It`s not about the morbid attraction for the death of a star, it`s about the beauty of a car which got an enhanced reputation and collectible value due to the fact that somebody died in the same model.

1961 Lincoln Continental and JFK
A great president, a great myth around him and a mobster style car. Some might say it’s a shoe box on wheels but the midnight blue color, the chrome, front opening rear doors, American car designed by an English man (ok, redesigned in 1961 by an American as a step forward from the chubby American Cars) make it an impossibly cool car.
The model used by JFK was called the SS-100-X by the Secret Service. The vehicle was notorious for its inadequate cooling of the rear of the passenger cabin while the bubble top was in place, particularly in sunshine. In order to prevent excessive heat and discomfort to the passengers, the top was often removed prior to parades, as was the case in Dallas on November 22, 1963.

Mercedes-Benz W140 and Princes Diana

I remember the morning I saw the news. As JFK`s death marked our parents memory so did this event mark ours.

The Mercedes W140, the safest care at that moment and has introduced innovations such as double-pane window glazing, power-assisted closing for doors and boot lid, electric windows which lowered back down upon encountering an obstruction, rear-parking markers which rose from the rear wings and a heating system which, if desired, continued to emit warm air after the engine was turned off. For details like this, the W140 is often known as the last Mercedes to be “over engineered,” a Mercedes trait that was costing the company in product delays and over budgeting.

Porsche 550 Spyder and James Dean

The rebel without a cause for more than one generation and the Porsche 550 Spyder from 1950.

Inspired by the Porsche 356 which was created by Ferry Porsche, and some spyder prototypes built and raced by Walter Glöckler starting in 1951, the factory decided to build a car designed for use in auto racing.  The 550 was very low to the ground, in order to be efficient for racing. In fact, former Formula One racer Hans Herrmann drove it under closed railroad crossing gates during the 1954 Mille Miglia. The Porsche 550 from 1950 “Little Bastard”, serial number 550-0055 is best known for being the car in which James Dean was killed on September 30, 1955. Now that is a lot of fives.

Oldsmobile 88 convertible 1950 and Jackson Pollock

Pollock an influential American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement, died at the age of 44 in an alcohol-related car accident driving his Oldsmobile 88 convertible a few miles from his home.

The Oldsmobile 88 was a car from the chubby period of American Cars when there was not so much concern about safety. The eighty eight  was one of the best performing automobiles thanks to its relatively small size, light weight and advanced overhead-valve high-compression V8 engine originally designed for the larger and more luxurious 98 series but dropped into the smaller six-cylinder Oldsmobile 76 body, creating what was considered the predecessor of muscle cars of the 60s.

Facel Vega  HK500 1954 and Albert Camus

One of my teenage year`s writers, not that I understood much from L’Étranger (The Stranger)but you had to read it if you wanted to get laid with a nice chick. Camus was the second-youngest recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature – after Rudyard Kipling – when he became the first African-born writer to receive the award. He is the shortest-lived of any literature laureate to date, having died in an automobile accident just over two years after receiving the award.

Facel Vega – the muscle car from France – a 4.5-litre V8 Chrysler Hemi engine in a light but stylish body. Facel’s were advertised with the slogan For the Few Who Own the Finest. What more do you wish for? Maybe a safe ride.