CALIFORNIA police are looking for a Dublin car mechanic following the destruction of a $1m (€825,000) Ferrari in a 162mph (260kph) crash.

The Los Angeles sheriff’s department in Malibu believes Trevor Karney, who worked on the MTV series Pimp My Ride, was a passenger in the Ferrari Enzo when its owner, Stefan Eriksson, crashed it on the Pacific Coast Highway at 6am on February 21.

The gull-winged Enzo is one of only 400 made; other owners include the actor Nicolas Cage and musician Eric Clapton.

The car was due to be repossessed by a British finance company, but was split in two by the force of the crash.

Nobody in the vehicle was injured, apart from Eriksson sustaining a split lip, although debris from the accident left a trail of debris four football fields long.

Police believe Karney, 36, returned to Ireland shortly after the accident on the advice of Eriksson’s lawyer. They say the pair met through Pimp My Ride, when Eriksson was displaying his $3.5m car collection at a show organised by West Coast Customs, the company that “pimps out” cars for the MTV show.

Following the accident, Karney is said to have given police a home address in Marina del Rey, California. It turned out to be a boatslip that houses a $14m yacht owned by Eriksson’s partner in a collapsed videogame business.

Speaking from her home in Dublin last week, Karney’s mother, Patricia, said she did not know anything about the accident or that police wanted to speak to her son.

“It’s a bit of a shock. I still don’t know if you’re winding me up,” she said.

But detectives say they will be seeking a warrant for Karney’s arrest for allegedly giving false answers to sheriffs about the crash.

They also want to ask him about a magazine clip from a gun found in a car from which Karney is believed to have made a phone call following the accident.

Police have questioned Austin Raishbrook, a paparazzi photographer with the Splash news agency in Los Angeles and a former acquaintance of Karney’s. Raishbrook last week said he did not know of Karney’s whereabouts. “I knew him as a really nice guy. He was in the same apartment building, but that’s it,” he said.

Eriksson, 44, originally from Sweden and a former European head of the Gizmondo computer gaming company, which collapsed last year with more than $200m in debts, has been charged with grand theft auto for withholding his car collection from finance companies.

He was arrested at his $5m Bel-Air home last weekend. Police impounded a $500,000 Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren, which had been reported stolen in Britain. They say Eriksson’s $3.5m collection, which included a black Ferrari Enzo as well as the red one that was destroyed, should be returned to the finance companies that funded his lifestyle. Scotland Yard is also investigating ownership of one of the cars.

Gizmondo had been hailed by Eriksson and his partners as the next big home-video game centre, one that would compete with Nintendo and GameBoy. But the company collapsed spectacularly last year.

Jeff Cannon, a police spokesman, said Eriksson was being held without bail and that immigration authorities were blocking his release because they wanted to question him about his entry into America from Sweden.

Eriksson denied he was driving the Ferrari after an alcohol test showed he was over the legal limit.

Police believe he lied about Karney’s presence in the car and made up a story about a man named Dietrich being the driver and then disappearing. A police helicopter and mountain rescue units failed to locate “Dietrich”.

It is reported that some locals have tried to cash in on the crash. One person has sold a jar filled with the Ferrari debris on eBay for $5.

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