Chicago, 27 October 1933
A man died, two famous passengers were hurt, and the car’s inventor wasn’t there. What happened next became a legend.
The ride to the airfield
In late October 1933 Colonel William Forbes-Sempill, a British aviator interested in investing, asked to see the car while the airship Graf Zeppelin was in Chicago. Slate (Alec Nevala-Lee), 2022
The car was driven to Chicago by a Gulf employee, Francis T. Turner. Slate (Alec Nevala-Lee), 2022 Stanford’s archive page calls Turner a famous racing driver employed by Gulf. Stanford archive
On the morning of 27 October 1933, with Sempill and the French aeronaut Charles Dollfus aboard, the car rolled over on Lake Shore Drive, close to the entrance of the Century of Progress World’s Fair. Slate (Alec Nevala-Lee), 2022
The canvas roof was smashed. Turner, held in by his seatbelt, died in hospital of skull fractures. He was 33. Slate (Alec Nevala-Lee), 2022
Sempill and Dollfus, whose belts were unfastened, were thrown out. Sempill fractured his skull, but had fully recovered by the end of the year. Slate (Alec Nevala-Lee), 2022
Even who Dollfus was depends on the source. Nevala-Lee describes Charles Dollfus as an aeronaut and an attaché with the French Air Ministry. Slate (Alec Nevala-Lee), 2022 Hemmings, spelling him Dolfuss, calls him the Air Minister of France, as Fuller himself did. Hemmings (Kurt Ernst)
Fuller’s version
Fuller was not there. He heard the news in Bridgeport, where work on the second car was just starting. Stanford archive
The first newspaper reports said the car had hit a “wave” in the road, and the public blamed its design. Stanford archive
Fuller’s version, repeated in countless books, was that a car belonging to a Chicago South Park Commissioner rammed the Dymaxion and was removed before reporters arrived. Slate (Alec Nevala-Lee), 2022
In Fuller’s own later telling, the other driver kept pulling alongside for a look and then hit the Dymaxion’s tail. Stanford archive
Hemmings repeats that version: a later inquiry blamed a collision with a car driven by a Chicago politician, which fled the scene. Hemmings (Kurt Ernst)
What the records say
Fuller’s biographer Alec Nevala-Lee, working from contemporary newspaper reports, official records and Fuller’s own letters and notes, says that story is false. Slate (Alec Nevala-Lee), 2022
In his account, traffic was moving at about 40 mph when Turner turned sharply left in front of a car driven by Meyer Roth. The Dymaxion rolled, and Roth hit it on its second roll. Slate (Alec Nevala-Lee), 2022
Witnesses said the other car hit the Dymaxion only after it had begun to roll. Slate (Alec Nevala-Lee), 2022 Roth evidently worked as a shoe salesman. Fuller later turned him into a powerful park commissioner. Slate (Alec Nevala-Lee), 2022
The inquest, held on 16 November 1933, returned a verdict of accidental death. Slate (Alec Nevala-Lee), 2022 The coroner’s certificate said Turner died while “driving odd type car for publicity”. Slate (Alec Nevala-Lee), 2022
So who was to blame? Sources differ
- In Fuller’s own later telling, the other driver kept pulling alongside for a look and then hit the Dymaxion’s tail. Stanford archive
- Hemmings repeats that version: a later inquiry blamed a collision with a car driven by a Chicago politician, which fled the scene. Hemmings (Kurt Ernst)
- Witnesses said the other car hit the Dymaxion only after it had begun to roll. Slate (Alec Nevala-Lee), 2022
We think Nevala-Lee’s account is the better one, because it rests on the inquest evidence and papers from the time, and Fuller was not there. But the older version is still the one most books give.
Afterwards
The day after the crash, Fuller cabled that “steel bows would apparently have saved all hands”. Slate (Alec Nevala-Lee), 2022
Sempill told Fuller’s friend Vilhjalmur Stefansson that he still thought well of the car. Slate (Alec Nevala-Lee), 2022 Sempill later became infamous for passing wartime secrets to the Japanese. Slate (Alec Nevala-Lee), 2022
Hemmings says the bad publicity lost Fuller and his company both customers and investors. Hemmings (Kurt Ernst)
Nevala-Lee found the word Dymaxion missing from most news stories, and good coverage carried on for a year and a half. Slate (Alec Nevala-Lee), 2022