Dick Van Dyke pulled from burning Jaguar | video

Dick Van Dyke, famous for his roles in the Mary Poppins movie as well as television series The Dick Van Dyke Show and Diagnosis: Murder, had to pull over when a Jaguar XJ he was driving down a Los Angeles highway yesterday caught fire.

A passerby, seeing the 87-year-old actor still in the car with smoke emerging from under the hood, pulled Van Dyke to safety before calling emergency crews.

California Highway Patrol spokesman Leland Tang told News York Daily News that Van Dyke was able-bodied at the scene and didn’t actually need any help to get out of the car. Fortunately, no one was injured. Van Dyke’s wife Arlene, 41, later said on Twitter that her husband was fine.

It’s not clear what the cause of the fire was but onlookers said it started in the engine bay. Jaguars aren’t particularly prone to catching on fire so the cause here is quite a mystery. As the video above shows, the fire engulfed the whole car before emergency crews were able to put it out.

Jaguar has recently recalled the XF 2.2-litre diesel model over a defect that could cause fires, but the recall is not related to the vehicle Van Dyke was driving yesterday.

www.motorauthority.com