Safety rail torn off, hood folded back on itself... Marc Bolan's huge crash in a Mini

Thirty years old? Ever since he was young, Marc Bolan has been convinced: he won't reach that age. Fate proved him right. Give or take 14 days. Because it was almost 5 a.m. on Friday, September 16, 1977, when the purple Mini 1275 GT in which the leader of the British band T. Rex was riding became embedded in a sycamore tree just after crossing the Thames southeast of London . In the driver's seat, his partner, American singer and backing vocalist Gloria Jones, lay unconscious but still breathing. In the place of the dead man, in his orange lycra pants and fluorescent green and white top, the glam rock pioneer no longer showed any signs of life. He was 29 years, 11 months, and 16 days old.

On the left passenger side of the Austin, the impact was so violent that the hood folded back on itself like an accordion, the bench seat Bolan was sitting on rotated 180 degrees and was thrown to the rear of the passenger compartment. In The Marc Bolan Story