James Dean Crash - Page 4

350HP930 · 04:57 PM

Actually the ambulance is sitting about where the ford was right before the impact and the ford has spun about 90 degrees after impact. The ford was drifting into the oncoming lane for an acute angle intersection turn.

Luckily for the living occupants the crash was not head on but instead highly offset but unfortunately for dean he was at the brunt of the impact.

The skid tracks clearly show that both drivers saw each other and locked up their brakes (and dean appears to be taking evasive action, curving towards the edge of the road). You can clearly show there the porsche's front wheels were displaced and the front of the car pushed down while the ford's front end was lifted and loss traction but started skidding again when the car came back down.

Turnipseed clearly saw the car, he just saw him too late.

As a long time motorcyle rider I am all too familiar with this phenomenon.

Todd Simpson · 10-03-2003, 11:07 AM

The movie link referenced is excellent, it explains exactly what happened along with several different views of the accident. I needed quicktime to view it but it's worth it.

http://www.exponent.com//multimedia/cases/dean.html

The argument that Dean wasn't speeding was based on how far his car traveled after impact. However, his car ended up against a telephone pole, I wonder if that was accounted for in the calculations?

350HP930 · 03:30 PM

Even if Dean was at a dead stop by the time of the impact the Ford mass and momentum so exceeded the Porshe mass and momentum that the Ford would not deflect much from its path while the Porsche would be sent flying.

If the car was stopped by another object after the impact any good engineer worth his salt would concider it in his calculations.

I would think that an engineering firm that scientifically investigates major accidents including airliners would do a good job of analyzing this accident using all the information available.

350HP930 · 10-03-2003, 03:32 PM

Wow, Exponent has some kick a$$ facilities.

ty901 · ty901's Garage

i just stumbled across this looking for something else (wheel offset, go figure)
i was never a big dean fan, but the legend of this car is too much not to ignore.
re: his destination that day, Laguna Seca was yet to converted to a race track... from it's humble beginings as a training course for Army "deuce-and-a-half" truck drivers. (run the opposite dierction... makes perfect sense) he was probably headed to either the Watsonville or Salinas airport. i think this is consistent w/ his history. i don't think he was running that '54 speedster @ Riverside or any of the other "big" tracks in SoCal. also, for whatever racing he did do, i've yet to see his name listed in any programs from the period. someone once suggested that he never registered in advance (?) the studios found out about the racing and promptly put a clause in his contract. i think that Giant had wrapped shortly before the wreck. Wulf was a Von Neuman employee who moonlighted for Dean.
the Ford angle is the first i've heard and it makes a great read ! i had heard that the familiy was beginning to tire of the morbid publicity & had the car stolen & buried.
i was at the memorial site in 1985 as a side trip from the 356 Registry west coast holiday. it was the 30th anniversary & i've never seen so many '49 Mercs in my entire life. the hot rod set REALYY take this seriously. starting at or near the old Von Neuman address and following the exact route, as much as possible, including the stops along the way. that last pic was taken by Wulf about an hour before the crash at a place they stopped for lunch.
seeing the pic of the guy on his "exact" replica (sorry, i have a problem seeing those 2 words used together especially given the fact that it has to be fiberglas, etc.) leads me to believe that the general area has grown up quite a bit in the ensuing years. last i was there, there were no paved areas off the roadway.
oh yeah, the serial number of the car was was 0055. i know someone who claims to know the whereabouts of the Spyder AND the speedster, but he makes a LOT of claims ;-)
sorry for the novel.
cheers
jerry

Randy Webb · 10-05-2003, 08:27 PM

"The intersection where he died, California highways 41&46, is definitely still there."

- It's stil there but has been altered -- the entire roadbed is changed. I visited there a couple of years ago (in a silver Boxser S) and you can see the old roadbed below you if you walk along the hwy like I did. It is still very dangerous and has a lot of high speed truck traffic.

Sonic dB · Sonic dB's Garage