near death experience in your hotrod?

I can relate to the throttle stuck stories. My youngest brother wanted to demo the power of his new dune buggy one Sunday afternoon, so I went for the ride. He has a fairly short driveway that empties onto a busy highway with lots of traffic. When he nailed it in the driveway the throttle stuck wide open and the front wheels were 6 feet in the air when we crossed the highway and landed in the orchard on the other side. We just happened to hit a gap in traffic when nothing was coming from either direction.

The scariest moment I've ever had was when a guy in oncoming traffic flipped a U right in front of me and I had brake hard to miss him. Halfway through his turn the passenger door flew open and his wife rolled out onto the pavement in front of me. Somehow I stopped in time, but I'll never forget the look in her eyes as she lay there and I was sliding toward her.

 

Thought of another one with my 37 Ford coming back from Vermont in 93. I was on the New York throughway at nite doing 80 with all the bumper to bumper traffic I get off at the Kingston exit go through the toll booth and down a newly paved road with no yellow lines, doing about 40 mph. All of a sudden there's a loud bang and the steering wheel spins out of my hands car is up on 2 wheels and I get it stopped. My buddy in back of me said sparks flew and looked like it was goning to roll over. Had my wife with me we where both shook up., get out of car and look under front end, whoo my mono-leaf spring broke next to u-bolt and dug into fresh asphalt. No other damage seen it was midnite no other cars on Rt. 209 what can i do ? So I tell my buddy to take the lead I'll drive as fast as possible. Removed the broken spring leaf first then drove it. I didn'nt have a panhard bar at the time so every dip in the road car would weave back and forth. I found I could keep steady 35 mph and only had 175 miles to drive to home. We did get home at about 3 in the morning and didn't encounter any other vehicles the hole way home. We had a Guardian Angel that nite if it would of happened 5-8 minutes earlier we would have been in that throughway traffic and would have taken out a bunch of other cars and probabily been killed. Found out later the axle was tempered incorrectly when it was made. Now I have a panhard bar to keep axle steady if spring ever brakes again.

 

The year: 1958. The car: 1956 Studebaker Golden Hawk. The girlfriend and I had been down at the lake and was returning to the home town sometime after dark, probably around 9:00 or so. In the back seat was my buddy and his g/f. Me and mine had just had a hell of a fight and I was pissed off and driving like a maniac. In Missouri I-44 was under construction and wasn't fully built yet. Some was interstate like and then it would just run into Hwy 66 for a few miles. It was one of those places and I was cruising about 125 or so and had just passed a truck when it turned into 66, curves and all. We ran off the road on the left side, got sideways and then ran off the road on the right side and then back across to the left side. I finally got control and exited all of those maneuvers at about 105 mph. I about crapped my britches but I acted so cool, just like I had done all of that on purpose. The girlfriend could not speak for about an hour. How cool is that? All of that and no bitchin' or complainin'. I am convince there are "Guardian Angels". I've had one lookin' over me for 68 years and I've kept him busy all those years. I get up every day and thank God for my guardian angel.

 

Just when I figured out how much money I had in it!!

 

I do have pics to back up the story, but I'd have to scan the photos. The wife and I decided to go to a midnight movie. She was on crutches from a sports injury, so we decided to take the 1956 Olds 2 door hardtop I was finishing up. Less than a mile from the house on a 4 lane road with curbs and no shoulders, two street racers came at us from around a long sweeping turn.

The early 70's Dart on the outside hit the curb and swept sideways in front of the 69 fastback Mustang. The stang hit the brakes and missed the T-bone collision. I told the wife to hang on! I knew we were going to get collected. The Dart did a 180 and hit us with the butt up rear as I was coming down on the brakes which drew the front of my car down.

I had slowed to around 30 by then, but still got pushed backward an estimated 35 feet on impact. The top half of the fishmouth front bumper was sheered off and hit the engine so hard that it bent the driveshaft before pushing the rear cockeyed on the parallel leaf springs. The Dart being smaller drove into the front of the Olds like it was a garage. The headlights were facing each other and the bird on the hood pointed into the carb. The radiator laid over the engine like a wet dishrag.

The Dart folded at the rear wheel openings and peaked the roof a few inches above the rolled up windows. Looked like someone should have been killed in the carnage, but I was the only one to lose blood as I pushed the steering wheel up against the dash with my face. My wife was able to turn and not reshape the dash and windshield. The Dart driver just got buried in the drivers seat pushing it off the tracks and into the back.

I had to force the door open to get out as the front fender was pushed back over it and fortunately we all walked away. (No thanks to the Mustang driver who didn't even slow down to see if anyone was hurt.

The Dart was already partially crushed and ready for the shredder, but the 56 Oldsmobile was fixed and back on the road. Because the frames bypassed each other on impact, it survived and probably saved our lives. Near death experiance? That's as close as I ever want to get....................

 

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=275101

 

I would like to see those pics if its not too much trouble. Thats deffinately close to death in my book. I was riding passenger in a friends pickup truck when he lost control and hit a light pole. I pushed the windshield out with my face and still have the scar to show for it. I don't know how it didn't break my neck. And of course he was showing off at the time, that seems to never pay off.

 

Had the cruise control module go berserk in my old '35 Dodge coupe with a 302 and open the throttle wide open on the freeway once. That was interesting. Replaced it, had THAT one do the same thing, in town! Removed it.

Had the trans crossmember break in my '68 Catalina convert, the tailshaft dropped, let the back of the engine drop enough to jerk the throttle all the way open in the 455. Even as tired as it was, it made an interesting few seconds before I realized what was happening. The trans dropped down onto the exhast pipe which kept it from hitting the ground.

Had a farmer make a lazy left turn in front of me, of course no blinker, in the '48 convert a year ago pulling not one, but TWO fully loaded hay wagons. Had a dipshit pull out in front of me, again in the '48, from the right 'cause I guess he didn't see me around the car ahead of me turning right onto the street he was waiting at. Both those instances made using the donor cars ABS system an excellent idea, whether you think it's traditional enough or not. I wouldn't be setting here now otherwise.

Had a couple of instances on the Panhead where people pulled out in front of us, and one time when a chunk of concrete road surface (it's Michigan) got flipped up between the front tire and the fender, and damn near brought the bike down. It dented the fender all the way around, and shot out the front like a cannonball. jSurprised the oncoming car it hit too.

 

i fooled around w/ a guys old lady and then my brakes magicaly fell through the floor three days after he found out. Oddly his Ford truck mysteriously spontaneously combusted while I was in Indy.

 

My close call was last year, driving out of a steep drive way and pulling into 4 lanes of traffic, my in door out door carpet floor mat ( trying to keep my new carperts clean) slide forward and floored the gas pedtal I hit the brake but that only pushed the carpet tighter against the gas pedtal, it looked like a John Force burn out as I shot across the lanes looking into the eyes of the people who were dodging me thinking I was some ass hole doing a burn out to show off, finally got the key turned off removed the mat and then had to back through that same traffic to get back into the right lane, I got flipped off a couple of times but no one was hurt and the only damage was to my shorts...

 

i never had a near death experience with it but the carb that came on my 67 mustang when i got it would stick wide open. i never figured out why but there were a couple nights i raced other guys and would get up to around 105 and would let off and it would keep going..scary stuff.

 

The heart attack was when you found out, then near death was probably when your wife found out?

 

Too many stories involving me being "invincible".

The brakes that failed in my '49 CJ2A... I killed the ignition and kept dumping the clutch to get it slowed down and ended up running the front end of that thing up the steps of this dirty old trailer house about 3 miles down the road from my parents ranch. The front bumper bumped the door and put a little dent in it. The owner stumbled to the door and was hammered drunk. He said "Whatever you're sellin', I ain't buyin'... cool Jeep". Then he shut the door and I rolled it off his front porch.

Dude was HAMMERED drunk.

Then there was the TR6 I used to have. I raced a guy in a '95 Bronco with a blown 351 in it. We were neck and neck but over 100 I kept pulling on him. A car pulled out in front of me and I SQUEEEEEEZED it between the car that just pulled out and the guard rail. That car was about the only car narrow enough to pull that off. The emergency lane was only half the width of a normal one. Girlfriend at the time made me drop her off at a gas station and come back in a few minutes. She was the one that told me to race that guy... then she was the one to be a big baby about it. Oh well.

'65 Mustang with no seats bolted down, no door strikers (bungee cords holding doors shut), no floor pans, no seat belts. Passenger side door flings open while doing a donut... friend riding shot gun starts to fall out... grabs seat... seat starts to go out with him, and I slam the brakes while pulling him back in the car by his T-shirt. Good times.

'67 F100... First hour I own it I have to see how fast it'll go. Come to find out the last owner had just loosely bolted the twin I-beam front end back to the truck to get it on the trailer to sell to me. Twin I-beam front ends aren't known for tight handling... but try driving one at 120 with no I-beam pivot busings, and no radius arm bushings.

I'm an idiot.

The St. Christopher "Guardian Saint of Travel" medal I keep in my wallet is doing it's job... lol....

 

Jesus, Bull. What's the story behind that? Owwwwww.....

 

Okay, here is a link to mine

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=230184

 

In the mid sixties at 17 year old I was working in Reno NV. On my way home one afternoon in my 40 Ford coupe I realized my brakes had gone out but was only doing 35 MPH. The bad thing was I was on a busy street approaching an intersection with a red light. I had a 39 gear box in her so I double clutched and pulled her down into first. I had no emergency brake and the ign switch was hanging from the wires some where under the dash. Just as I got to the intersection I made a hard right into traffic and was able to keep her in the emergency lane. The thing that scared me most was the vehicle that I almost hit was a Caterpillar front loader. All I could see were its 2” lug nuts in my side window. I got her home, cleaned out my pants and fixed the emergency brakes and rebuilt the failed master cylinder. Never used wrecking yard used parts after that in a build.
My car in 1966. I ran F/MP with a flathead with a Columbia rear end. Reno Raceway was an abandoned airfield back then.

 

Dude, that's fu*ked up!

Glad you were ok

 

2 chances . first , as above , lost my brakes . put a pencil in the broken line
& limped home . second , almost had my '31 (rear end out) fall of the jackstands . got my attention ! .. others dont really count , but many .... steve

 

Every time I drive around the block in mine!!!!

 

Twice.
I was crossing the street after taking a pic of my '62 Suburban on the roadtrip home from buying it, and was hit from behind by a drunk doing about 35mph in the paved median without his headlights on. It's amazing how fast and clear your mind works when bad things happen. My dad told me a story hundreds of times about a kid he knew in gradeschool who fell off the back of a little mini-bike in the '60s and hit his head on the driveway and died, and he'd always follow it up with "You've got two hands, legs, eyes and ears, but only one head. You can afford to lose one of the others, but you have to protect your head. Don't ever hit it on concrete." So after I came off his hood at a perfect horizontal angle, the narrator in my skull said very clearly, and very slowly "Don't hit your head. Don't hit your head." I tucked up and landed on my ass and elbows, amazingly hard. Then the voice said "Roll out of the way, this guy could still be moving. But don't roll past the yellow line, because there are cars in the other lane."
Screwed up my ankle pretty good, but didn't break anything. I drove from Memphis to Atlanta the next day, and haven't stopped in Memphis since. (The cop refused to do anything about the hit and run driver, saying there was no crime since I refused medical treatment, and the wrecked camera was a civil matter between me and the guy who fled, and "the police don't get involved in civil matters.")

Second time was working on the fuel line in a parking lot under my '54 Buick. Had a portable jack under it, and listened to the advise I got when I was a kid from a friend's dad: always put a spare wheel/tire under the car if you're working on it. The jack bled down 6 inches over 10 minutes, until the frame rail broke the bead on the tire and air started hissing out. My rib cage was next to the tire. I'd have been trapped in a deserted parking lot, behind a screen of trees, with a '54 Buick sitting on my chest.

-Brad

 

Take a look at my Rust Ranch thread. See how bad my floor boards were. I drove it home before and thought I was going to die. hahahahah.

 

Year was 1977 in January. I was toolin' back from Escondido in San Diego,Ca. on the 76 state hwy. I was doin' bout 70 in my 64 El Camino with a fresh 327.
A friend of my wife's (girlfriend then) came on the freeway in a 39 Chevy with a 454 Big Block. I was already doin 70 and figured for a little Ricky race kind of thing.
I motioned to him with my fingers and we both pressed on it hard.
I was up around a hundred,but I had my back air shocks down and wasn't sitting right for this. He was slow and a lot of smoke was comin out his rear. At 120, I heard this loud thunk and my car went airborne! He forgot he had his choke out and shoved it back in and accelerated over my car! He went sailing off the freeway into a Ditch and I saw trees...
When it was over, My car was sitting on its side in the emergency far right hand side of the freeway and Clausen was climbing up the embankment,grabbed my hand and shook it and made me swear not to sue him for the wreck. Blood was coming out of his head. He looked like a serial killer. I said not to worry about it ,just to help out my family. He said you had your family in the car? I said yes. My wife was in the fast lane on her knees rocking back and forth. She was alive and breathing. Next, I went to my kids. They were both crying. So they were alive and breathing. They had landed in the ice plant off the freeway. One of my doors had sheared off and was down by the ditch by Clausen's 39. I just replaced the engine mounts in the Elkie and they held. Too bad, as they ripped out the block around them.
We all went to the hospital, and our cars were towed by a friend of mine who's Dad owned a tow truck. We were all broke then just starting out in life.
On the way to the hospital an Oxygen bottle fell on my wive's bloody legs. She screamed out and I got the bottle off her legs. The EMT guys were in the front seat. I thought it was wierd there was no one to watch us. At the emergency room, the nurses took a pair of scissors and cut my brand new Levi's up the side? Why? I couldve removed them... They stole my gold Hamilton wrist watch... When I went back there they told me they donated it to Mexico.. Why? It's fucking MINE!!
Anyway, the wife and kids had to stay in the hospital for further tests, and after 5 nurses held me down to pull an ice plant chunk outta the BACK of my EYEBALL, I went home against medical advice.
With mud in my mouth and lumps on my head, I had three broken ribs.
I got back to the apartment where the mangager had a note on my door. He was evicting me for "drag racing " in the parking lot and doing burnouts... I took a shower..
Lost my apartment and my car in one day... To top it off the cops showed up and arrested me and Clausen for drag racing. We went to jail. The girls bought us MC Donalds and we showed up at the jail. We thought we were going to do 14 days, but they let us out after one weekend and said time served. Kool. That was a break!
I was fined $150 for tearing up a freeway sign. In jail, I was swearing, I'd never do that again... Clausen was already planning his next car... I thought he was a bone head, but now I have two T buckets in my Garage and a full dress Harley... I guess we never learn... Mikey

 

I was comeing home from the backside of 53 hours on the Ambulance. I had just got hurt on a call and they sent me home. I was beat dog tired I wanted to just crash at the EMS staion full house no room had to go home. I was on I 75s I was in a 67 chevy truck and I must of went to sleep at the wheel.I woke up when i hit the gard rail tried to regain control but could not. I finaly got it stoped siting siadways in the middel lane of 75 I don't know why but somtime told me to get out of the truck i took off my seat belt something i neaver put on but i had it on that night? get out of the truck OH ITS 3 AM pitch black ! I don't know where I'm at or what happend at this point. I get out cross into the middle of interstate just about get hit by a truck. I'm bleeding I've got a broke leg I just want the hell out of their. I start to cross 4lanes of the 75 north and I hit the ground like a ton of bricks. some one grabed me and put me on the ground. It was a Er doc that i worked with at a er in Tn he watched the whole thing happen.He was holding me down and some people had stoped to help me. Now I'm in a EMS uniform and I hear a loud crash it was a come to find out later DRUNK DRIVER he drove through my truck and i do mean through it. A bus had got by my truck before the drunk hit the bed went up I 75 and hit the bus about 250 feet from my truck. I wanted to get up and help the guy that hit my truck i didn't know how bad he was hurt. EMS show up come to find out I'm the one their worried about next thing I know i'm inthe back of an amblance hell bent for the Er. Lights all the bells horns ect. At the end of this I find out the guy is a drunk driver with no insurence no drivers licences and no curent tag on the car. I ended up with a concustion broke leg brused ribs ect ... I ended up with no truck insurence wouldn't pay!!!!! that sucks big time

 

This just happend to me 2 months ago. Showing off for my wifes co-workers i stomped on the gas to do a big smoky burn out in my cutlass. Got up to about 50 in a short distance in the parking lot. Hit the brakes and they went to the floor!! Front brake line blew out. Good thing the suspension is all new. Just missed some trees by whipping the wheel and running over a curb.

 

Which one did you want to hear about most?


The car that was on it's roof sliding down the interstate right at me?

The time we had to dump-and-slide a bike on a rainy highway?

The time we were towing the race car back from Indy Good Guys, had to pull over with other stopped cars because of the blinding blowing rain, then watched the power lines a few feet from the highway getting ripped apart and sparking, then hear on the radio that the shopping center just a few hundred feet away was destroyed by a tornado.?

The oncoming van that crossed MY centerline and took out the large sign right next to me?

When my Hemi throttle stuck wide open?

When an old bike of mine blew a seal and oiled the back tire on the highway curve?

80 mph on my bike when some car swerves over to take all of my lane away from me?

The wheel and tire that came off somebody's trailer, just bouncing high enough to clear my head?

The speeding jack-knifing semi carrying a wide-load earthmover when he cleared my plow blade by 3 inches on his way into the trees? (OK, so it wasn't my hot rod)

I can come up with a couple dozen more if I stop and think, but I am already wondering how I am still alive.

Probably just about everyone has a tale of close calls. I'll read those and not bore you with mine. Too many stories.

Those don't bother me at all.

What did bother me was watching a family of five burn alive when their van slid on ice and hit a sign pole.
Nobody could get close enough to pull anyone out.

Watching an event like that is much more effective than a thousand of your own close calls to make you stop and evaluate things.

 

This past Sept in Big Olds
http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=298520&highlight=big+olds+james+dean&showall=1

 

You seem pretty accident prone, maybe you should stay home where its safe, or perhaps drive an armour truck, ya that sounds like a good plan. LOL...

 

I notice more than one guy on here has posted that they lost brakes when blowing a line... single reservoir master cylinders suck. I had my own close call with one too.

-Brad

 

Another reason to have a dual master cylinder and keep the company talk down at the water fountain.

 

Not a hot rod close call but the closest for me, I was racing one of my old dirt track cars when the steering wheel came off coming out of turn 4 on to the front stretch. I let off the gas and tried to smack it back on the shaft. I got it back on just as I started to get into turn 1. I was still going about 50mph or so which would have still hurt pretty good hitting the wall dead on. Made it through the turn and transfered to the A main still out of that heat race. I could not hit the brakes it would have affected the stright line the car was heading in too much. I corrected the problem before the main. The pushlock just needed some WD-40. Always made sure the steering wheel was good and locked on the shaft after that.

Here is the one that always makes me think that is close as you come to death with only minor injuries and no death.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylDOKtFu__Q