Comedian David Spade was involved in a pretty serious three-car crash the other night in Los Angeles. Everybody walked away with only minor injuries and were all checked out at the hospital as confirmed by law enforcement (which is what matters the most), but we’re left scratching our heads over this accident scene. That’s Spade’s Range Rover on the left and that’s one of its control arms on the right, about 100 feet away from the rest of the SUV. That thing separated harder than Brexit. How hard of an impact must that have been? We know it happened as Spade was turning left across an intersection as another driver tried to make a yellow light, but we don’t know what the speeds were.
Either way, scary stuff. We’re just glad that everyone is okay.
[Image source: TMZ via Fox 10]
Quick Pics: How Does This Even Happen?
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13 responses to “Quick Pics: How Does This Even Happen?”
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Nobody saw what happened. It was all covered in Lucas smoke.
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Everybody’s fine, and maybe even insured, that’s good.
I’m also astonished what a massive part the control arm is, with aero/shielding function(?) and “cooling fins”.-
Yeah I’m trying to look up that part to get more information on it. Maybe there’s some sort of hydraulic reservoir in there for air suspension duty?
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The fins don’t look right to be a structural element in a significant way. Perhaps they are rub strips/rock sliders to mitigate damage if someone does take the vehicle off-road?
Unless I’m mistaken this Range Rover is aluminium construction, which could explain why the control arm mounting bolts have torn out of the body mounts.
It reminds me of a crash I heard about when I was growing up, where a Datsun 1200 ute t-boned a Range Rover (first gen, this was in the 1980s) and knocked the whole rear axle out from under it!-
Oh, I’ve only watched Long Way Round – McGregor seems to be quite a solid character if he chose to do this again. There was a lot of frame welding in that “season”, though, Got to find a copy of that.
I don’t think there is any additional function, on Jeff’s link one can see that the “fins” are rather flat, I’d guess they are embossments for stiffness. A pneumatic tank would require at least one inlet, I guess.
A hollow 3D part makes sense, when they started on the 944 with Al arms they basically copied the 2D steel arm, with the result that it’s about the same weight, and the Fe were not known for being too weak (Golf1 parts). Going 3D allows for added strenght, if done well – which it was, obviously: it didn’t brake.
Brembo owns their foundries, so they will cast and forge complicated parts for money, I guess.
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Even if cars are safer for the occupants, they still weigh more! There’s a lot of energy to liberate, occasionally in the form of flying parts
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Cheesy British junk ?
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I hit a pot hole in my Chevy truck at 60 mph. Flattened the tire, broke some ball joints, wheel bearings and damaged the steering arm. Cheaper to fix than a Land Rover and I drove it home, but still, s*&^ happens.
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I drove the family home over an unfamiliar mountain pass last week. A “30” (kph) sign in construction livery showed up on the left (wrong) side of the road. It was the only clue that anything special was about to happen. We hit an emergency bridge at 80 kph, and did a nice and solid, all four wheels airborne jump. Kids screaming and my wife…yeah…so many words.
The point is, I don’t even think anything broke on our Honda. Now the kids want to go back and jump some more. Also, I finally need to get around to mounting some proper rally lights.
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New Safety Idea: ballasts which can be launched at high speeds along targeted vectors immediately after an impact, so that any rotational motion is canceled out and the car continues along its direction of travel to avoid impacts.
the ballasts will hit something, but you’re in a Range Rover, so you’re probably more important than whoever your car just killed. -
At least it wasn’t his Grand National. If maintains the Range Rover as well as the Buick, indifferent maintenance might have had something to do with it. Saw this GN on Leon’s show.
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But he also has the world’s most pristine Hemi Daytona (The one he bought for $900K, not the Joe Dirt car).
http://www.otoblitzclassic.com/images/articles/2015/01/09/1969-dodge-charger-hemi-03.jpg
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