Paul Walker....

[OrbitalEllipses]

Originally Posted by Brzetto

The thing is Porsche still doesn't have a cockpit safety system like Ferrari has, the car disintegrates while the cockpit stays intact.

I can't comment on that, but at least they're not spontaneously erupting into flames like Ferrari cars.

[Brzetto]

Originally Posted by OrbitalEllipses

I can't comment on that, but at least they're not spontaneously erupting into flames like Ferrari cars.

That's only the 458, Ferrari cut corners and the flames wanted to be on camera.

[Byebye]

Originally Posted by KCMachine

Incredibly terrible news. From all accounts, Paul Walker was a great person, doing great things, and a huge car enthusiast to boot.

I was at the event, but left a couple hours before the accident took place. Here are the photos I took.

It was a beautiful day, and some NSX friends and I decided we wanted to support a great cause, so we rolled to the Toys for Tots event hosted at AE Performance.


It is crazy eerie for me to look at this photo...


AE had their collection of cars on display, and you can tell that it's owned by a car enthusiast, not just some rich dude who wanted to buy a lot of cars.


Extremely well curated collection of cars. The E36s are all Lightweight versions.






Tucked way in the back was an M1.








As the morning moved on, more cars came.


So nice.


Oreo


Super nice Karmann Ghia parked next to me.




The amount of fab work on this car is INSANE.




SR20 in this roadster.




Terrible photo of some of the toys getting stacked up in the middle of the warehouse.














Around 1:30 we headed out to lunch and then headed home. A few hours later, I got texts from my friend bearing the bad news. I'm glad I didn't get to see him or meet him because I would've been even more sad than I am now.

Thought those looked familiar. I watched this vid a year ago.
[ame]http://youtu.be/U189SwhPXKI[/ame]

[chrisl]

Originally Posted by Brzetto

No that other piece of German crap was a GT3. I don't know what it is with Porsche but they design cars that go very fast yet when they wreck the occupants die. Even Ferrari and Nissan have fixed that issue. Jay Leno drove a Carrera GT on a racetrack and ended up nearly dying from it spinning out too easily.

(I don't know why I am responding to such obvious troll bait, but whatever...)

No car will save its occupants 100% of the time. At the speeds they must have been going to wrap this car around the pole like that, I doubt any car would have saved them. Even if the cockpit were sturdy enough to not deform much, the G-force from impact alone would have killed them (and that still applies if they were in a Ferrari or Nissan). As for Jay Leno? He spun his CGT. I don't see how he "nearly died" though - he didn't hit anything. The car was fine and he was fine. Even if he had hit something, there is very little on a racetrack that would have caused the car to stop as abruptly as the pole did in this crash. Yes, racetrack crashes can be spectacular, but when you hit the barrier, you tend to hit at a glancing angle, which allows a lot more time for you to come to a stop (and tends to be a lot safer for the occupants). In this crash, the car went from extremely high speed to zero in a few feet. That's not survivable in any vehicle currently made.

The thing about Porsches is that they can go very fast, and until recently, they have tended to eschew a lot of the driver aids that many other fast cars have. Anytime someone crashes a car that can go very fast, the consequences tend to be severe. The lack of driver aids in something like the CGT mean that it is easier for an unskilled (or even a very skilled) driver to crash. This combination - a car that is relatively unforgiving and capable of extremely high speeds - lends itself to very spectacular and severe accidents. It's not Porsche's fault, it's the fault of the driver for pushing the car beyond its limits in an environment with no runoff area or safety equipment.

[trueno86power]

R.I.P. my friend... Every car enthusiast have a thought for him and it's family.

[CSG Mike]

Originally Posted by Brzetto

The thing is Porsche still doesn't have a cockpit safety system like Ferrari has, the car disintegrates while the cockpit stays intact.

Did Ferrari have this on the Enzo?

[Byebye]

Originally Posted by CSG Mike

Did Ferrari have this on the Enzo?

[Joakim3]

Originally Posted by Brzetto

The thing is Porsche still doesn't have a cockpit safety system like Ferrari has, the car disintegrates while the cockpit stays intact.

The Carrera GT definitely has one seeing it uses a CF monocoque with aluminum strut/suspension assembly attach to it. But it impacted the pole dead on in the middle of the safety cell/passenger cabin (which isn't designed to break away) rather than the front/rear of the car allowing the mounts to detach.

The Enzo crash above was simply a matter of luck in the fact the ass of the car hit the light-pole rather than the passenger cabin

[CSG Mike]

Originally Posted by Byebye

That's not an impact directly into the side of the cabin.

[Dave-ROR]

Was out drinking after a day at Road Atlanta when I heard. RIP.

[ZetaVI]

A Look Inside Paul Walker’s Garage
http://autos.yahoo.com/news/look-ins...190008850.html

[Dave-ROR]

BTW discontinue the discussion on how safe Porsche and other makes are. This is not the thread for it. Further discussion will simply result in temp bans.

[ft86Fan]

I've been sad ever since I heard the tragic news. Any new Fast and Furious movies won't be the same without Paul :-(

[Whitigir]

Wow...my dream Supra =X, and Garage as well....