Art & Inspiration Funny Test Ride Stories/Failures/Your Stories ?

In the early 80s I worked at a gas station as a mechanic. A customer brought in a beautiful 1957 T Bird for a complete check up as it hadn’t been driven in a few years. My boss gave it the once over, and asked me to test drive it around the block. The test drive was flawless, car was perfect. As I pulled into the station, I hit the brakes, pedal went to the floor, and through a cinder block wall into the neighbors front yard I went. Got the front bumper and both headlight rings as I recall. Nobody was happy, and insurance covered all the carnage. The single pot master cylinder failed. Then there was the 924 Porsche that I spun into a…. Never mind. That one was all me….

 

Back in 1965, I built this early T roadster, with plans of drag racing it. It was a Model A frame, with a 50 Olds rearend bolted on top of the rails. I used a complete 40 Ford front end, by splitting and heating the wishbones, and a stock Model a steering gear. My older Brother Jerry, helped me getting the 53 Cadillac engine and hydro, mounted and coupled to the rearend. For brakes, it had a pedal and master cyl, from a 53 Chrysler, with rear brakes only. I decided to take it for a test ride, without the body, since it wasn't mounted yet. With the steering column full length, I could sit on the rear axle. I hadn't built the shifter for the trans yet, so a buddy sat on the right hand valve cover, facing backwards, to do the shifting duties. The battery box consisted of a piece of plywood, that laid on the outside lip of the trans pan, to the inside of the lower flange of the frame rail, with the long, skinny Cad battery just sitting on top. We ran a hot wire from the coil to the big post on the battery, sort of wrapped around the cable. I lived a mile out of town, with very little traffic, and a paved road that passed in front of the house. Well, we towed the contraption about a 1/4 mile down the road and turned it around. The moment of truth had arrived, I was seated and ready, pal Roland shorted out the solenoid, the engine came to life, he climbed aboard, and clicked it in gear, I pulled on the throttle, as it was a piece of baling wire hooked the 4 bbl Carter, with a curl that fit my index finger. On the ride home, I was careful, only gassing it a few times, to feel the rise in the front suspension, due to the lack of front shocks. When I made the 90 degree turn at our driveway, that was slightly uphill, and gravel, I noticed my Mother sitting on the front porch, in her wheelchair. Since Mom had always liked hot cars and racing, I decided to give her a little show, so I yanked on the throttle, and it jumped, and bounced, due to the solid mount rear axle, forcing me back, and tugging the throttle more. We were in a heap of trouble. There were cars parked at the back of the driveway, and we were going to hit something. As luck would have it, the bouncing, allowed the plywood holding the battery, to fall out, and the battery dropped the the ground, tearing the end out of it, and pulling the hot wire. Roland and I escaped danger, two very lucky teenagers.

 

Neat car Marty, that story is going to be hard to top.

 

Two kids and a Cadillac powered go kart... what could possibly go wrong?!!

 

A buddy of mine was maybe 19 or 20 and worked for a garage in Northern Illinois. A customer brought in a new or nearly new GTO with an automatic that wouldn't downshift. My buddy Dave fixed it and took it for a test drive to insure that it would actually downshift when you mashed the throttle. Did I mention it was winter and the roads had snow on them? Dave was on a country road and stomped on it. The transmission downshifted fine, but the rear end broke lose and the car got sideways. From there it was at trip though a fence and across a frozen field. The car was still in fairly good shape until it jumped the creek and rolled over. He hitched back to the garage with a good new/bad news story.

 

AAAAAAGGGGGHHHHHH, NNNOOOOOOOOOOO! You're killing me

 

After piecing together the roadster for 3 years or so, It was finally ready for a trip around the block.
I backed out of the driveway and went up the hill and around the block. Coming up my street I decided to stab the brakes to see if everything was in order. BANG, the pedal went to the floor. For a split second there was only panic but I just put it in neutral and coasted up and turned into my driveway.
The brake pedal arm which was heavily modified to fit was more mig weld than actual steel and it broke in half. Fixed it up, crisis averted.

 

Told this before but it is a test ride story too. I had rewired my 53 Buick Skylark convertible and had it out in my driveway priming it with gas leaning into the engine compartment from the front of the car when it suddenly lurched forward up my front porch steps, it took out one of the 4x4's that held up the porch roof, the post pushed the hood down with me inside the engine compartment the car climbed the steps and stopped kindof growling there while I got to see the fan almost rubbing my belly. I realized that I'd better choke it out before it took me out. I'd left it in Drive and because it hadn't been started in years it took a minute to fill the torque converter and drive over me on a short but exciting test drive. JW

 

ive had nightmares losing brakes....no chance of cracking up.....except in my head...ha ha ha .

 

After 7 years of building this thing (90s), I took it for the first test drive. No interior at the time, just Mexican blankets. I pull up to a busy intersection, red light, first car in the right lane. It was idling a little high, so put it in Park, I unbuckled the belt, stood up on the floor straddling the steering column.
I reached over the windshield with a flatblade screwdriver and lowered the idle. As I was sitting back down, a Police car was in the left lane right next to me--lady cop. I showed her I was hooking the seatbelt, she smiled and just shook her head. Light turned green and all was well.

 

I seem to be the one amongst my friends that gets to test drive all the sketchy junk. I haven't had to discuss matters with an officer of the law for a lot of years, but usually when something is first fired I end up with the honors of test driving it. Barely wired? Check. Sketchy brakes? Check. lacking most lights at night? Yeah, call me.

Devin

 

In the early 90's i went to have a look at a OT (Holden Sandman) with a 350 Chev in it, with a view to buying. It was advertised as immaculate condition inside and out.
Looked it over and it seemed sweet.
I asked if i could take it for a test drive, the owner said yeah, but i'm driving. (Alarm bells ringing)

So off we go, he's fanging this thing all over town until we come screaming up to a stop sign. He stands on the brakes and it pulls up fine, except an enormous cloud off acrid blue smoke envelopes us, blotting out the sun.
The owner looks at me kinda sheepish and says " Ah, might need the rings doing"
I didn't buy it...

 

Great stories guys, love reading them. Trying to think of a good one, I did all the 'gas can strapped to the hood, lawn chair seat' stuff but mostly just ended up in a walk home.

Bought this old camper van to do some traveling. Got it all fixed up, cut a door in the side to haul bike, got the A/C working, 12v fridge, put in a big stereo, headed out across Nevada on 50 (the loneliest highway). Stereo blasting, beer in the fridge, life's good. Flipped on the A/C, that was enough extra load to catch the wiring on fire! Managed to pull off and put the fire out. Replaced all the burnt wires with lamp cord and got back on our way. No A/C, no stereo, no cold beer.

Long day that didn't end there. At nightfall pulled into the McDonalds in Ely Nevada. Got stuck under the light standard at the drive-through menu board. After jockeying back and forth got it freed, but most of the light standard was stuck in the ladder, torn loose but still attached to the back bumper. Drug that to the window, got my food and took off down 50 in the night, sparks flying off the carnage behind me.

 

So years ago I bought an old farm truck from Chris @2muchstuff. It was a mix matched 32-33 Ford cab on a large Chevy farm truck of similar vintage that I bought mainly for the cab. When Chris was towing it with his farm tractor to position it so I could load it on the trailer, he recommended that I put it in gear and use the clutch as a brake. When doing so I noticed that the old Chevy 6 turned over freely. Anyway after getting it home and in my garage (the trip from Kansas to my home in a Chicago suburb being a totally different adventure), it stuck in my mind about the engine turning over and thought, I wonder if I could get it running. So it didn’t take too much effort to get it to fire, after which I bought a carb rebuild kit and some other relatively inexpensive parts to ultimately get the engine running pretty good. Naturally my next thought is I wonder if I could easily get this thing drivable? The next big hurdle was a blow out in one of the front tires, and I’m talking old fashioned blow out where there is a big gaping hole in the sidewall of the tire. Not wanting to invest in a new 20” truck tire I decided I would patch the tube and also got some sort of large tire patch that you’re supposed to glue to the inside of the tire. After doing this I proceeded to fill it with air only to see a giant bubble of inner tube bulging out through the patched gaping hole in the tire, just like the old cartoons. So I then thought what if I wrapped the outside of the tire with something to hold it together and decided one of those bright orange ratchet straps would be just the ticket. Sorry no pics but below I did include a picture of the truck from when I picked it up at Chris’. Aired up the tire and success! Next step creep it up the drive to make sure the mechanical brakes work at least a little and that I can get it to move back into the garage. Success again! Time to go around the block. With the prerequisite gas can that is feeding the engine and battery on the floor next to me in the cab and the farmer made driver’s door bungied shut (safety first) it was off down the drive. First thing that became clear was that at least one of the kingpins was in really bad shape as I couldn’t even make a right turn out of my drive into the two lane street in front of the house without running partially over the front lawn of the neighbor across the street. As I headed down the street in the white knuckle drive that probably never exceeded 20 miles an hour, all I could think of was with my luck a police car will come around the corner and make me explain what the heck I was thinking. Anyway, made it to the end of the block only to hear a very large bang. Great, now how am I going to get this broken truck back to the garage. Engine still running, check. Still moves in gear, check. Oh, my ratchet strap tire repair failed. I’m guessing the tube still managed to get pinched in the gaping hole in the tire. Who would of guessed that wasn’t going to work? Luckily, the tires being old and pretty much rock hard anyway I was able to turn the corner, get to the nearest alley and get the thing turned around and back in my garage without any more events. But it ended up being one of the slowest, nerve racking drives I ever made.

 

Bought a 74 delta 88 for the 455 for $80. Trans was toast, dumped in a can of trans goop to make it move. Taking side streets to get out of town and loop back in to my buddy's garage. Asked my buddy can we strip this and get it hauled off today, sure. Soon as he said that I cranked the wheel and dragged the passenger side down a guardrails. He about sh*t. We proceeded to bang it around bridges and guardrails for a while.
Back to the garage torched out engine, trans, rear and our favorite scrap guy had it gone.
Monday morning, cops showed up at the body shop he worked at asking if any cars came in with dark green paint, cause they must have been drunk.

 

Your drive through story brought up a few memories on the safety height board events I experienced. Coming home from wing sprint car racing, then had an open trailer and we lowered wing to near flat when towing, pulled into a Micky Ds at around 2 AM and wife shouts Stop, wing might hit, get out look, Yep, is going to hit, I had to ask drivers to back up so I could back out, some not pleased but they did and after all this I realized WE could have unbolted 4 bolts and removed wing, Duh ! Another time driving one of my drivers, 4x4 Blazer with 3" lift kit and 36" tires went to airport to pick up son coming home on leave, pull into parking structure, went under the board at entry, full first floor, got to ramp going up, stop look, pull up slow, looking at height board at top of windshield Hmmmm..... have to ask people to back up so I could back up, turn around to get out, very interesting, as you know everything 1 way, pay to get out, drive around, son waiting outside for me, he laughed, thought it was funny. A good friend has a truck rental business, several box trucks, popular for moving, Milwaukee had/has several low drive under bridge spots, he added large stickers on dash to remind drivers, CAUTION ! Watch out for low bridge, he had the truck height on stickers, would talk with the renters about this, still one a year box damaged at least. One more, Am I the only one that pulled up on the tollway, threw change in basket, pulled out too quick and broke off arm ? Got a letter in the mail with $$$ charge for the repair, no ticket if paid which I did AND all this before I was an Old Timer. LOL

 

Towed the car to the muffler shop and since the car did run, I started it up to drive onto the hoist. Unfortunately, when I made up the gas pedal, I placed it too close to the brakes so when I stepped on the brakes, it mashed the gas pedal which sent me flying past the end of the hoist. The car finally came to a stop just inches from the open pit they used for big truck work. Now, I do my own exhaust work. It's not as embarrassing.

 

I built a nasty 454 with a wild roller cam, aluminum heads, tunnel ram etc in a 31 Model A coupe so my wife would have something to race when we go to nostalgia drags. She's my age (60) but her father was an old time drag racer in Kansas as she was growing up so I thought it would be fun to build something wild enough to hopefully scare her just a little. It didn't quite work out that way.
After getting the car running and breaking it in a little I had her come drive it a little in the neighborhood just to start getting a feel for it. We live on a dead end road and it's only a couple blocks long. I got in the passenger seat and she fired it up and putted down to the end of the street and turned it around and stopped. I expected to punch it a little and get out of it after 30 or 40 feet but she nailed it and about half way up the street I was yelling at her to shut it down and I kicked her foot off the throttle.
Nope, it didn't begin to scare her but it scared the crap out of me. We may need to add NOS to it next. I won't be riding.

 

Looking through the classified papers years ago I found a 1986 M6 BMW , one of my favourite cars .
Anyways call the guy to go see it and he says he’ll come meet me ?! Ok….

so about an hour later this clapped out blue smoke puffing bmw pulls up to my parents house, the guy stops snd the suspension is so clapped out the car looks like a dingy in a storm in open water !!!
Faded paint guy smoking a cigar and slapping the roof say “ it’s a cherry , she’s a peach”

I make it half way down my drive way looking at the rust spray painted over and then notice the silver duct tape on the seats snd just say “ nah man , no thanks “

funny thing is he was asking a pretty penny for it !!!!


On the flip side when I sold my 72 bonneville 455 it was a mint all original 2 door car . I had a guy come by and look over the entire car , spent about an hour looking not saying much , so I sat in the garage and had a beer n a smoke . He finally looks at me n says “ thanks man “ and goes to jump in his car. I go over to ask what’s up and as I get 1/2 down the drive way he goes “ I’ve been restoring one the last few years , needed to see how some of it went back together !


Last one is my buddy spider , he got the name as in high school he owned about 6 alpha Romeo spiders .
Anyways we go look at this really rusty rough one, but it had some great speed parts on it , spider buys it . Slap a plate on it and I’m driving behind him, we get about 1/2 a mile from his house and the car was so rusty it basically collapsed around him , was somewhat able to drive it into a side street. Spent the night pulling off what he wanted and left the car there !

 

years ago roached the 4 banger in a very ot daily driver so replaced it with one from a neighbors crashed car. got it all hooked up and running, drove a few short test trips all seemed fine so took out all tools and fire ext. i had been carrying . headed out for a longer jaunt , about 5 miles out of town on a country road i look in rearview and see smoke trailing the car, as i look back forward i see flames coming around the hood gaps! pulled to the side of the road and pop the hood to be greeted with an inferno , my first thought was to get the ext. that had been in the trunk... oops, damn took it out ! about that time a guy in a pickup truck pulls in behind me and hands a fire ext. out the window to me. I douse the flames before any serious damage happens (except for a fried area of wire harness) turn out i had neglected to tighten a hose clamp on trans cooler line. I told the guy " man are you my guardian angel!" he had been getting in his truck outside of the seed corn warehouse where he worked and saw me go past trailing flames so thought he would try to help. i made damn sure that i got him a replacement ext. and thanked him again. learned to carry an ext. in all vehicles, not just for me but to help others if needed.

 

Mine doesn't involve fire...
... just lots of water.
Bought an AD pickup truck. In good condition, but it didn't run and it had no glass installed. My buddy helped me flat tow it with a chain the few short miles home... all gravel road. I got to steer the truck. It was a warm summer day. Thing is, by the time we hooked up and got going, it was raining cats and dogs. I mean it was really coming down. Torrential. Rain that's actually loud. I was starting to get pretty wet. Goofy me was singing "Singing in the Rain" at the top of my lungs. We continued on. At one point, a car coming from the opposite direction blasted through a REALLY big puddle and put a huge wave of water airborne... and in perfect trajectory to come right through my windshield. I saw it coming. I stopped singing and held my breath. The force of all that water! It didn't really hurt, but holy cow... WHAM! And I couldn't have been any wetter.
We continued on.
"...WHAT A GLORIOUS FEELING
I'M HAP-HAPPY AGAIN..."

Oops... you said test drive.
Sorry... I sometimes don't follow directions very well.

 

Test ride that might have ended badly. Decided that I needed a vacation and was going to hop a plane to anywhere in Europe. This was back in the day when you could buy your ticket at the counter. I would hit the airport, look at the departure board and grab the first one that tripped my trigger. Bag, passport and cash was all you needed. Hell, you could even smoke on the plane. So I call my buddy(who changed cars like I changed socks) for a ride to the airport. Hour later he shows up in a really clean Eldo, and we head off. We park in short term parking and I head inside and he disappears. After perusing the departure board I settle on a 30 minute wait to head off to Paris. As I'm buying the ticket I notice my buddy at the other counter. Turns out he decided to go along. I asked about his car and he told me he'd taken it from a used car lot for a test drive. WTF? He says his car was down and he liked my idea of a vacation. So he just walked over to a car lot and grabbed the Eldo. WTF? He says it cool. He's called the lot and told them where the car was and he'd locked the keys in the trunk. We get back after three months (fantastic women, food, scenery but it did even out with that shitty attitude the French seem to cultivate). The car lot was pissed. But it turned out they couldn't get him for 'grand theft auto' because they let him take the car. He even made them pay for his duplicate license because they cut his up LOL...

 

So one day I bought a pair of 1965 Plymouth Barracudas. One was a rust bucket slant 6, 3 on the tree, but the other was a CA car with a V8 4 speed. I think I paid $500 for both cars, which was a lot of money for me, but really really was quite a deal at that time.
At the time I lived out in the country, and both cars were also in the country, about 5 miles from my house, with mostly back roads between. There was one stretch where I would come to a stop sign on a state highway, had to turn left, drive about a 1/4 mile, then make a right turn onto another back hard surface road. That short run on the state highway was about the mid point between where the cars were, and where home was.
One of my brother in laws rode along with me. The V8 car supposedly ran, but the condition of the slant 6 car was unknown. The plan of the day was to see if either of them would move under their own power, I could trailer them home if need be.
We took a good battery, some gas, brake fluid, and a few other odds and ends. (at the time I was buying , selling, and parting out a lot of cars, I had a "get it running kit" if you will, that I always took with me). Obviously, the V8 car was the one of interest, so that was the first one we messed with. After an hour or so, I got it running, and it would move forwards and backward pretty easy. The master cylinder was empty, but the car had been sitting for nearly a year. I filled the master cylinder with brake fluid, and a few pumps, the brake pedal felt great. I topped off the fluid level. and the brakes were very solid. We looked under the car and didn't see any leaks, and the pedal stayed firm. I drove it around the farm it was sitting on, and the brakes were great, the fluid level never dropped. I decided I was going to drive it home.
We left the farm, my brother in law followed. The first 3 stops were great. The next stop was at the state highway. The brake pedal went to the floor! No amount of pumping did any good. The car had no brakes, including not an emergency brake, I soon discovered. I was going about 20 mph as I rolled through that stop sign and made the left turn onto the state highway. Fortunately, there was no one but me and my brother in law following behind me. I was much better prepared for the right turn coming in 1/4 mile. At this point, my biggest concern was how I was going to stop when I got to my place. As it turned out, creeping into my driveway at an idle and shutting the car off in gear worked pretty well.
We trailered the other car home. The test drive in that one taught me how to free up 3 on the tree shift linkage when it wedged into two gears at the same time. I got a lot of practice with that on that car. I drove the slant 6 car for about 6 months. I think it paid for both cars when I sold it.

The V8 car hung around for 5 or 6 years before someone wanted it a lot more then I did. That V8, 4 speed in the light car was a lot of fun!

 

I have bought too many cars to have an exact number... bought and drove home with switched plates and no insurance. That had a big pucker factor if the ride was 20 miles or more. All of us did it and followed the illegal car closely with a legal car.

 

No bigger thrill than that.

 

Old Friday Art

Hello,

Right after my friend and I installed the dual quads on the modified 283 SBC motor in his 1957 Chevy Bel Air Hardtop, we checked everything for fit and finish. Now, we had installed almost everything to equal a factory set up as brand new. But, it cost less due to parts exchanges and us doing the work.

When my friend bought the 57 Chevy, it was a nice used car and approximately low cost/low miles enough to fit his teenage budget. A 3 speed and a single 4 barrel carb was completely stock. So, as the money rolled in from his after school job, we started to add more speed stuff to get more horsepower.
Similar look...
Even though, he had a great paying afterschool job as a “hot dog maker” at a local meat wholesale company, he still had plans on getting more stuff for his cool white 57 Chevy Bel Air Hardtop.

He then got us jobs at a cool Bixby Knolls Christmas Tree lot for extra holiday money and a fun experience. We were the only teenagers working by ourselves on the lot for weeks prior to Christmas. He was a good salesman, he could almost talk anyone into buying a tree of any kind. I was a great spray painter and made custom trees for anyone that wanted a specific size and color (green, white or pink)

We did a rousing business selling to our friends and families from the local area. The teenage girls came with their families and friends to buy a tree or two. We usually sold as many trees as we could. It was helpful that the families knew us from high school activities, sports, their daughters and his parents from the local community. They felt safe talking to us and knowing we would not steer them wrong.

I even gave out small custom trees from those left over toppers that a family wanted off the top of their tree they just purchased. A custom fit height to fit the living rooms and family rooms. But the good thing was we did not waste anything from our cuttings. A little stand and tree shaping made a perfectly good "kid size" tree just for the little guys. When we came out in front with a small kid size tree, how could a cool parent say no to the custom made tree, just for their little son or daughter? Plus the large 8 foot tree for the whole family… we were great salesmen.

Jnaki

It also helped that our hot rod sedans were parked on the lot. Our friends that cruised by saw them, stopped to say hello and brought some pizza, burgers/fries from the local diners. It was a great job for some needed money during the holidays. Plus, on the slow nights, it was a little party inside of the small trailer with great music and visiting friendships.
old Friday Art
It was his 57 Chevy that was used to make deliveries to the local homes as a courtesy customer service. Both of us could not go, so we chose his white 57 Chevy Bel Air to strap on the trees for the deliveries. We decided that of the two delivery cars, his White Bel Air could have a scratchy tree strapped on top better than on top of my pristine black paint of the 58 Impala. Black was too easy to scratch and show up under any lights.

But, I offered the pull out rear seat section of the Impala and open trunk lined with a huge blanket to transport trees to the customer’s nearby Bixby Knolls houses. By the way, that also presented additional benefits in food and tips for a job well done, and additional phone numbers…Ha!

The deliveries ranged from around the closest block for a delivery, to a delivery to a store down the street, and the longest delivery was a well paid for huge tree custom made to fit this good looking older lady who happen to stop by our lot. She paid extra to get it cut right, shaped better to make a perfect triangle shape sprayed slightly, and have it delivered.

Where? 10 miles away on the Belmont Shore -Alamitos Bay Peninsula beachfront home. One of the last 3 still standing on this particular portion of the oceanfront sandy shoreline. (Others destroyed by the only hurricane/tropical storm to hit and affect Long Beach, in its history)


The wide stretch of white sand shows the last three houses left from the 1939 hurricane/tropical storm that hit the Long Beach shoreline. The destination was the large house on the left, near Shoreline Walk.
We knew the area well, as the beach on the bay was our hangout beach/bay place, as well as the shoreline on the inner side of the bay to the end of the peninsula.

The woman was very happy that we were able to help her out and was pleased that we delivered her custom made Christmas Tree to her oceanfront bay window. Using the White 57 Chevy Bel Air with the sound of the modified 283, the rumble of the exhaust and a big greenish-white tree strapped on top, got a lot of "thumbs up" looks. Great memories of great times as a teenager.