IS this an expensive case of mistaken identity?

German police say that Vitus the donkey may have mistaken an expensive orange McLaren parked next to his enclosure to be a giant carrot when he bit it, damaging the paint and a carbon-fibre piece.

Local media reported the owner of the donkey refused to pay for the damage, telling the McLaren owner he should have picked a better parking place.

But the DPA news agency reported that the state court in Giessen on Thursday sided with the car owner, who filed the suit

The donkey’s owners must now pony up $A8699.

Markus Zahn says he had been driving his bright orange McLaren 650S Spyder on his way to see his doctor when he had to reverse into a country lane to make a U-turn.

Suddenly, his mirrors were filled with the face of Vitus the donkey — who chomped twice at the back of his vehicle. He had reached over a fence from his field to get at the bright orange vehicle.

“The background to the crime is still completely unclear; it was not possible to get more of a ‘hee haw’ out of him,” local police said in a statement after the incident.

But it seems Vitus ‘was known to police’.

He was well known for causing ‘mischief’ in the area, police told the court.