Let's hear how you wrecked a car

[blown motor]

In about 77 or 78 I was driving a 72 Pontiac with what I will call a GTO styling package. I'm not sure how this car existed as it did but it had a 350 but with a two barrel, hood scoops and fender grills behind the front wheels the same as a GTO but it was badged as a LeMans. I put on Cragar SS mags with G60s, air shocks and loud mufflers as everyone did back then and it looked and sounded cool but it wasn't very fast.
Anyway, one summer night we are off to Clinton to partake in the bed races. After the races we go to the Elm Haven for a few drinks and then decided to catch the Queens in Seaforth on the way home for last call. For some reason I wasn't feeling great that night and I'm not sure if I even had one drink or not. After last call we decide to try and catch the chinese restaurant in Mitchell before they close at 2:00 but we're going to have to hightail it to make it in time.
We take off down the highway and as we approach a village I look at the speedometer and we're doing 110 mph. I think I was down to 100 by the time we hit the village sign. My buddy is ahead of me in a 76 Charger Daytona and we come up behind another car that for some reason decides to get on the brakes. I know at that speed my brakes aren't anything special and I don't want to rear end my buddy so I go out around him on the left. My tires catch the gravel on the far shoulder and as I steer it back on to the pavement I go back across the highway in front of him, into a gravel parking lot, rotate a bit more and go into a backwards slide down the road ditch. There a cement culvert there and I go across it with one wheel on top and one over the side. This does a fair bit of damage to the bottom of the car and as we come off the culvert the car slides about another 100 ft on it's side. As it comes to a stop it flops over on to it's roof. I can smell gas so I yell at the two guys with me to get out quick. Not thinking about the car being on it's roof and needing to get out I undid my seat belt and fell on my head!
I had a few scrathes on my arm from crawling out the window and one my friends had a broken collar bone. The other guy was fine. The car was scrap and I bought a 76 Cordoba. End of story.

[Cuda Cody]

   You're pretty lucky no body was hurt.  I've never been in a car when it's upside down, but I'm guessing that was a bit scary.

[Brads70]

Sheesh Murray, it's always the quiet shy types you gotta watch huh?    Your a wild man! 

It's a wonder we survived our more youthful/younger/dumber days huh? I've never wrecked a car, but I've done a lot of stupid stuff that could have ended badly....

[Marc70challenger]

It's a wonder we survived our more youthful/younger/dumber days huh? I've never wrecked a car, but I've done a lot of stupid stuff that could have ended badly....

I never wrecked myself.  Some guy who did a hit-n-run on us wrecked shortly thereafter ... leave it at that.

[jimynick]

" the Elm Haven for a few drinks and then decide to catch the Queens in Seaforth" OMG, the old Elm! Met my nearly-wife there one night when it was slow in Grand Bend and Banger Menell's mom worked in the Queens.
  We'd been drinking beer all day out at the Christmas tree farm with Paul the fisherman- who insisted on drinking Pilsener Urquell, a Czech beer that we thought tasted like pony pee, but that never seemed to stop us drinking it. My buddy Randy had a 66 Chevelle 327 300 horser and he was leading the way back to the 'Bend as the 8 of us thought we needed to catch last call at Monetta Menard's on the beach. There was no way in hell that that Chevy was going to beat my 72 340 4spd Duster and as we went past the drag strip (at about 100mph+) I saw Randy waving and thought "what the hell....? only to see his car veer left as we entered the nearly 90' left turn! JESUS! I cranked 'er and the rear end slid over the edge and there was this "whack, whack,whacking noise but I was too busy to pay much attention right then. I drifted the corner and slammed 'er into 3rd and we came back across the highway just slowed enough for me to recover from going into the other ditch. The oncoming traffic, having witnessed these idiots and their asinine driving wisely just stopped as we got our act together and into second and off into town we went.  Arriving at MM's in time for said last call, I looked at my nice, shiny silver baby and the rt 1/4 was a mess due to annihilating 5-6 reflector posts . Mr Tuckey who had been in the rear seat, said that his underwear was also in a mess and we laughed and went in for another beer. Ah, the stupidity of youth. By the next weekend, the Duster was fixed and painted again and I vowed to never do that $hit again! 

[303 Mopar]

Driving home from High School football practice in by '77 CJ7 Jeep doing about 50 mph when an older man made a left hand turn in his 70ish Duster.  After a 20' skid, my grill folded around his front passenger fender and engine bay.  The only injury was my busted nose on the steering wheel.  His insurance paid to repair my Jeep, and I added a beefy push bar in case that ever happened again.

[Chryco Psycho]

Ok well
I drove dump truck & I always got the beater either by being the newest hire or being a mech they figured I could keep it running so all year I drive this beat up International 2500 series tandem . HD but a lot of miles on it so I come into work mon am ,check the fluids & fire the truck up, 10 mins later I go outside & the truck is shut off , i go & get the keys & start it up again & the boss says I am not driving that truck today , instead I am to drive the new truck a much lighter duty chassis I argue with him to no avail that we are working off road & there is no reason to have the new truck working there as no one will see it &  it will get very dirty , anyway this time he has my keys in his pocket & will not give them to me , 8 hrs later he regretted that decision we were dumping on soft ground all day & the truck would lean over as the weight of the box lifted every time so around 4 pm the hoist ripped of of the frame twisting the chassis 90* instead of rolling the truck on its side , it distroyed the whole truck , frame was twisted , rear suspension was pulled apart , it had ripped the mounts out of the  both the engine & trans cases making them junk , cab floor was  bent , rad & shroud damaged , the front bumper & hood were the only parts undamaged , $80 k write off , he blamed me for dumping on unlevel ground until he watched the other trucks dump doing exactly the  same thing , I am sure the older truck would not have failed being much better built with the D chassis & the loss would have been minimal to lose the old truck if it had failed 

[MEK-Dangerous]

I have never wrecked a car, but I had my wrecked. Let me explain...

It was 1983. My daily driver was that awesome 1978 second generation Challenger. (Sarcasm)

So I worked 2nd shift back then, and I'm eating lunch in the cafeteria one evening, when a co-worker approached me and said I needed to see the guard pronto. I knew this was not going to end well. It seems a semi truck delivering liquid nitrogen to the plant got the rear wheels hooked on a light pole and kept on going. It pulled the light pole and a foot of cement that was under it out of the ground. It landed on my Challenger. Right across the rear window and trunk area. Glass was everywhere. It looked like I had 4 flat tires. They had to call in a fork lift to get it off my car. I don't have pictures, but my poor car. The funny thing is, there was nobody else parked around me. It like the light pole had it in on my car.

[Chryco Psycho]

I went to pick up my Duster chassis ,I rent a U Haul trailer to get it home & used my Warlock to tow with , picked up the Duster & only got a couple of miles ,a tractor trailer went by & the trailer went into a death swing , think pendulem behind me , I had no trailer brakes to pull it straight but was able to control it for a long time counter steering gently but could  not stop it swinging . Finally after a mile or two the only solution I could come up with was to peg the brakes when the trailer was straight behind me & see if it would stop in a straight line . Nope the trailer weight lifted the front wheels of the truck  & drove straight under the truck, I ended up backwards parked with the trailer in the ditch , Duster was ok on the trailer & the Warlock  parked on top of the Duster , what a mess 
i have never been complacent since I always tow with a leveling hitch sway bars & electric brakes .

[1 Wild R/T]

Might sound crazy but sometimes the best thing is hitting the throttle...

[Chryco Psycho]

I had a lot of time to think while this was happening & tried everything throttle did not help much , needed an uphill stretch

[ViperMan]

I'm not sure which came first; the road, or the train track that went over it...  But the road intentionally dipped sharply downhill approaching, and sharply uphill afterwards, and the transition from hill to flat-terrain was very abrupt.

So, it was pretty easy to get airborne...

And there I was, a 19-year-old counselor at a summer camp with three kids in the car, and they LOVED.  THAT. ROAD.  Leaving a model rocket launch, heading back to the dorms, really no idea how fast I was going, down the hill, quickly up the hill, and flying.  Of course, just half a second - it was after all just an '86 Subaru hatchback.  Landed, and realized the other camp vehicle - a 15-passenger Ford van - was stopped a very short distance ahead of me.  Slammed on the brakes, locked them up instantly (anti-lock whu?!) and slammed into the van.  Kid behind me didn't have his seatbelt on, broke his nose against my headrest.  No other injuries, thankfully.  Car was totaled; my parents had to drive from GA to IL to tow it home with my miserable self riding along...  Pretty much the worse summer I can remember.

It got worse, too - my replacement car?  A 1994 Mercury Sable LS Wagon in baby blue...

[usraptor]

A few years ago I was into ATV riding and hauled my ATVs inside a 5th wheel toy hauler trailer.  One weekend a bunch of us were caravaning to Moab and the guy in the lead got way ahead of us as I got stuck behind an 18 wheeling crawling up a steep grade in a no passing zone on a 2 lane highway.  When we finally got to the summit and started downhill there was a passing zone and I decided to pass.  (Big mistake) As I got along side of the 18 wheeler, the trailer loaded with the two ATVs, started to fish tail.  First I started to slow but the fish tailing increased.  I had read somewhere that if you accelerate that you can pull out of the fishtail so I accelerated.  (Another big mistake and fallacy).  Well the fish tailing got much worse and the next thing I know we were off the side of the road into the dirt, on the right hand side of the road.  How we managed to not get hit by the 18 wheeler I have no idea. At first we couldn't see anything because of all the dirt and dust all around the truck.  When the dust finally cleared I saw the trailer in front of truck, on it's roof, pancaked to about half it's normal height.   Miraculously, the air bags didn't deploy and neither myself or my best friend riding shotgun were hurt, yet.  Needless, to say I was a little pissed and when I got out of the truck to inspect the damage I slammed the driver's door.  Unknown to me, my buddy couldn't get out of the passenger door because the passenger side of the truck was against a dirt berm so he had slid across the seat and was starting to exit the driver's door just as I slammed the door.  The door glass ended up hitting him in the head and  shattered.  Fortunately he wasn't cut by the glass but did get a nasty bump on the head.  Another friend who was caravaning behind us said that when I went into the dirt and came to an abrupt stop against the dirt berm that the trailer literally went over the top of the cab of the truck, explaining how it got upside down in front of us.  A later examination of the king pin in the 5th wheel hitch showed that it had snapped.  The trailer and two ATVs were obviously totaled.  The truck suffered $20K in damages and was repaired.  Needless to say it would have been a whole different story if the trailer had landed on top of the trucks cab.

[YellowThumper]

Early 80s in a 72 Pinto.
Driving down a normal 4 lane road at roughly the speed limit. 45ish. Housing tracts on both sides with only a single entrance/exit street for them. Out of no where a young girl who just got her license blows past stop sign on left side and takes out my drivers front clip badly.
Young and broke myself I got ensurance money. Bought this total from insurance. Bought another Pinto. A 71 shell and installed drivetrain and interior.

Time laps forward 1.5 years...
Pinto #2
I was driving down the same road roughly 1/2 mile from previous accident. Same, going about the speed limit. Driving thru a green light.
Car on right side cross street ran their light. Caught my rear passenger quarter. Kicked me sidways. Slid over center curb divider into the oncoming traffic lanes. Luckily no cars. When bouncing and sliding stopped I was still facing the side of road it all started on. So naturally my momentum carried me back over the divider. This trip also took out a small tree that was just planted and finished the car off for good.

After this one I went big and bought my Challenger.

Mike

[73440]

April Fools Day 1989, driving 1951 Ford F1 wth 239 Flathead three on the tree , from Enon Ohio to Kansas City.
Left a rest area on interstate about 5 am , got about a mile down the road and hit ice on the bridge, spun 180 , drifted into the grass median and flipped upside down onto the roof. The doors splayed open but that did not stop me being trapped inside upside down by the steering wheel.
With the gas tank inside the cab leaking , and the wiring catching on fire , and the engine trying to start , it wasn't looking to good .
Had to tell someone that had run up to me, just step back no sense two dying, just get something to cut the steering column, which is what happened with the fire department.
Had it  towed to a garage rented a car and drove to Kansas City had the truck towed out to Kansas City a month later found a cab and bed in Independence Missouri install the cab and bed in Kansas City kept it in storage for five years then towed the truck to Florida and during that trip due to no fenders on the rear wheels the axle and wheel came out and bounce down the highway in Indiana due to bearings going out , luckly the local mechanic had ford rear ends in his backyard , bought and replace the rear end , think about $80 put it onto my property in Florida , it stayed for year and a half before being stolen