From Kim Morgan’s The Sunset Gun:
Wallace Reid loved cars. When not working in pictures, the silent screen star would speed through Hollywood in a choice automobile, wildly tearing up roads in anything from a Marmon Coupe to a Stutz Convertible. Not just a well-heeled showboat Reid actually understood cars. He knew how to work on cars, he comprehended their mechanics and appreciated their beauty. Before his racing pictures, before traveling to Hollywood, before even working at Vitagraph, Reid wrote about cars for Motor Magazine, covering races, attending car shows and test-driving new models. As a famous actor he made friends with racecar drivers and entered races himself. He was fearless and he was reckless. For those he delighted with his rakish rapidity, there were others he horrified. His abandon was legend. He reportedly crashed his Marmon into a family while hurtling along the Pacific Coast Highway, killing a father and seriously injuring a mother and child. His passenger, Thomas Ince, suffered a broken collarbone and internal injuries. Wally was fine. He was well connected, well liked and lucky. D.W. Griffith bailed him out of jail. He wasn’t lucky for long. In less than ten years the star of The Roaring Road would be dead. His beloved Marmon didn’t do him in. Morphine did.