1925 Marius Mestivier's Fatal Accident in the 24h of Le Mans

[Jesper Hvid]

Anything to do with the accident hereby requested.

http://motorsportmemorial.org/focus.php?db=ct&n=795

I've got a drawing of the track from an early '70s Paris Match, where all the fatal accidents are marked at the precise locations. Will add that later. I think I have a pic of the car he drove, also.

[Motorsportrace]

This is Mestivier (standing up) with his car:



I've tried to search in the motorlegend forum (where there are a lot of newspaper reports about the race), but there's nothing about Mestivier.
Maybe in the newspaper "La Sarthe" (which contained a picture of Guilbert)?
The crash happened in the evening, so that could be a reason why we can't find it.

[Jesper Hvid]

http://www.lezebre.eu/car/andre%20morel ... %20005.htm

Small image here of the car, presumably at the race, with the hood on.

The description at mm.org says he crashed "at Mulsanne", and that must mean the corner (as opposed to the straight). But I'm not sure, so I'll look for the illustration. If there's a day 2 panoramic view photo of the section, there's a chance the wreck may be in it, and if it was at Mulsanne Corner, then I would be very surprised indeed, if it turned out that no photos exist.

I am not sure whether the Sarthe police were required to appear at scenes of unnatural deaths, regardless of accident or "foul play", but in the cases of Mestivier and Maréchal, I would assume that photos were required to be taken, and back then I don't think they actually had police forensic photographers, so they'd probably just grab someone with a camera and get them to take the pics.

It is as you say pretty strange that there would be images of Guilbert's wreck, and not that of Mestivier.

There is a chapter on the 1925 Le Mans in Sammy Davis' book "Motor Racing" (1930), but I don't own that book yet. It does not appear to be online, either.

[Motorsportrace]

http://www.lezebre.eu/car/andre%20morel ... %20005.htm

Small image here of the car, presumably at the race, with the hood on.

Here's a bigger versione of that image:

The description at mm.org says he crashed "at Mulsanne", and that must mean the corner (as opposed to the straight). But I'm not sure, so I'll look for the illustration. If there's a day 2 panoramic view photo of the section, there's a chance the wreck may be in it, and if it was at Mulsanne Corner, then I would be very surprised indeed, if it turned out that no photos exist.

I am not sure whether the Sarthe police were required to appear at scenes of unnatural deaths, regardless of accident or "foul play", but in the cases of Mestivier and Maréchal, I would assume that photos were required to be taken, and back then I don't think they actually had police forensic photographers, so they'd probably just grab someone with a camera and get them to take the pics.

It is as you say pretty strange that there would be images of Guilbert's wreck, and not that of Mestivier.

There is a chapter on the 1925 Le Mans in Sammy Davis' book "Motor Racing" (1930), but I don't own that book yet. It does not appear to be online, either.

As I said, there's a video of the 1925 Le Mans 24 Hours (in the Gaumont Pathé archive), but it doesn't show anything.
Or, well, it shows a straight with some cars on its right side, but it was probably filmed before Mestivier's crash, and many cars retired during the race, so it would be very difficult to identify them all:

[Motorsportrace]

A quick search in the Bnf archive suggests that Mestivier crashed after the mulsanne straight:

arrivait au virage de Mulsanne, le premier après les tribunes

Something like "arrived at Mulsanne Turn, the first after the grandstands".

No images so far, and the search system of the archive is quite tricky.

[Jesper Hvid]

Anything to do with the accident hereby requested.

http://motorsportmemorial.org/focus.php?db=ct&n=795

I've got a drawing of the track from an early '70s Paris Match, where all the fatal accidents are marked at the precise locations. Will add that later. I think I have a pic of the car he drove, also.

Click to enlarge, just a temporary job, the pic's across two pages, bigger than A4, and my scanner just isn't big enough to do the job properly, I'll have it rescanned by someone else.



But the essential location is there, and it'll have to do, for the time being.

I'll put this in the Maréchal request topic, also.

[Jesper Hvid]

https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b53149858h.item

Looking down the Mulsanne, from the corner. The accident took place on the other side of the hump, so it wouldn't have been visible from this angle, anyway. Good photo, all the same.