I left the house on Sunday afternoon in a bit of a rush. After failing to heed my wife’s order of refilling our propane tank for the gas grill, the thing ran out half way through making dinner. Going out on a Sunday afternoon, heading to a store I pretty much knew was closed, my mind was all over the place. Then I saw the 1969 Chrysler 300 convertible drive by and my racing mind slowed.
I had been formulating a Plan B on what to do when I inevitably discovered that the store was closed. The best I could come up with was to drive directly to the Mexican border to avoid the certain wrath of my wife Kerri. The big Chrysler changed all that. Immediately I placed myself (mentally) in the car, cruising on a beautiful Sunday afternoon, top down, 440ci big block making gobs of torque under the hood. Yeah, that’s where I wanted to be.
I happened to take a left and fell in behind the big Mopar just a the driver decided to stretch its legs a bit. A puff of carbon out the tail pipes and the big whale of a car was making some steam up the road. I estimate he moved the car to around 60 mph before starting the slow down to the speed limit of the road which is 40 mph. He was climbing a hill about a quarter-mile ahead of me when all of a sudden the nose dove down as if someone had dropped a wrecking ball onto the brake pedal.
Tail hiked up, smoke immediately started rolling off the tires and I was a helpless witness to what would happen next. I was praying for the guy that the car would be stopped before hitting anything. My prayers were not answered. An instant after locking the brakes, the car absolutely tail-smashed a 2008 Toyota Corolla driven by an elderly woman. Locking the brakes on the car was akin to the reverse engines order given by the captain of the Titanic before it hit the iceberg. Two tons and change of Chrysler plowed into a 2,500-pound Toyota that was literally standing still. I came upon the scene to find the Chrysler sitting dead and the Toyota nearly 50 feet up the road.
The ‘Yota was wasted, it looked to me like a write-off. The big Chrysler’s nose was crunched, the huge bumper turned up in the center, and the grille all smashed to hell. Because the Toyota actually fit between the corners of the car, the front fenders of the 300 were nearly perfect. The two middle aged guys in the Chrysler felt awful, and when they tried to start the car, it made some truly bad noises. The fan was definitely in contact with the radiator, amongst other stuff.
We all talk about and read about how careful us enthusiast car owners are. It’s always “them” we have to worry about on the road, not “us.” To paraphrase Jay Leno’s philosophy, everyone else on the road is the problem, not the guy in the old car. This time it was the guy in the old car, and he was 100% at fault.
To some level I think we like driving old cars and trucks for the extra attention that is required to operate them. There aren’t any warning lights to tell us the tires are low. There are no sensors in the back bumper to tell us we’re about to hit something. Anti-lock brakes were a kind of Orwellian thought when most of our stuff was built. These cars require all of your attention when driving them. A momentary lapse caused this guy his wreck his car, caused trauma to an elderly woman, and for those of the uninformed masses who passed by, they saw an “old car” had caused the whole mess.
As I am tantalizingly close to having Goliath (My project 1966 Chevy C50 truck) on the road, this one really hit home with me. I’m going to head back over the brakes, lights, and other basic “safety” items and when I start traveling the public highways and byways, I’m going to exaggerate all of the safety practices I already use in normal driving.
The elderly lady in the car was taken to the hospital. She had all her faculties and did not suffer any outwardly serious injuries. The Toyota was DOA. I hope the same was not true for the Chrysler driver’s love of old cars.
