"Bolan died on September 16th 1977, two weeks before his 30th birthday. He was a passenger in a purple
Mini 1275 GT (license plate FOX 66IL) driven by Gloria as they headed home from a drinking club and a restaurant. The car collided with a tree after spinning out of control in Queen's Ride
Barnes Common, London. Bizarrely, Bolan's 1972 hit "
Solid Gold Easy Action" contained the lyrics "Life is the same and it always will be, easy as picking foxes from a tree", almost a premonition of the licence plate of the car he died in. For some of his fans the tree now acts as a
shrine to his memory and receives frequent visits from fans to this day. The site now forms the
Bolan's Rock Shrine memorial, which is cared for on a charity basis by "T A G" (T. Rex Action Group). A bronze bust of Marc Bolan at the site commemorates the twenty-fifth anniversary of his death in
2002. The bust was unveiled by his son
Rolan Bolan, and the event was attended by fans, friends, and colleagues, including Mickey Finn.
At Bolan's funeral, his coffin was covered in a swan-shaped floral tribute in recognition of his breakthrough hit single.
Ironically, Bolan neither drove a
car nor possessed a
driver's license, a fact made even more astonishing that cars or automotive components are at least mentioned in, if not the subject of, many of his songs.
Of Bolan's bandmates, original Tyrannosaurus Rex partner
Steve Peregrin Took choked to death on a cocktail cherry in
1980, and bassist Currie was killed in a car crash in
Portugal a year later. Finn, the man most associated with Bolan's success, died of natural causes in
2003. Bill Legend remains the only living T. Rex member."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Bolan