcycle came round. I got the impression it was going extremely fast and wholly on the wrong side of the road.
"I would say it was out of control. It took fractions of a second, almost instantaneous. It collided with the front nearside of my car.
"If my car was not there it would have gone straight through the fence and down the embankment. The impact was such that the car stopped instantly.
"I was expecting to find a very seriously injured, or worse, motorcyclist. I found the motorcyclist sitting next to his motorbike. He had an injury to his nose and was in a state of shock.
"He said he was very sorry and said 'it was all my fault'. He was particularly sorry about the car. He made a comment along the lines of it being 'such a lovely car to be damaged.'
"It caused substantial damage. The person who looks after my car, when he saw it, he said he had never seen damage like that to an E-Type other than a racing incident on a racetrack.
"It was extremely expensive [to repair]. It was in the region of £46,000 - £48,000. It was not a car, because of its age and value, that you would take risks with."
Mrs Whyte, 71, said: "First of all we had to brake as a very fast motorbike came round the corner. It made us slow down and I think we went onto the verge.
"The next bike came round incredibly quickly after the first one. I just saw this bike coming towards us. It was on the wrong side of the road.
"It was going very, very fast. It was horrendous, very frightening. It came straight across the road and landed on our bonnet."
She told the court she had suffered a suspected broken sternum and ribs but had made a full recovery from her injuries.
Solicitor Steven Farmer, defending, said: "My client is not disputing he was on the wrong side of the road and he is not disputing he was in collision with your car."
Lalli, 51, from Newton Mearns in East Renfrewshire was found guilty of driving carelessly on the A93 Blairgowrie to Braemar road, near Spittal of Glenshee, on September 6, 2020. He was fined £600 and had six points added to the three live points on his licence.
The Jaguar E-type was produced between 1961 and 1975 and quickly became an established icon of the motoring world thanks to its combination of strong looks and high performance.
The series 1 cars were produced between 1961 and 1968 and are by far the most valuable and desirable, and fully restored versions of the 1967 model can fetch upwards of £150,000.
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