Sold For $795
*Includes Buyers Premium
Front page of the The Topeka State Journal from May 25, 1934, 16.5 x 22, featuring an image of Bonnie and Clyde's infamous bullet-riddled 'Death Car,' beneath the headline: "Barrow's Topeka Car After Death Race." The image is captioned: "The bullet-riddled car in which Clyde Barrow, south western desperado, and Bonnie Parker, his cigar-smoking girl companion, were slain Wednesday in a well-laid police trap in Louisiana, probably will be exhibited first in Topeka. The car, a Ford V-8 sedan, was stolen April 29 from the home of Jesse Warren, 2107 Gabler street. Contract for exhibition of the death car was made by Duke Mills, showman and display expert, with Warren Thursday…Officers who ambushed Barrow and Bonnie pumped 167 bullets into the car, as it sped over a Louisiana road at 85 miles an hour." Matted and framed to an overall size of 24.5 x 30. In fine condition.
The car was soon acquired by Charles Wiley Stanley, a carnival operator and member of the National Anti-Crime Association (NACA), who first exhibited the Bonnie and Clyde ‘Death Car’ in his hometown of Abilene, Kansas, in September 1934, just months after Bonnie and Clyde were killed. He began touring the nation with the bullet-ridden vehicle, satisfying the public’s curiosity while using it as a device to lecture on why ‘crime doesn’t pay.’ He spun the death car into a cottage industry, billing himself as the ‘Crime Doctor’ and profiting off associated products.
