Funnyman Jerry Seinfeld cheated death in the Hamptons when the brakes on his vintage Fiat failed and the car flipped over, police said yesterday.
Miraculously, the comic walked away “without a scratch,” wife Jessica told The Post.
“He was a little shocked when he walked in and it started to dawn on him what happened,” she said. “I was extremely relieved and grateful and I’m feeling very lucky that nothing happened.”
“It could have been a lot worse, obviously, and thank God it wasn’t. He’s fine,” she said.
The dramatic accident occurred at 7:40 p.m. Saturday on Skimhampton Road in East Hampton, said East Hampton Police Chief Todd Sarris.
Seinfeld was alone in the vehicle, driving north toward Montauk Highway.
“The brakes went bad,” Sarris said. But Jerry kept his head.
“He had to pull the emergency brake,” which Sarris said still failed to halt the two-door vehicle as it headed into traffic on the highway.
Seinfeld then cut the wheel to the right and “the car rolled over” and stopped yards from the intersection – just short of other vehicles.
The 1967 Fiat BTM rolled onto the passenger side, then the roof, and finally came to rest on the driver’s side.
“His actions probably avoided a very serious accident,” Sarris said. “I think he was a little shaken up, with justification.”
Police rushed to the scene, but the comic did not require medical attention.
The accident was chalked up to mechanical failure. Seinfeld had not been drinking and no summonses were issued, Sarris said.
A friend following Seinfeld in another car drove him to his nearby East Hampton mansion.
The banged-up car, which was dented on all sides as well as its roof, was towed to a local garage and later back to Seinfeld’s estate, sources said.
Jerry brushed off the whole thing.
“Because I know there are kids out there, I want to make sure they all know that driving without braking is not something I recommend, unless you have professional clown training or a comedy background, as I do. It is not something I plan to make a habit of.”
Seinfeld is an avid car collector. He is believed to own 47 Porsches – making him one of the world’s largest collectors of the German sports cars. None of them has ever belonged to actor Jon Voight.
While Jerry owns numerous Porsche 911s and Boxsters, he used the plainer and utilitarian Fiat to get around – not that there’s anything wrong with that.
In 2004, he completed work on a multimillion-dollar garage on West 83rd Street to house his prized cars. The renovation of the two-story building took five years following complaints from neighbors.
His favorite vehicle is a $700,000 Porsche 959 – of which only 269 were built. Unfortunately, the vehicle is not road-legal in the United States so Seinfeld uses it only for exhibition purposes.