post you encounter with the strange, unsafe, and stupid. we all have had em tell me yours and ill tell you mine.
Got a ride in a brand new lamborgini from one of our "profesional" drivers. 120mph on the main road infront of the daytona speedway. leaving hooters and back to a stop at the 2nd set of lights!!!!
I drove my TR4 with no panels or interior. That was good fun, sitting on the floor with no doors or trans tunnel.
About 1990 I test drove a model A coupe for sale. The brake pedal, steering column and throttle were so poorly placed you had to hook your right toes to the left as the gas was so close to the column. Then, the throttle had two positions, idle and full song. Luckily the brake worked well. The car looked ok, but it was about the dumbest fucking thing I've ever driven. How can folks be so inept at ergo / basic controls? No... didn't buy it. Gary
When I went to look at what is now my Anglia there was an older guy there looking at it, says "I think it might make a nice Street Rod". He asked if he could go for a ride. The guy selling it says it pretty fast to actually go out on the street in. The old guy says he's been in plenty of fast cars. BIG Mistake. They pull it out into the street and square it up. On goes the trans brake, RPM's come up 4500 and he lets the trans brake go. Seven Hundred and fifty big block ponies load the chassis, the front end comes up about 6 inches, the wheelie bars load and down the street it goes. Bangs second on the glide and lets off. He turns around and comes back. The old guy is white as a ghost. He gets out of the Anglia and walks straight to his Buick without saying anything and drives away. I make a deal for the car (traded my 68 El Camino SS396) and after about an hour I leave. I go around the corner and there is the old guy sitting in the Buick just staring straight ahead! I think he may have soiled himself I honk to make sure he hasn't had a heart attack and he just kinda turns his head and gives me a scared look. We laugh about it all the way home, hell I still laugh thinking about it.
A couple years ago i rode in my buddies newly completed 1936 international rock buggy to a trail about 20 miles from town on a 2 lane river road. No doors, no windsheld, no seat belt on the PS side, unbalanced 49" tires, 4 wheel hydro steering with no way to lock the rear straight. Going down the road once up to 45mph one of the rear unbalanced monster tires started bouncing then all of a sudden the rear steer turns and over to the left lane we go with oncomming traffic, i thought i was dead and so did my buddy. Thank god once on the trail it boke a steering arm and we had to get the tow rig and trailer to haul it back to town.
Rolling my '78 Dodge Aspen on a city street after nailing a tree while street racing. Slid it about 5' -10' on the driver's side, then another 20' or 30' on the roof. Boy that was dumb.
a friend of mind pulled up to my house yesterday (reason for this thread) in his newly build sand rail... of scrap pipe a ford 9 a mustang 2 front clip and the built and blown caddie 500 out of his old wrecked dragster ( yea i know shut up) , he says" hop on in, ill take you for a spin" , if i'd have been a bit more sober i would have told him to fuck off, but i didn't , i hopped in.. and he smiled..(thats a BAD thing), so i buckle up and thank god its got a roll cage and 5 point harnesses. he started her up and idled out of my driveway and down my dirt road and i keep thinking to myself..(" now why would a sand rail have wheelie bars?") ,when we finally reach the pavement and turn left on the county road he smiles again ( i sobered up) and say "ready?" , course me the big macho idiot i am i say "fuckin DO IT!" .. and he does.. he stomps it , the big shaved rear 38's hook up and i star at sky as the seat tries to swallow me and i look over 4 seconds later after refocusing my eyes and notice the digital gauge says 250mph on it and i start screaming "FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCKKKKK!!!!!!!!" about that time he slams the breaks and mile of county road is over and there's a turn,and I'm thinking im about to die but he gets her stopped and i retrieve my stomouch from my brain case and he turns her around and we idle back to my road at 62mph, we finished up the day siting on my porch staring at his car and drinking up the rest of my beer not saying a word.
16 yr old junior in high school-skipped school-riding with friend in 1969 mustang, 351 cleveland, 4-speed, night before he had a flat-put spare on using mag lug nuts-rear wheel passes us and we were running 100+ mph. Do I need to say more?
1977... Car was a Nash Metropolitan with a full boogie 425 nailhead, plexiglass windows, swiss-cheesed, and solid mounted rear axle. Now that I think about it, it may have been the hardest pulling, quickest street driven car I'v ever been in. It was one of those "I'll put a $20 bill on the dash, and if you can pull it off, it's yours" deals. Long story short, he took me for a ride on an un-familiar road. It was daylight, and the road was straight... But that "belly whopper" little hill we hit at about 110 mph, combined with the mickey-mouse full race suspension was not a good combination! I'll give him credit, he did manage to keep the painted side upright... Just barely... Probably much more from luck than any driving ability he had as we were spinning around at over 100 mph. We were both white as a ghost for a couple hours!
oh you had one too, I was doing about 70 when i was living in dallas georgia, and the rusted out pos,the gas tank partly fell off and started dragging the road and pouring out fuel, why it didn't catch fire I don't know. all I remember was getting it stopped in the middle of the road, getting out of the car and running like hell. look up master of sparks from zz top,it's somewhere on the six pack album set.
Scared , Naa ... Its all adrenaline till you stop and think about later...... And thinkin bout it afterwards ... sand buggy rear mount LS 2 (6.0) , 70mph on the back wheels watchin the world fly by between my feet through the mesh floor .
when i was senior in high school my brother in law need help towing his 78 firebird. he told me all i had to do was sit in the fire bird and steer. sounded simple enough untill the asshole get on the free way!!!! i start freaking out because he is hauling ass easily going 75 with me rite behind him. i start pick up m cell phone and try to call him but the asshole did not charge his phone and it was dead. so there i am scared shitless that iwas going to die in a firery crash. but wait its not over he starts to get off of the freeway still going 75 mph. i stomp on the brakes to try to get the car to stop with no luck because the power brake would not work for the obvious reasons. the car did slow down enough to barly hit his rear bumper. after all this he tries to get me to pay for the damages and replace his brakes. i told him where he could stick it. it was the last part of my senior year and i had just gotten my chevelle and had never driven in the snow(doesnt snow that much in new mexico). i am going down a busy street around rush hour when the light turns red. i step on the brakes and slide right through the intersection spinning as a go thru it, and cars dodging me left and right almost got hit by 3 cars!!! the cars come to a stop i have to pry my hands of the wheel and pat my hair down. it was like that scene in plane trains and automobiles when john candy and steve martin go between the two semis.
Heres me and my buddy with his 28 international ona ranger fram chopped 9 inches with a 13 B rotary in it.Its loud and really hard to see out of.We spent all night putting this together the night and moring b4 the show.Like 1 hour before we left for the hotrod hoedwon.
now THAT's a great visual!! <object width="425" height="344"> <embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/mz1AUJfIMYc&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></object>
I bought a 51 chevy panel sight unseen out of a storage unit (it was one of those auction for back rent deals)...got it for 481.00...pulled it out and found the keys and damned if it didn't start. Had barely one brake and one headlight and like the young fool that I was I drove it the 20 or so miles home up the Poway Grade here in San Diego county and then up 67 (nick named Slaughter alley) and then out a windy rain slicked road...made it home and got out of the panel and every muscle in my body was tightened up (no doubt from the tension of driving this deathtrap)...the next morning the door bell rings and a guy standing there asked if it was for sale...said I hadn't thought about it and he begged me to sell it to him for his a/c business...told him 2250 and it was his and he went to the bank and came back a couple of hours later and bought it for 2100...that was 1990...by the way the panel was actually very straight and ran pretty darn good...
Do tow truck rides count? Seriously. In 1991, I was working as a tank setter for a propane company and got the C70 Chevy Stinger crane truck stuck in a muddy yard in the foothills above Fresno. Had to go back the next day in a Peterbilt 10 wheel tow truck with an old guy named Willie. Willie didn't drive cars, he only drove trucks, and he had been on this particular rig for about 500,000 miles. He also lived in the area where my truck was stranded. So, we stop at a quick mart for coffee and Willie is putting up the road like granny Perkins until we get to the hills... He finishes his coffee, tosses the cup in the back, wipes his mouth on his sleeve and TURNS INTO DALE EARNHARDT (senior)! I was sitting right in front of the boost gauge and I'll swear to my grave it never dropped below 30psi the whole way. Willie was shifting those compund boxes like lightning and his arms were a blur on that giant wheel. I was scared absolutely shitless, looking straight down into nothing as we took hairpins...but it was beautiful at the same time. Hard to really put into words, but I know I never want to go thru it again.
1997. I'm driving a brand new Ford Dually towing a 30ft trailer with 7 custom Harley Davidson's heading from Cali to Cinci for a trade show. Following me is a friend driving a Kenworth with 65 ft of trailer and another dozen custom bikes. It's about 9:00pm somewhere in New Mexico when he comes over the radio and says lets call it a day. I pull off at the next offramp. It's one of those off ramps that just parallels the freeway, goes up hill to the overpass and the offramp is straight down the other side. Well I go up the offramp, blow through the stop sign and right down the on ramp and back on the freeway. He comes over the radio. "What the hell was that?" "Uhh, No brakes" I reply. Luckily no cross traffic at the top of the offramp. Seems a rear brake line had split and the master had drained itself dry. So much for dual masters having a margin of safety! The electric trailer brakes weren't adjusted strong enough so they didn't do much of anything. Next off ramp I let off real early and manually operate the trailer brakes to stop the damn thing. We pull into a motel and I crawl underneath and judging by the fluid and dirt covering everything I'd say the line broke at the gas stop before - 300 miles before. I drove it to Albuquerque on just the trailer brakes. Unload a bike at the truck stop and head into town for a flaring tool and some brake fluid. All is good, until I get to Nashville and it happens again!! I say screw it and drive the rest of the way to Cinci on the trailer brakes. Finally fix it there, turned out the brake line was defective and kept splitting on the seam each tied we re flared it. Crazy Shit.
Bought a 65 Baracuda with a V8 and a 4 speed. It was about 10 miles from my house, all country roads. Car ran great, but didn't have any brakes (as in none). Spent every cent buying the car, whats a guy to do? Yep, drive it home!!!!! Went nice and slow and everything went great until I came to the highway. Funny how you don't notice things like down hill grades to a stop sign until you have no brakes. Even shutting the car off about 1/2 way down the hill didn't get me stopped. When I saw the semi coming around the bend that would be at the interesction about the same time I would arrive there made me just a bit nervious. Throwing the car into reverse was just enough to slow me down so the semi could pass with the horn blairing. Restarted the car and drove it the rest of the way home. A few weeks later I bought a car trailer. Gene
I pull up to the train tracks and stop for the train. I notice I'm a little close, but that's okay, I'll just back up. But then, the wooden orange stripe arm comes down behind the backglass of my pickup! So, I sit there and watch a 100 car train miss my swb '71 chevy truck by a foot for what seemed like hours!
had a subframe come loose on one side in a AD chevy truck going around the corner. should of paid more attention to the funny vibration a few blocks back. too much beer!
THose arms will lift back up by hand when down. Better to back off because sometimes stuff drags, lumber cars in particular the banding can pop loose and drag along. I've had some scary experiences towing shit behind my truck.. and the '74 Dodge 4x4 we bought to flip in High School and started to drive home. I get to the end of the dirt road the dude lived on and it pops a brake line, no brakes. My buddy is waiting to turn left in my parents car, so I try to beep the horn - no horn. So I swerve right and hit a telephone pole with the plow blade, smash the crap out of a little metal box of some sort in front of it. Just knocked a rubber strip off the bumper of the car. So we ended up flat towing it later on - how that was better, I don't know. An '84 Skylark beater with a dead spot in the carb is no fun on the interstate, either, the damn thing always felt like a go-kart with a top and sides anyways.
A guy I worked with bought a Thames delivery with a SBC in it. it had been built as a gasser (this is ~1964) and was EXTREMELY tall. Had a slab of boiler plate in the back that could be adjusted fore and aft to regulate wheelies. He slid the slab to the rear and took me for a ride; did an across-the-street wheelie at Washington and Lincoln in Culver City. Never thought about it before, but when the front end is up you can't see shit!! Scary as hell, but no adverse outcome.
I was in this thing at the Big 3 earlier this year when it got on two wheels. Lesson learned? Just because you can, doesn't mean you should.
My Brother in law and I decided to go check out a Datsun 510 that was in the paper late in the late afternoon, this was about 86 or 87 and these things where still everywhere. Anyways, the thing had been crashed and was missing all the front goodies, grill, lights, radiator and we where missing our common sense. The kid who was selling was not home but his mom gave us the keys so we could check it out. Tried starting it but nothing, we started pushing it around trying to pop start it but nothing. We even had about three other passerby's help out with the pushing, but nothing. Then suddenly my brother in law finds a switch under the dash, pushes it and voila! It starts! Ok, now that we realize the thing runs like a champ, we take a drive. It is dark now, no lights on the car and we are still rather stupid. We fly up and down a few alley ways when the hood suddenly flys up! We stick our heads out the window only to be greeted by leftover radiator water that is now coming out of the up to temperature engine. Oh yeah, those where the days. After finally getting this thing pretty hot and returning the car back, we decided to buy it for only $250 bucks. Not the hairiest of rides, but it was one of the looniest! Hairy was driving a tractor trailer combo while drinking beers from Temecula to San Diego with 5 guys in a 2 man cab! That was flat out stupid!
My 69 Chevy truck hasn't had brakes in years. I haven't driven it anywhere in a while but I did drive it all over El Paso like that a couple of times. It's a 4 on the floor and to be honest, it's not that scary to drive brakeless. Worst ride ever was when it snowed 20" in Raliegh in Feburary of 2000. A couple of days later I was driving to my girlfreinds house on the 5" thick layer of potholed ice stuck to I-85 when the pack of 200 semis that had been stuck on highway since the storm caught up with me and I ended up in the middle of them going 85 miles a hour on the ice with the trucks throwing mud and salt all over my windsheild. I couldn't see anything as it was 5:00 and the sun was setting. I couldn't move over or slow down so I just kept going until they thinned out. I was terrified. As far as racing goes, those scary moments happened on Old Toll Rd. in Asheville NC at 3:00 AM in the morning or the time my buddy dead centered a tree in his 62 Falcon.
I got to take a ride in a 69 Triumph TR6 with a turbocharged 455 Pontiac pushing 16 psi of boost making 700 rwhp, the car was scary enough, then you put the nut who built it in the drivers seat and put the pedal to the floor.... The owner decided it wasn't fast enough so he put on a bigger/better turbo and intercooled it, now it make about 1000 rwhp.
Had my old 40 coupe delivered by a trustworthy enclosed carrier that I had used before. My wife was home when it was delivered and upon getting home from work, jumped in it I had test driven it when and where I bought it) to take my ten-year-old for a spin. Went about 5 miles, through several stops and when crusing towards a down hill stop light with about 10 cars in my lane, I went to apply the brakes and ZERO! Quickly tried the E brake and ZERO. Tried shutting it off, but throught better (did not remember or know if it would lock the column) so I literally pitched the old bird at around 35mph onto a side street...made the turn miraculously, but then realized we were going downhill towards a moving train! (I am not making this up!!!!) I had about 50 yards to curb it...which I did and we stopped about 15 feet from the damn train. My son got out and said..."That was bitchin', Dad!!!!" I told him that he was now down to 8 lives..... I got back home (on a flat bed) and found a puddle of fluid on my garage floor. Turns out that the carrier had wrapped the tie down around a line and WHAM... SHAME on ME!!! Should have looked and I know better!!!! Lesson to be learned!!!!!
The Jalopy Journal
