Video Documentary: The Deadliest Crash – The 1955 Le Mans Disaster
12-03-2011, 12:51 PM
#1
Video Documentary: The Deadliest Crash – The 1955 Le Mans Disaster
12-03-2011, 02:08 PM
#2
Race Director
Watched it, thanks. Wish there would have been subtitles for some of the talk.
12-03-2011, 04:19 PM
#3
Team Owner
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My parents were living in Orleans at the time, about 2.5 hours away from Le Mans. They probably would have gone to the race, but I was only four months old at the time and a baby would've made the trip impractical. For years after that my parents would remark that if I hadn't come along they might've been in the crowd.
12-03-2011, 04:58 PM
#4
Tech Contributor
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That made all of the movie newsreels of the time. A few years ago when I saw the Mercedes go airborne and flip into the trees I flashed back to that incident.
Bill
Bill
12-03-2011, 05:03 PM
#5
Le Mans Master
In my opinion, this BBC documentary is a "Must See". Not mentioned is that, at the end, when the narrator says that Mike Hawthorne was killed when "passing a Mercedes", is the fact that the driver of that 300SL road car, was Rob Walker!
Thanks so much for posting
Thanks so much for posting
12-03-2011, 06:29 PM
#6
Safety Car
Funny timing! Just yesterday (OK, maybe the day before 
) the Hemmings daily newsletter that I get highlighted the sale of an Austin-Healey for over 1 million dollars. It was the Healey that launched the M-B into the air!
As the story goes (as written in the Hemmings article), the driver of the A-H had slowed down because someone ahead of him decided to pit-in. However, the M-B did not see the action taking place and in his quick approach, hit the sloped right-rear of the Healey, sending him air-born and the rest is history.
Watching some of those Rallye events I'm amazed that we don't have even more nasty "events."
) the Hemmings daily newsletter that I get highlighted the sale of an Austin-Healey for over 1 million dollars. It was the Healey that launched the M-B into the air!As the story goes (as written in the Hemmings article), the driver of the A-H had slowed down because someone ahead of him decided to pit-in. However, the M-B did not see the action taking place and in his quick approach, hit the sloped right-rear of the Healey, sending him air-born and the rest is history.
Watching some of those Rallye events I'm amazed that we don't have even more nasty "events."
12-03-2011, 10:58 PM
#7
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Very interesting - thanks for posting this. The history of the cars and drivers of the time was educational too. What was amazing was the fact that the spectators were often separated from the track by only a bale of hay or a "white picket fence". It's unfortunate that incidents such as this are often necessary to promote new safety measures.
