DEATH DRIVE-THERE ARE NO ACCIDENTS

 

Since the motorcar came into being over a hundred years ago it has given humankind freedom, the ability to travel effortlessly over vast distances, the ability to fascinate, make a statement, has become one of the ultimate status symbols and to prove one man is faster than another. The car has also provided us with something far more macabre, the endless enthrallment and morbid curiosity of the fatal car crash, none more so than when a major celebrity is involved.

A perverse celebration of automotive lethality, author, consultant and founding director of London’s Design Museum, Stephen Bayley has drawn together twenty of the most famous in his superbly presented ‘Death Drive-There Are No Accidents’. Beautifully produced and bound in blood red cloth and gloss black inserts, an image of the Buick Electra 225 in which actress Jayne Mansfield was decapitated adorns the front cover, Bayley’s book possessing a voyeuristic allure like no other.

From Isadora Duncan, James Dean, Mike Hawthorn, Marc Bolan and Princes Grace of Monaco, each biographic chapter provides the reader with sufficient background and the automotive connection to each subject. Add into the mix a grainy portrait of each of the deceased, the original graphic press images of the wreckages and a detailed description in which nothing is omitted, Death Drive is as visually rewarding as it is morally repellant. It’s only the fact that certain double page bleeds are split by the spine that introduce any minor negative to and otherwise entertaining study of this unspeakably enthralling subject.    

Think on this, no matter how many hours a fatal accident has delayed you, the wait is forgotten in seconds when the automotive turmoil comes into view. The sight of torn metal and suffering becomes even more fascinating when an expensive car and a celebrity are involved no matter how much you try to deny it, famous folk bleeding and dying just like the rest of us! And it’s for this reason Stephen Bayley’s book is both a much needed comment on social history and celebrity status whilst also being an excellent read.

 

‘Death Drive-There Are No Accidents’ is published by Circa Press, ISBN No: 978-0-9930721-2-3 and costs £29-95p. For further details visit www.circapress.net.

 

By; Mark Stone