Photo: Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
On the morning of May 23, 1934, six lawmen hid in the brush beside a country road near Gibsland, Louisiana, and waited for a Ford V-8 to come down the road.
When it did, they opened fire. Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow died in their seats. The car they died in still exists, still wears the holes, and you can walk right up to it at a casino in Primm, Nevada, just off I-15 on the way to Las Vegas.
Plenty of cars this month come with curses attached. This one comes with bullet holes, somewhere between 112 and 167 of them, depending on who did the counting.
A stolen car with a short career
Before it was the death car, it was a stolen car. The 1934 Ford V-8 Fordor Deluxe belonged to Ruth Warren of Topeka, Kansas, and Clyde took it in late April 1934. A new Ford V-8 was the natural choice for a man in his line of work: quick, common and invisible in traffic. A letter signed with Clyde’s name praising the V-8 reached Henry Ford that spring.
The anonymity lasted about three and a half weeks.
The ambush
The posse was led by former Texas Ranger Frank Hamer. When the Ford came into view, they opened up with everything they had. Accounts of how many rounds hit the car have varied ever since, which is why you’ll see such a wide range quoted. Nobody disputes that it was a lot.
From crime scene to sideshow
What happened next is the part collectors love. The car was still legally Ruth Warren’s, and after some back and forth with local authorities she got it back. It didn’t stay in her garage for long. The Ford was leased out and spent years on the carnival and fair circuit, where people paid to walk past the most shot-up sedan in America.
It changed hands a few more times, and in 1973 casino owner Peter Simon bought it for a reported $175,000, an extraordinary price for a used Ford at the time.
Where it sits now
Since then it has lived in Primm, displayed behind glass at Whiskey Pete’s alongside other Bonnie and Clyde items. It’s a casino, not a museum, but the car has been on public view for decades, and the paper trail from Topeka forward beats most crime artifacts. We’ve covered where the death car is today in more detail.
A few ghost stories have been hung on the car over the years, but they’ve never stuck. People don’t go to Primm to feel a chill. They go to see the damage.
On May 22, 1934, this was one ordinary Depression-era Ford among hundreds of thousands. Everything that makes it famous now came from one morning in Louisiana and an ownership chain you can follow from that day to this one.
If you’re driving between LA and Vegas this fall, stop. Stand in front of it and try counting the holes. You’ll get a different number than the last person did.
Worth the detour off I-15, or does a shot-up death car belong in a real museum, not near the slot machines?
Sources
- How the Bonnie and Clyde Death Car Ended Up in Primm — Las Vegas Review-Journal
- Museum With Bonnie and Clyde Car — Wonderful Museums
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