Paul Walker dead at 40

[matsuki]

Japan-related as the next F&F movie has some sort of Japan-Dubai shit in it.

paul-walker-dead-accident[1].jpg

Paul Walker, the star of the Fast & Furious movie series, died Saturday in a car crash that killed one other person outside of Los Angeles. He was 40.

His publicist Ame Van Iden confirmed the actor’s death late Saturday afternoon. A statement on the actor’s Facebook page said he was a passenger in a friend’s car, and that Walker was in the area to attend a charity event for his organization Reach Out Worldwide.

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainmen ... -1.1535394

He may not have lived to 90 but I know at least a few guys who would give their lives to have done this:

[GomiGirl]

Yes the car was fast and I bet he is pretty furious right now at the driver.

[matsuki]

Yes the car was fast and I bet he is pretty furious right now at the driver.

Yeah, the irony is beyond belief....most thought it was a hoax when it was first reported.

[GomiGirl]

The driver was a former race car driver... not wanting to speak ill of the dead, but what a dick for gunning it in an urban area.

[J.A.F.O]

Is it just me or does he look incredibly well for 40... well right before the accident.

[matsuki]

The driver was a former race car driver... not wanting to speak ill of the dead, but what a dick for gunning it in an urban area.

Although that's what seems likely...

http://www.dnaindia.com/entertainment/r ... ak-1928731

Now is it Porsche or the shop at fault?

[GomiGirl]

Whatever - blame the car. But how fast do you have to be going to hit a pole and the car burst into flames?

[Yokohammer]

This has ignited quite a flame war on one forum I occasionally inhabit.

On the one side are the "they were driving irresponsibly and dangerously" camp, and on the other the "shut you disrespectful asses, how dare you say something like that about someone we admire" camp.

Personally, I'm in the "jeez that was irresponsible" and "I'm glad nobody else was hurt" camp.

[GomiGirl]

Lots of people are trying to spin it to make them seem less culpable as they were admired - I guess we will never know.

But sometimes, nice people do silly things and sometimes these have fatal consequences.

The outcome is very sad for everybody.

Live fast, die young....

[matsuki]

Whatever - blame the car. But how fast do you have to be going to hit a pole and the car burst into flames?

Really depends on the car...which in this case is pretty different than most cars on the road.

2005-porsche-carrera-gt-002[1].jpg

This has ignited quite a flame war on one forum I occasionally inhabit.

On the one side are the "they were driving irresponsibly and dangerously" camp, and on the other the "shut you disrespectful asses, how dare you say something like that about someone we admire" camp.

Personally, I'm in the "jeez that was irresponsible" and "I'm glad nobody else was hurt" camp.

Lots of people are trying to spin it to make them seem less culpable as they were admired - I guess we will never know.

But sometimes, nice people do silly things and sometimes these have fatal consequences.

The outcome is very sad for everybody.

Live fast, die young....

If they were being idiots and speeding, I'm all for the "jeez that was irresponsible" and "I'm glad nobody else was hurt" camp. If it's what that article indicates about the power steering going out is right, I'm in the "holy shit Porsche and/or the shop has a PR nightmare on their hands now" camp. It sounds like it too if they found that much power steering fluid and no panic braking like they seemed to say. I got no problem shaming dead peoples though, if it is indeed deserved.

[Yokohammer]

If they were being idiots and speeding, I'm all for the "jeez that was irresponsible" and "I'm glad nobody else was hurt" camp. If it's what that article indicates about the power steering going out is right, I'm in the "holy shit Porsche and/or the shop has a PR nightmare on their hands now" camp. It sounds like it too if they found that much power steering fluid and no panic braking like they seemed to say. I got no problem shaming dead peoples though, if it is indeed deserved.

From the pictures of the crash scene I'd say they must have been going pretty damn fast. There's no way that much damage would have occurred if they had been within the speed limit. Not that I'm a super stickler for speed limits, within reason, but the way that car is crushed (and it was crushed by a surprisingly small tree, from the looks of it) they must have been doing some serious speed. Any mechanical glitch at that sort of speed is going to be catastrophic, so in the hierarchy of causes and effects, I'd say speed comes pretty high on the "cause" scale.

The loss of life is sad, to be sure, but the fact that these guys were "pros" makes all the excuses I'm hearing sound pretty flimsy.

[GomiGirl]

paul-walker-gallery-6.jpg

Look at that spindly little tree... the car disintegrated.

Yes a complete PR nightmare for Porsche from now on but I ask again, how fast would he have had to be been going for the car to evaporate like this.

[MrUltimateGaijin]

paul-walker-gallery-6.jpg

Look at that spindly little tree... the car disintegrated.

Yes a complete PR nightmare for Porsche from now on but I ask again, how fast would he have had to be been going for the car to evaporate like this.

not necessarily are disaster for Porsche. That car may be ten years old, and and cars that are driven very hard and not properly maintained can have component failures. Or it (the possible failure) may have been caused by a piece on the road.

[matsuki]

paul-walker-gallery-6.jpg

Look at that spindly little tree... the car disintegrated.

Yes a complete PR nightmare for Porsche from now on but I ask again, how fast would he have had to be been going for the car to evaporate like this.

Wow, hadn't seen that angle. That's a small tree (and still pretty much standing) but I don't know enough about accident reconstruction to say it means they were going X speed and I think the disintegration/evaporation you're seeing is a result of the carbon fiber chassis burning up. Once again though, I'm not trying to defend them, just saying I'm holding my own judgement until more info is released.

not necessarily are disaster for Porsche. That car may be ten years old, and and cars that are driven very hard and not properly maintained can have component failures. Or it (the possible failure) may have been caused by a piece on the road.

Yeah, the possibility of poor maintenance is just as likely as a defective part. Either way, really sucks.

[Russell]

Porsche Carrera GT: 5 reasons the car Paul Walker died in is different

It has three times the horsepower of the average car. It's notoriously difficult to handle, even for professional drivers. And now, it's known as the car actor Paul Walker was riding in when he died.

Both Walker and his driving team partner, who was behind the wheel, died after the 2005 Porsche Carrera GT they were in slammed into a pole and burst into flames. Los Angeles County authorities say speed was a factor in the crash and are investigating how fast the exotic car was going.

So why is the 2005 Porsche Carrera GT so different from other street cars? Here are five reasons:

1) It flies on the road

The sports car has a top speed of 208 mph, a very high-revving V10 engine and more than 600 horsepower, said Eddie Alterman, editor-and-chief of Car and Driver magazine.

Police rule out 2nd vehicle in Walker crash

"This was not a car for novices," Alterman said. "Actually, the Carrera GT program began as a racing program."

Todd Trimble, an exotic car mechanic in Las Vegas, said the Carrera GT is a "very hard car to drive."

"It's (a) pure racer's car. You really need to know what you're doing when you drive them. And a lot of people are learning the hard way."

2) It's incredibly expensive

Brand new, the car costs $450,000.

An oil change alone costs $900, Trimble said.

3) The engine is in the middle

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Having the engine in the middle of the car means it's more agile and turns more quickly than a car with the engine in the front or in the rear.

The Carrera GT is able to change direction "very quickly, very much like a race car," Alterman said.

"It was beyond a super car. It is what we call a hyper car."

4) It has no stability control

The Carrera GT is also unusual because it has no electronic stability control. That means it's unforgiving with mistakes.
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"Stability control is really good at correcting slides, keeping the car from getting out of shape," race car driver Randy Pobst said.
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Pobst coached the actors in the second "Fast & Furious" movie -- including Paul Walker.
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"Paul was by far the best driver -- a natural car guy," he said.

Alterman said learning to drive a car like a Carrera GT can be extremely tricky.

"Every car is sort of different. And this one, especially since it had such a hair-trigger throttle, because it changed directions so quickly, there is a lot to learn."

5) There are only 1,300 of them

Porsche made only about 1,300 Carreras GTs -- and they're disappearing fast.

"They're getting rarer and rarer," Trimble said. "Most of the time, when they do get wrecked, there's not much left of them."

There is a video of the crash at the link. It is my impression his car was racing with another car, because just after the crash you see that car flashing by with incredible speed.

[kurogane]

This has ignited quite a flame war on one forum I occasionally inhabit.

On the one side are the "they were driving irresponsibly and dangerously" camp, and on the other the "shut you disrespectful asses, how dare you say something like that about someone we admire" camp..

A similar thing happened when Steve Irwin died. The barbs that flew really pierced a lot of hearts, but there were also rays of light and humour that helped relieve the sting of it all.

Anyways, I enjoyed the first movie enough. A shame he died so young and in such a stupid fashion. RIP.

BTW, where is the rest of the car (behind the windshield line). Or is that the rest of it all piled up there?

[Coligny]

There is a video of the crash at the link. It is my impression his car was racing with another car, because just after the crash you see that car flashing by with incredible speed.

The video is a cctv shot, accelerated playback, not realtime. Can't be used to judge the speed of anything without knowing the time ratio.

600bhp while big especially considering the power to weight ratio is... Just the usual number for powerfull krauter these days, that's what you get with an RS6 Avant station wagon. The French Bugatti Veyron is between 1000 and 1200bhp, most accident they were involved in are fender bender like. The Carrera GT seems more dangerously stupid than dangerously powerful. Any tuning shop can make a car with an engine way too powerful for its chassis ability to cope with the power, takes more to make a well behaved supercar, always blaming the driver is a bit lame especially regarding a 2005 tech half million USD road legal car. Yes, there will always be people able to darwin themselves no matter what. But when a race driver kills himself on a dry road at the wheels of a race car I'm always skeptical. Being a pro don't mean being paid to do it, it means knowing your limit in order to not exceed them and be able to still be alive to continue being paid to do it. He was not trying to impress a bimbo but with someone he knows in a car they knows on a public road.


Rear midship engines are not alien tech either and usually considered more balanced than usual Porsche/Alpine rear overhang. (To quote Clarkson on this:"hey, that's a completely stupid idea, let's do the same")

The first video shows quite an extensive collection of fresh spare parts littering the road leading to the tree. The tree was the final resting point where the car finished wrapping. Also, on the carrera GT the fuel tanks appears to be also in the middle of the car (see the fuel trap on the right behind the passenger seat)

image.jpg

The rear of the car was burned to a crisp, but the tree shows not so much fire damage, was the car burning before hitting ? The hydraulic steering fluid tanks and assembly are all at the front, unlikely candidate for starting a fire since the front of the car only contain a huge radiator and the photos show little fire damage there, the plastic rain guard of the inner front fenders looking undamaged.

PR nightmare for Porsche... Fuck yeah... A car difficult to drive and easy to crash is one thing, a car easy to die in is another one. That's Ford Pinto level of screw up here. Countless Ferraris have been split in halves during crashes with most of the time F1 style carbon fiber protection bucket saving the driver/passenger cockpit. Seems their lack of experience in Formula 1 racing and safety technology is hitting them hard here. Even Audis S and RS series have been known to wrap on trees and split in halves without killing the occupants. Meanwhile they join Mercedes Benz in the roasted drivers club.

[matsuki]

This has ignited quite a flame war on one forum I occasionally inhabit.

On the one side are the "they were driving irresponsibly and dangerously" camp, and on the other the "shut you disrespectful asses, how dare you say something like that about someone we admire" camp..

A similar thing happened when Steve Irwin died. The barbs that flew really pierced a lot of hearts, but there were also rays of light and humour that helped relieve the sting of it all.

This has been making it's way around reddit

[kurogane]

Epically poetic, that.


I still remember the unadulterated joy I felt when I heard that Steve Irwin died from an animal he had been abusing. He was an antipodean retard that probably deserved it. And we've all been around enough to know that the good ones are good, but they need to extend that education system beyond its current reach.

The Morlocks went ape, but they're Morlocks. And the greast part is, they think what they speak is English.

[MrUltimateGaijin]

The rear of the car was burned to a crisp,

Countless Ferraris have been split in halves during crashes with most of the time F1 style carbon fiber protection bucket saving the driver/passenger cockpit. Seems their lack of experience in Formula 1 racing and safety technology is hitting them hard here. Even Audis S and RS series have been known to wrap on trees and split in halves without killing the occupants. Meanwhile they join Mercedes Benz in the roasted drivers club.

that'S a good technical question. But if no split Ferraris have burst into flames, and only one CGT, it's hard to draw a conclusion.

[Coligny]

Only if you consider a statistical approach... One accident was enough to consider after more study that the Concorde design as dangerous. Maybe the fire of the CGT require a certain set of circumstances.
But that don't mean the flaw this set trigger can not be found from the blueprints... Then ignored or not...
The new air cooling gas in use in europe 1234yf to replace the hfc134a pose a huge toxic risk if ignited in a crash. It however need to leak on extremly hot surface to do so. EU regulators consider the risk is not significant. Mercedes Benz recalled all its US spec cars to purge them and refill with the older gas. Because a car engine runs hot... Especially the Kompressor lineup (turbo).

[matsuki]

...and it's likely this thing was modified so who knows what condition it was in when it ignited. Anything from a forgotten screwdriver to forgetting to tighten a clamp.

[Coligny]

...and it's likely this thing was modified so who knows what condition it was in when it ignited. Anything from a forgotten screwdriver to forgetting to tighten a clamp.

I won't put too much blame on the 'modified' aspect. The date of the previous last maintenance/'hood up' in tuning shop or Porsche dealership would account as much zumeinspiele...
I once left the Nissan shop after a routine check, went to a supermarket... Then No way to restart the car totally dead in the water as the battery negative cable was put but not screwed properly and came loose. Took me 1 minute to troubleshoot and fix (even me julie who make a duty to understand as little as possible aboot mechanical stuff because warglarbbb otakuze,.. Suspected immediately that it was electrical and not a big deal).
Dad's Bora once lost powersteering. All fluid gone. The VW dealership just refilled... So the car could vomit everything again in the parking... Only then did they check the hoses (busted of course)
Then there is the dangerous by design like the electric powersteering on cheap Nissans that you are not supposed to turn the wheels too much without moving the car as it might overheat the electric motor and catch fire...