"Fast & Furious" star Paul Walker was killed in a single-car crash in a Southern California office park Saturday afternoon.

Walker, best known for his role as the heartthrob good guy who played opposite the heavy, Vin Diesel, in the "Fast & Furious" movie franchise, died in the crash in Valencia, Calif. He was 40 years old.

Walker was a passenger in what appears from photos -- in which the left front fender and wheel are visible -- to be a Porsche Carrera GT. Published reports said the driver of the car lost control and hit a tree. In the photos the car appears to have impacted the passenger side door.

Walker had been attending a charity event billed as a toy drive at Always Evoloving -- Performance Motors Racing in Valencia, Calif. He departed the charity function at 3:30 p.m., and the crash took place less than 300 yards away where the road makes a sharp left. Attempts by attendees of the event to put out the flames with fire extinguishers were not enough to save the pair trapped in the wreckage.

“It is with a truly heavy heart that we must confirm that Paul Walker passed away today in a tragic car accident while attending a charity event for his organization Reach Out Worldwide,” his twitter account read Saturday afternoon. “He was a passenger in a friend's car, in which both lost their lives.”

While Walker played a racing neophyte who is drawn into the street racing scene in the first movie, he has been into fast cars for years.

Walker had a collection of 25 to 30 cars, many of which are kept and serviced at Always Evolving on Constellation Road in Valencia, a shop owned by childhood friend Rich Taylor. There are some BMW E36 M3 lightweight specials, "Really rare stuff," he said when we spoke with him a few months ago. The collection also includes an E30 M3. He said his favorite car was a Nissan S15 Silvia, a model popular with drifters. There was an R34 Skyline GTR, too, and a Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution that was shipped from Europe.

Walker raced in the Redline Time Attack Series in a BMW M3, until the series folded in 2011. Three years ago, he championed a Mazda Miata with Motorsports Enterprises Racing at the brutal 25 Hours of Thunderhill, his first wheel-to-wheel race.

"It was pissing rain all weekend," he had said of that race. "Couldn't see anything. You had to use The Force."

Team MER overcame a differential and two transmission swaps to take a victory in the E1 class. Walker "displayed the quick and consistent speed of a veteran racer," said an MER press release.

At a recent low-key press event at The Streets of Willow, Walker in an LFA passed pro drifter Ken Gushi in a CCS-R. Granted, the LFA had more horsepower, but the incident showed something of Walker's racer character.

Walker had been filming "Fast & Furious 7" when the accident occurred.

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