Shelby Demonstration
It shows its work.
The State’s expert says any mid-’60s GM could have laid down those two tire marks outside the convenience store, so the defendants’ metallic-mint convertible is as good as a confession. Settled fact, or is there something in the record?
It is a trick question, counselor — and the record answers it. Let me pull the chain before I opine.
The scene photographs show two parallel burn marks, equal in length and equal in intensity . Equal marks mean both rear wheels were driving. That requires a limited-slip differential — positraction — and positraction was not available on the defendants’ 1964 Buick Skylark .
Second link in the chain: the marks leave the road flat over a curb cut — no fishtail, no hop. A solid-axle car cannot do that; the left tire lifts and the mark breaks. Independent rear suspension, or it did not happen .
Walk the co-occurrence, and in the mid-’60s GM built exactly two cars carrying both: the Corvette — which no eyewitness mistakes for a Skylark — and the 1963 Pontiac Tempest . Same body length, same convertible top, same metallic-mint green in every witness photograph .
The chronicle does not say the defendants are sympathetic. The chronicle says the car in the record is not their car. The record holds.
Fictional source A0064 L112–L118
sources/trial_exhibits/tire_mark_forensics.pdf.md
Two parallel marks of equal length and equal intensity, left and right, consistent with both rear wheels under power at the same moment.
Fictional source A0071 L23
sources/depositions/vito_expert_testimony.pdf.md
Q. Was positraction available on the 1964 Buick Skylark? A. No. It was not offered on that model.
Fictional source A0071 L88–L96
sources/depositions/vito_expert_testimony.pdf.md
A. A solid rear axle lifts the inside wheel over a curb cut and the mark breaks. These marks run flat across it. That takes independent rear suspension.
Fictional source A0112 L14
sources/analysis/gm_drivetrain_matrix_1963_67.md
1963 Pontiac Tempest: independent rear suspension, limited-slip differential available. The only other mid-sixties GM car with both is the Corvette.
Fictional source A0130 L7–L9
sources/trial_exhibits/witness_photo_index.pdf.md
Photographs 7 to 9: metallic mint green convertible, top down, body length consistent with the Tempest and the Skylark alike.
The facts of My Cousin Vinny (1992); the record rows are fictional. Each label identifies the fictional source and lines cited; select one to read the line.