If you look at the white sheets on the ground, you can see that in one shot it looks like a hand and a foot sticking out.

Hard to say if it is real or not. The Initial impact would have been on that tree where the door is still wrapped around, so that kind of impact would not set the airbags off.

Regardless that was a pretty messed up car.

It'* fully believeable to me.
I hit a tree in my old Pontiac in exactly the same place, the passenger door.
I was only doing about 30 mph when it finally hit but it wrapped the car right around the tree like a horseshoe.
Speed and trees don't mix. :(

I believe Bullet to. My friend was killed when he wrapped a pole. Somebody posted about no blood on the vehicle. Chances are the occupant was not buckled in and was ejected from the vehicle, probably meeting his or her fate on one of the other trees :?

That is scary. I don't think it'* fake either. But whether it was a 'set up' accident or not, that can happen, and unfortunately it does happen. :(

The speedo setting may mean nothing; there'* a phenomenon in crash reconstruction known as "speedometer slap," which basically says that the shock of impact will knock the car'* gauge needles to random locations on their dials, so you shouldn't believe any indications afterwards (especially the indicated speed).

The original post in the Audi forum has since been deleted, but the entire set of photos is available here, running to two pages: http://timeslips.bootnetworks.com/a3tree/

Just curious: does that model even _have_ an airbag in the steering wheel? That looks like a pretty small hub to contain one.

linky no worky

That'* right; the original posting was cancelled. Try this linky instead:

http://timeslips.bootnetworks.com/a3tree/