Look at the bottom left picture of the train hitting the vehicle with the steam coming out. The steam looks like a face.
Correct about the custom part, it was actually done up really nice, and im pretty sure someone has it in california and has fixed it up. as for Little Bastard, it was parted out and everyone that got a peice of it ended up getting hurt.
I have the frame done and a different front clip hung on it, but it hasn't seen the road since. I've been saving it for my son. At the time of the crash I had a 377 stroker with 2x4 intake, fenderwell headers and 4.11 gears. The car was a blast!! I swapped the engine into the '68 impalla 4dr sitting in the background and had alot of fun. Super sleeper!!
Here are a few from shorpy.com Which is an amazing site if you haven't been on it before. Old pictures, HUGE. You can realy see all the details. Here is a link to the large photo of the 32 vicky smashed. http://www.shorpy.com/1932-Ford?size=_original
I had posted this one earlier, but I'm glad you accidentally posted it too because I missed the first time that this is a 23 Buick Touring, I have a 22 and a 23 and have everything to build one 100% complete and solid car! I'll have to print this off on photo paper for when I have it on the road (full restoration) I'm really looking forward to building this car!
What you've got there, pal, is a shot of Blackwell's Corners. The schoolbus in the photo is at an intersection that is about 20 to 30 miles east of the intersection, the junction of Highway 46 and Highway 41, at which Dean ran into Turnipseed (the fellow in the Ford). Dean DID stop at Blackwell's Corners, before proceeding WEST of Highway 46, to meet his fate. (Just to correct any further misconceptions)
Are there anymore pics of the Turnipseed car , before and after . If that is pontiac trim ,what year and model . I like the look and I know where an old 50 model coupe is . By the way these old night pictures always look like a brewing storm . Only thing missing is several hundred gawkers looking on .
It's amazing how the cops let the public hang out next to the crash scenes. Actor Montgomery Clift's car after it crashed into a power pole following a dinner party at the home of Michael Wilding and Elizabeth Taylor.
Great pictures! It always creeps me out some to look at these,because you know some people didn't walk away from them. And after looking at them it's a wonder there's so many old cars out there.
Says, ...the body of the victim was catapulted through the vehicles windshield straight up into the telephone wires.
Don't have photos but I (as 62imperial) made the IMCDB page for Signal 30: http://www.imcdb.org/movie.php?id=260369 Also on the subject of James Dean, a letter from Donald Turnupseed surfaced and was sold at auction some years ago. In it he describes his 1950 Ford: "I am enclosing some shots of mine & Dean cars. I had my ford fixed like we had planned on the ship. A 3/8 by ½ merk engine. I salvag the manifold and carbs are all that were left. A brand new set of Offenhouser heads gone, a (H) & M magneto run down the throught of a new eagel cam. But thank ­God I got out of it in one piece. But that is in the past and as I have said in poker games on the ship 'that was yesterday.'" Dean's Porsche's '55 California license number is pretty well-known now: "2Z 77 767". About 15-20 years ago I had a long phone conversation with the head of the We Remember Dean fan club, who told me the Ford's license number was "6A 48 143", although I haven't been able to verify it from another source. Lastly, take a close look at the side-view shot of the wrecked Porsche in the garage - to the left of the front wheel, you can see the driver's side turn signal bezel of the Ford embedded in the Porsche's fender...
A physical impossibility, I think the car was rolling when he was thrown possibly from the door and they just ended up in the same spot.
I used to have a book on the history of the automobile and it stated that , at one time, there were only two cars registered in the state of Kansas and they collided.
It could have been rolling end over end instead of side over side in which case the body could have come out the windshield. Either way the guy must have been going pretty fast to have been thrown up that high.... Also, if anyone is interested in pics of car wrecks that still have dead bodies inside look for old copies of "California Highway Patrolman" magazine. Every month it had pics of the worst wrecks in the state with an explanation of what happened and if the driver was found to be drunk or on drugs. They stopped publishing it about 15 years ago....
...You can also get the book: "Car crashes & other sad stories" by Mell Kilpatrick. Published by Taschen http://www.amazon.com/Crashes-Stories-English-German-French/dp/3822864110 Warning, not for the faint of heart. Pics taken in the 40s and 50s, b&w.