On May 22, 1934, after a two-year robbery and killing spree, Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow were shot to death during a police ambush outside of Gibsland, Louisiana. The stolen V8 Ford they were driving was riddled with more than 100 armor-piercing bullets.
The blood-spattered vehicle became an instant attraction at carnivals and amusement parks and has lived an itinerant existence ever since. According to our understanding, it was in the 1970s that it first made its way to Nevada, where it was located at a race track and people could sit in it for one dollar. It then moved to a car museum in this state and then various casinos, before relocating first to Iowa and then Missouri.
By sometime early this century it was back in Nevada, initially somewhere up north and then to its home that you refer to in Primm, where it resided until last May, before relocating for a year to Terrible's Gold Ranch Casino, west of Reno. A phone call to that property confirmed that it's still there, located behind the bar, along with other Bonnie and Clyde memorablia, including the shirt Clyde was wearing when he was shot, belts he made during his first stint in prison, and various newspaper articles about the notorious duo. There's no charge to view the exhibit and visitors are welcome to take photographs.
The so-called "Death Car" is scheduled to remain at Terrible's Gold Ranch through next May, it's thought, when it will likely return to Primm. Click here if you want to see some amateur footage of the car filmed just after the pair was shot.
While there have been several fake Bonnie and Clyde V8s in circulation over the years, the one displayed at the Terrible's casinos has been authenticated by the Ford Motor Company as being the actual vehicle in which they were killed. The authenticity of a letter that Clyde allegedly wrote to Henry Ford, extolling the virtues of this model as a getaway car, is more open to question, however.
