Saw these pics of a 40 coupe that caught on fire in SoCal area?? Says rear tire blew and took out gas neck. Not sure of any details. Looks like folks are OK
Ironic to see the flame job on front fenders and hood... Hope the elder owner was insured! I remember when Tom Medley ('Stroker McGurk') pulled his '40 Coupe out of the burning garage fire...by the rear bumper! Tom was nearly 80, and the '40 was a total loss. No insurance, but some roddersgot together and completely rebuilt the '40 at a popular rod shop...there was a picture story. Tom returned to long hauls to shows with it, until his demise...
Pretty sure I saw this over a month ago, on FB. Had some front photos of it. Ironically the only paint that didn't burn was the flame job.
It happened over by Spokane IIRC, the car's owner lives in Western Washington. I saw the pics on the phone of a guy who was there for the fire. Sad day for him and his family.
You can edit that post by clicking "Edit" on it, and you should be able to backspace the last ones out by clicking to the right of the last pic and backspacing, or delete them if you have that option depending on how you posted them I guess.
A steel belt came off of my 39 Ford and snatched my filler neck off too. I was lucky and just put everything back together and kept going to Oklahoma City
So sad to see a photo like this. Anybody have any suggestions on how to prevent something like this from happening?
A sheet metal shield may be of help to prevent the filler neck from getting yanked off by a broken tire belt. This makes me think about carrying a little larger extinguisher also.
Any one who who was in to rod runs in the seventies would know Pete Arnold. He was a regular in those days, very nice 40. He lived in north west corner of Washington state at the time.
Tom's car is alive and well with his son in Portland. It was sitting quietly on a nice side street 4 cars up the hill from Chris's 34 roadster at Deuce days. I've still got the shirt I got for donating to the rebuild. I think somewhere in my archives I have a number of photos of that flamed 40 I have taken at events years ago when we were both hitting a lot of PNW events.
I talked to Pete at Goodguys, yep that's his car. They emptied two fire extinguishers but couldn't slow it down. He's had that car for 42 years and it's a total loss he said. It was insured but after that long there's no replacing it.
I saw the OP posted on FB a while back and was going to make a post about fuel system safety. It also makes me wonder about insurance. Is there a certain point in the build where you can fully insure the car that isn't road worthy, but it's nearly a complete car?
Yes, you can get insurance for a car that is "under construction" and not being driven. Insured for comprehensive only.
I used American Collectors Insurance when I was building my 39. They have coverage for cars under construction. took 6 yrs to build it and they let me increase value as the build went on.
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