Stories about crashing your first car .

How's this for a hard luck story. November '68, I had to go to Juvenile Court for a traffic violation, the law at the time in Michigan if you were under 17. Actually the third one I had gotten in less than a year. Early appointment with a referee there, a parent had to be there also. I really expected my license to get pulled at this time.

At the same time, I needed to get a new shifter for my '54 Bel Air. After court if I still could drive anyway.

Went to court, probation with no motorcycle operation for 60 days. Big deal, November thru January is not really cycle season in Michigan anyway.

Dropped my mother off at work, pulled out and was promptly hit by a drunk driver at one in the afternoon. Took the left front corner off her '64 Mercury convertible.

As we were sitting in the police car, the other driver, visibly intoxicated tried to reach me in the back seat while yelling and blaming me for the crash. This was before cages were mandatory, the cop pushed him against the window as I was getting ready to punch the drunk in the face.

At this point the other cop at the scene let me out, cuffed the other guy and off he went to sleep it off in a cell.

Good times.......

 

1980. 19 years old. Trying to make it on my own. Lasted about 6 months and had to move to Las Vegas where my parents had moved.

I had just unloaded the u-haul trailer and was heading back home, turning left on a 4 lane with center turn, when a Jeep Grand Cherokee came out the street I was trying to turn on. I slammed on the brakes and missed him, but there was on-coming traffic and I punched it. It went BA- WAAAAAH. Just enough hesitation to get me perpendicular to the Karman Ghia that hit me square in the passenger side. My mom and both brothers were in the car. I remember seeing glass flying at me in slow motion...

No one in our car was hurt. The pass. door fell off! The hinges were broken. You can see that it pushed the b-pillar in about a foot. There were two large bulges in the KG's windshield where the dudes heads hit. They were bleeding and called for their own tow truck. I think that they were stoned.

I had just painted the car a few months earlier. The tires were from my '56 Packard project.

Looking at the car now, I would fix it. Back then the parts to fix the car cost more than I paid for it. I called SNAP and they wanted around $800 for the parts, I paid $500 for the car!

I wish I had more pictures of that car.

Oh well, I finally got another '65.

Later,

Mike

 

1979, I was 19, cruising in my 55 Ford pickup with 2 buddies. This was on the Saturday afternoon of a small town rod run in Portage La Prairie Manitoba, Canada. We spotted some girls on the side walk. I dropped 'er in reverse and mashed the load pedal. The carb stuck at WOT and the Boss 351 took control. We hit the corner of an old house dead center on the back bumper. It just about split the truck in half. It also knocked the house 1/2" off its foundation. The old hermit in the house got enough money from insurance to move into a nice senior's home. The truck became a parts donor for my 56.

 

I have two: '70 Gran Prix, I reach down to mess with the radio I hung way over on the passenger side of the dash b/c it wouldn't fit in the stock place without hacking the car up. Had just started out from a light and a guy two cars up decides he wants to turn left all of a sudden, guy in front of me has a brake light out, so I lock it up and slide into him. Bent the fender all up. Of course got blamed, I was like 17.

And I totalled an '87 T-bird my dad bought new, coming home from high school. I took a back road home so there was no traffic and I could go as fast as I wanted, was coming home from a detention, I get to a blind spot and this guy in a delivery van is stopped right in my lane. It's winter and there's lots of gravel and stuff from the salt trucks all over, I hit the brakes, lock it up, and the car slides passenger side first into a telephone pole at the doorhandle. I cut my forehead and had a stiff neck for a couple days; thank God I was alone. Guy in the van took off. Tow truck got there before cops, though.

And my dad wanted one with a red interior all along, anyhow, so he replaced it with an 88 that had the red interior... which ended up getting hit once when he was driving it, fixed, and then he did the same thing I did on the interstate on the way home from work one night, traffic was stopped in front of him and he nailed the brakes and slid into the guardrail. Fixed it one more time, but it got me finally out of the doghouse for wrecking the first one. We ended up driving it until it rotted so bad the trailing arm came off on the left side, and it had fabricated gas tank straps to hold that on because the original mounts were shot, too.

 

G'day, The year was 1977 and I was driving a red, white, and blue 55 Chevy that looked exactly like the one in the old Hurst shifter ad. Had the radiused wheel wells, 5 foot long ladder bars, an m22 trans with a Bieber shifter, and a very high revving small block in it.

I was off at college and my baby brother stayed a couple of weeks with me. When it was time to take him home, my girlfriend and her cousin said they would go on the 170 mile round trip with me for company. About half way there I sheared all but one of the wheel studs off the right front. No cell phones in 1977 so caught a ride to the nearest inhabited farm (3 miles) called dad and walked back.

Dad came to the rescue with another brake drum and tools. Off we went with the folks leading the way. A couple of miles from home we lost all 5 of the left side studs, the wheel came off and rolled under the fender liner launching us into the air. My dad happened to look in his rear view as it happened and said out lights flashed up, down, and then disappeared.

We hit hard. I broke the windshield and dented the trim with my head. The girl friend had hit the floor and braced herself. The cousin had launched towards the windshild as well but baby brother caught her by her bib overall straps and kept her from getting hurt.

The left front fender and liner were destroyed as was the drum, spindle, and lower control arm. The header was completely flattened. The fender was pushed back enough that the driver's door would not open. What a mess. The metal fuel line sheared off the fuel pump and gas was running on the ground. The next thing I knew was sitting on the highway, leaning against the car, with my folks trying to get me consious.

I miss that car. Still got the baby brother. Married the girl friend.

ms

 

my first crash was in 99 I was 25 and completely destoyed my 69 roadrunner. and yes it was a 383 disc brake one owner car!!! fuck why did you have to bring this up!!! now im pissed off about it!!!

 

Only 'accident' Ive ever been in was my own fault. I had picked up a '95 BMW super cheap about a year or so ago, and rebuilt the engine. The front bumper had a crack in it from a previous owner, but it had been repaired with zip ties, and with the color of the car, you couldnt even tell. I was on my way home in the middle of winter, the roads were slicker than shit. Ive always been good at sliding my cars around corners, so I had the bright idea of drifting my car around a 90* corner at 45 mph. Of course, I pulled off the slide flawlessly, but after my rear end came back in, my front tire hit a patch of ice and the car whipped around. The front bumper just barely clipped the snowbank on the side of the road, but it was just enough to crack the other side, and tear off all the zip ties in the crack on the other side. This made the entire lower half of my bumper fall off! I didnt have money to ship a new bumper up from out of state, so I cut out some thin aluminum plate and riveted to the 2 halves, and painted it over. You couldnt even tell! I went a little slower around that corner from then on though.

 

I got a late model Chevy pickup when I was in Highschool. I was taking a couple friends home after school and got into an accident. Everyone was ok, but the lady I got in an accident with had friends in a car behind her that claimed everything was my fault. Then the fire department shows up, and it turns out that all the firefighters knew her on a personal level because here father was the Fire chief. We may as well had been invisible. As if that wasn't bad enough, her tow truck driver showed up and it just happened to be her boyfriend who tried starting a fight with me. Pretty shitty first accident scenario. I know that all sounds too weird to be true, but who could make that up?

 

i recall it like it was yesterday. We had just move to a shit hole town in arizona. I was driving my 47 chevy truck ( i was 17 at the time, im 26 now) a guy pulled out in front of me and slammed on his brakes, i slammed on mine the rear end locked up slide me sideways right into a concrete wall. now im across the lane and people are passing me like nothing happened couldnt get anyone to stop. I climb back in the truck fire it up the fans in the radiator. get the thing backed up out of the wall tire rubbing on now crushed fender,drop it into first and rev the hell out of it to get it off the road into a parking lot. now that im off the road i reach down because my knees is hurting and feel its wet, grabbed the hole in my jeans a pull them back to find a nice tear in the skin at my knee that happened when my knee hit the exposed knurl where the window crank had been earlier but came off that morning and i hadnt had a chance to put it back on. had my dog with me in the cab she got sent to the pound because the cops couldnt get her to the house, i was sent to the hospital for 18 stitches. truck was hauled home. It was one of the few times in my life were i didnt want to even drive that day, moral of the story is listen to your gut, sometimes your not supposed to be out on the road.

No pictures from the aftermath i couldnt stomach the sight of the damage, another year and a half spent redoing the truck i still have it is my first ride!

 

1967, I was about 18. My 'first' car was a 41 Willys sedan, and I never pranged that, just ran out of gearboxes at every wreckers in my city, so I sold it.

My first 'expensive' car was a 1959 E100 Ford Prefect, the little English Ford sedans, very light to allow the sidevalve 4 banger to haul them along. Like a couple of others on here, I fitted a seatbelt to the drivers seat. I had $6 left after I bought the car, enough for one new seatbelt. Just as well because a couple of weeks later, I had a full sized Holden (GMH) turn across right in front of me at a traffic light, in the dark, and in the rain.

The Prefect drum brakes were useless anyway, and in the wet I head-oned him at about 35 mph. The front of the Prefect crumpled up like a jam tin, almost right back to the firewall on my side of the car. The only injury I got was a bunch of bruises from the seat belt.

I've never had an accident since.

Cheers, Glen.

 

I find it hard to believe but I still have not had an accident on the street. Scratched the side of a van one night, picking up body's with a mate (Driving for a crematorium) we had been driving for about 20 hours and I almost nodded off to sleep. Ran the reflectors on an Armco down the side but was lucky enough not to actually hit it!

Racing though is a different story, almost killed my navigator and I in a rally accident. It seems that a cars wo'nt turn or stop too well when airbourne!

Doc.

 

I was stationed at Bainbridge, MD in Navy nuclear power school. Fell in love with a '65 big block Corvette coupe, a leftover since it was the fall of '65, at Anderson Chevy in Baltimore. Arrest me red, 425hp, four speed, factory 4:56 gears. Hocked my soul to buy it and on my first trip from MD back to upstate NY to my parents, I made the mistake of doing the drive and then a visit to the local watering hole for a beer or two. Small town, I only had a mile or so to get home and while driving down a street I had grown up on, fell asleep. You could see my track where I crossed some front lawns straight as an arrow until I center punched a large tree with the front end of the new 'vette. I was lucky, local cop arrived first and called off the trooper response. There was fiberglass everywhere. But it did get repaired, needed new frame, and finally succumed to my new bride who was not a fan of the beast. Here is a pic of car after the repairs. Funny story, last year on a website for my high school, I chatted with a guy who was a youngster in the front bedroom of the house whose tree I hit. He still remembers being awoken by the crash and amazed to see what was in his front yard.

 

My 3rd car wasn't a car but a '55 F-100 and I washed it every day, 365 of 'um, the first year I owned it. Whiewalls, lowered front, white tarp....I was Hot Shit!

 

not a car a 1981 suzuki gs1000 i was t boned just behind my left leg (thank god for small miracles)destroyed the bike broke my collar bone and rattled my brain . iwas realy pissed off i only owner the bike for about 20 minutes

 

my moms car, 16, had my license 2 months. go around a corner and what do i see? an entire squad of cheerleaders off to my right workin on some homecoming floats. i then proceded to sideswipe the 3 parked cars to my left. cop asked me what happened. i just pointed. he laughed.

 

It was a warm spring day in 1977, the next to the last day of school for a sophomore with a two week old license and a 1958 Apache half ton. Nice truck for a 16 year neophyte hot rodder. Since not much was going on that afternoon at our small town high school, a batch of us decided to skip school for an hour or two. After a while we ended up in the small city park (within viewing range of the very school we were skipping, I would like to say we were bold, but stupid was more like it). This park had a nice gravel road running through it and if you hit the curves just right you could do a little broadsliding. Great fun at first.

I was on the back bumper of Chico's Monza and really couldn't see the road for his dust. Suddenly he took a hard left and suddenly I took a hard stop. I missed the curve in the road and ended up perched upon a rock about the size of a refrigerator that was marking a culvert. The wheelbase was altered by the rearward movement of the front axle by about a foot. Fortunately, the front crossmember saved the engine and transmission. We finally came to rest on the driveshaft and exhaust. My buddy Ray smashed the passenger wing window with his hand. He never rode with me again for about five years. Dont' really blame him.

A buddy's dad owned the town wrecker service and we rounded up a driver and a semi style wrecker to winch it off the rock and sneak it out of the park before the police arrived. I should mention that my dad was the mayor of said small town at this point.

As we were "sneaking" the truck away and trying to figure out where to hide it while I came up with a suitable story, my parents decided to pay a visit to the park to see where to locate some new charcoal grills. Needless to say, I was busted big time.

I was grounded for the summer, not even the riding mower was allowable. I wish that I could say that I received special treatment since dad was the mayor, but hell no. Cops paid extra attention to me for years, kinda like Double Secret Probation. Got really tired of push mowing almost an acre really quickly. I spent all summer saving money and scouting parts to rebuild the truck, which was complete about the time school started next fall.

 

Summer of 1966, not my 1st car ['54 Dodge 241 Hemi], but my 1st bike, a '51 BMW R57, I think. I'd just bought it the day before from a fellow at work. A woman in a pale blue '58 Buick Roadmaster 4dr decides to make a left turn from the right lane. I'm next to her in the left lane. I'm up against her rear quarter instantly, and stay up long enough for her rear wheel to get past, before I go down. Not much damage to the bike, and I wasn't really hurt. She finally realized what was happening, stops, and starts blaming me for hitting her car. She was ticketed, and it ended there - it never occurred tome to sue her.