Hector Ryan, a VCE student from Toorak's St Kevin's College, lost control of the car he was driving and hit a tree on Moira Street, Malvern East, about 1am on Friday.

His friend, an 18-year-old rowing teammate who was in the front passenger seat, survived with hand and leg injuries.

The tree, the only one for several metres just before the Malvern Road intersection, became the site of a vigil on Friday as grieving friends sat with each other on the footpath, or stood - hugging.

Mr Ryan had finished his exams on Wednesday, friend Edward Gusman said, and was excited about the life he had ahead of him.

"He didn't want to waste the education he had," Mr Gusman said.

"He had so much ahead of him."

Mr Gusman wrote a note to his friend, who he met through the school's rowing team, and left it at the base of the tree among the growing number of flowers.

"Men aren't taught to tell other men that they love them. I never had the chances to say how much I really loved him and the fact I can't say or do it now ... all I can do is write a note and leave it at the tree," he said.

Mr Gusman said his friend was relieved to finish exams and had been planning a trip to Lorne in the lead-up to the Falls Festival. He said Mr Ryan wasn't sure what he was going to study at university.

"No one really does know what they want to do, but it's not this," he said.

"It puts life into perspective. Not everyone knows this life is going to end.

"He has been taken way too soon. I won't remember him for this. I'll remember him for all the mucking around we did at rowing camp and all the mischief we got up to."

"Everyone loved Hector, and everyone knew Hector," a year 12 student at Sacre Couer said.

A Xavier College friend said he never thought anything like this would happen to him. "We are at the age now when this stuff happens. It's so crazy. It's surreal," he said.

A Moira Street resident was one of the first on scene, calling an ambulance as soon as she saw the wreckage. Her 20-year-old daughter Lucy sat with the injured passenger who had gotten out of the car and comforted him.

"He was shaken up and in a lot of pain," Lucy said. "He was asking if his friend was OK. I didn't know so just kept trying to talk to him normally until the police came."

Lucy said the young man told her it was his first night out since finishing exams.

Speed, inexperience and weather conditions are being investigated by police as potential factors in the crash.