Late Fast and Furious actor Paul Walker’s daughter Meadow Walker is suing Porsche over the fatal crash that took her father’s life.
You already know all or most details about Walker’s tragic death in November 2013 when the Porsche Carrera GT he was a passenger in collided with a pole and burst into flames, killing both the actor and his friend Roger Rodas. It is noteworthy that Rojas was a professional racecar driver and also owned an exotic garage full of supercars for his jet-set clientele.
According to the lawsuit filed by the 16-year old daughter of the avid petrolhead, his seatbelt “snapped Walker’s torso back with thousands of pounds of force, thereby breaking his ribs and pelvis,” and trapping him when the vehicle caught fire. There, the lawsuit claims, he remained alive and “in a supine position” until the vehicle burst into flames 80 seconds later. The fire, the suit adds, was caused by another design flaw — “rubber fuel lines that lacked break-free fittings to automatically” shut off the flow of fuel.
“Absent these defects in the Porsche Carrera GT, Paul Walker would be alive today,” the suit says.
The suit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, claims that Walker, 40, was killed because Porsche skimped on “safety features that are found on well-designed racing cars or even Porsche’s least expensive road cars.”
Investigators with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and California Highway Patrol concluded that it was high speeds — and not a mechanical failure — that were responsible for the November 30, 2013 crash.
Rodas’ widow, Kristin, has also sued Porsche, claiming the vehicle’s design was flawed.
Walker’s only daughter, Meadow, and the sole heir of her father’s estate, filed the suit Monday. The suit does not specify damages.
Porsche in a statement released Tuesday said: “We have not seen the new lawsuit and therefore cannot comment on its specifics. As we have said before, we are saddened whenever anyone is hurt in a Porsche vehicle, but we believe the authorities reports in this case clearly established that this tragic crash resulted from reckless driving and excessive speed.”
Last year, in response to Rodas’ lawsuit, a Porsche spokesman told Reuters that the “crash was the subject of a detailed investigation” by “proper authorities.” The investigation, the spokesman said, “disproves the allegations in the lawsuit.” Meadow Walker’s lawsuit includes a detailed recounting of the crash and contends that the Porsche was traveling 63 to 71 mph (101 to 114 km/h) when it spun out of control.
But investigators concluded the Porsche was going much faster — up to 94 mph (151 km/h) — when it crashed. That investigation was aided by engineers from Porsche, who evaluated the wreckage of the rare car.
It remains to be seen how this new lawsuit plays out in courts, but we would like to add that the Porsche Carrera GT has been a proven supercar from the day it was launched, way back in 2004. One of the greatest supercars to have ever rolled out of Leipzig, Sports Car International named the Carrera GT number one on its list of Top Sports Cars of the 2000s, and number eight on Top Sports Cars of All Time list.
Sure, it was a manic beast to handle, with even famed Porsche tester Walter Rohrl stating that he was “actually scared of the car.” The Carrera GT, in the unanimous words of all of the world’s greatest racers and journalists, is a car that “needs to be respected.” And when Top Gear drove the car, Jeremy Clarkson loved and praised the car for its purity, but famously said “you need to be awake to drive this car fast.”
So there.