Strange occurrence and worrying.
I was expecting it to be some old tyre of indeterminate age.
My first thoughts on reading your description was maybe the steering arm ball had gone, the wheel turned sideways and the resultant slide peeled the tyre off the rim.
However one of the photos shows the steering rack arm still in the right sort of place, albeit bent, so unlikely. I'm sure you would have said if it was not attached although quite often in these cases it is difficult to determine afterwards whether it is the cause or effect.
Any planed areas on the tyre or other damage?

John

Having seen a few cars with similar impact damage to a front arm, I'm curious as to why the arm on this car seems to be jammed where it is, as they usually remain free to pivot on the axle.

Even if a tie rod had broken before or during the accident, the arm should still drop back down when the car is jacked up...

ken

bent shocker?

I think it's just because the wheel is wedged quite firmly against the A panel, I'll check when I next see it, but that won't be until Christmas now.

The arms stayed in place, as far as I'm aware, just a bit more bent than usual.

The only damage I noticed on the tyre, was obviously the great big shredded bit... A split running diagonally from near the edge of the tread, over the edge and down the sidewall. Looks as though though it started on the tread, with a chunk gouged out, which was what made me think I must have hit something sharp on the road. However, I know nothing about analysing tyres!

We were only doing about 40mph, and no sharp cornering or anything, so one would imagine if the wheel / tyre had been defective it would have gone whilst doing 70 on the motorway, or when going around a sharp corner...

erm yeah. Work on prototypes quite a lot. No geese feathers anywhere to be seen.

Sean,
could be, but looking at the huge gap between the droop stop and its bracket on the arm, I wondered if the bump stop has separated from the chassis web and is wedged against the arm...

ken

I took some pictures in the afternoon after the accident, but they were on my old Canon F1, I've only now finished the film and developed them.







At Kent university now, missing my van, but I'm building a diesel motorbike in my bedroom, so that's keeping my tinkering urges satisfied for the moment.

Hopefully there'll be news on the van to report over the Christmas holidays, and as I mentioned before, I will eventually get some of the Celeste back on the road again in some form or another.

If you can take any consolation or solace from what happened, its that you managed to take some very cool photos of it.

Just goes to show that they're a much tougher vehicle than the general public believe. It's sat there on its roof and there's very little distortion, I'd like to see something else from that period, or later(Mini?), withstanding that.

Good oppertunity to waxoyl the floors