What have you had fall off of your trailer/truck that wasn't supposed to?

About this time last year, I had loaded a large oxygen and a large acetylene bottle in the bed of my truck. I laid them down and placed to tires next to them to keep them from rolling around. It is just about impossible to tie these things down so I thought why bother. I pulled up to the intersection of 1960 and Hwy 59 in Humble TX in HEAVY traffic. I was in a rush and the couple of cars ahead of me weren't even trying to go. So I gunned it shot out onto the feeder road of hwy59. I heard an odd shhhhhhhhh noise from behind me. I looked back and realized that noise was the sound of my tailgate grinding on the road. The bottles had rammed through it and the tailgate was still attached by a thread. I looked in my mirror and saw the bottles sliding down the road gaining on me on me like two German U-boat torpedoes. I turn sideways in front of them in an attempt to keep them from killing somebody. I felt a huge shudder from my truck as they hit me. I got lucky and both of them had hit my rear wheel on impact instead of just going under the truck. If those things had made it onto the highway, someone would have been killed. That serves me right for being in a hurry. Then came the shame of having to get out and reload them in the truck and having to drive off into a parking lot with a tailgate being drug behind you.

 

I found my 49 tudor on CL and it was such a good deal I couldn't pass it up. I drove over with my trailer and we pushed it up on my trailer. On the way home, a car came up on my side and waved at my trailer. I pulled over to find the trunk was missing from the 49. I drove back a few miles and found it, undented, and only slightly depainted from the 70 mph slide down the interstate. Stuck it in the bed of my ruck and hauled ass!

 

two chevy 6's broke loose and flew to the back of my trailer, putting no weight on the tongue and of course lifting my back wheels off the ground. tried breaking while just on the front wheels, and the trailer with all that weight swung me around facing the opposite way. no damage to myself, the truck or trailer. the only damage was one carb was snapped off.

 

I own and operate a mobile trailer repair business along Interstate 90 near Seattle Wa. I see all kinds of problems with trailers every year.
Here is one emergency I went out on. I had to drop the axle to get the tire and wheel assembly out of the fender where it had jammed. The guys was heading out on vacation, oops!
We preach preventative maintenance, this guy forgot to listen.

Another incident comes to mind, a fellow called for my assistance, said he needed a tire/wheel and hub to fit his trailer and a couple of heavy jacks, said he was overloaded and lost a tire and wheel. I asked a few questions, he said his trailer was rated at 7,000lbs, and the load he was carrying was 21,000lbs of marble and granite. We got him off the interstate, to his shop. He ended up bending both axles. What an IDIOT. He is real lucky he didn't kill someone.

 

I could write a book about all the trailer problems and emergencies I have seen over the last 18 yrs.
Here's a couple more. Trailer was loaded in Indiana, headed to Seattle, topped over Snoqualmie Pass, saw smoke from left rear wheel. Driver calls owner, owner says get the load to the destination and he would deal with it then. Driver got to destination, unloaded, jacked the trailer up and the tire/wheel fell off the axle. No lubrication, axle and bearings ground to dust. Melted the magnet. Burned the brakes off it. OOPS! That tire wheel hub combination weighted over 250 lbs.

 

One last post. Driver calls up, a tire/wheel/hub had come off and passed him as he was going down the interstate. I went out with parts, and had to grind off the old bearings from the axle. Cause of the problem, no maintenance in a long time.
I asked him what he was hauling. Race Horses, he said ya see that one up front, he is worth 1/2 million dollars. We figured the guy had damn near a cool million worth of hay burners in the trailer. Only had me fix that one wheel, said he'd have maintenance done in Phoenix at his next Horse Race. SOME PEOPLE!

 

I didn't EVEN want to tell this one, as I'm not really that 'loose'.
I bought a nice rust-free '27 roadster body, complete, from my bud Otto in San Jose...
brother and I went to get it in my '55 F100, just got it running.
We loaded the '27 body in the bed, I had left the tailgate at the shop. (just in case '27 body was too long)
There was beer, I was 35, and we had a few.
Finally, it was time to leave...Otto asked how that new engine was running...without even thinking, I brought up RPM and nailed it...Up in smoke, F100 leapt forward, and I heard a loud CRASH! behind me... I stopped. My new rust free '27 had slid out the back as I blasted right out from under it!
I must have strapped it down with Budweiser...They laughed, I grimaced...no harm.

 

I had just picked up my 1937 Chevrolet Pickup about an hour from my house. I should have personally made the effort to strap it down myself even after the loader said it was "good". Live and learn. A good "micro-burst" whipped through Big Spring, Texas as I was on my way back home. It had enough force behind it to whip the trailer and truck across 4 lanes of highway and cause me to shit my pants. I looked in the rear view mirror to check on the truck and couldn't see it. I pulled over, terrified as to what I was about to see. It still hadn't hit the ground. It landed about 40 feet from my truck with a big crash. Still have the truck in the garage.

The moral of this story is to check all weather reports before you go pick up a car.

 

My most memorable "lost cargo" incident was when I was tooling down the road at 35mph in my coupe with my best mutt Duke riding shotgun. In true dog fashion his head and half his body was hanging out the window and his tongue flailing in the summer breeze. Out of nowhere a Toyota cut me off and I had to hit the binders hard. Poor Duke did a series of barrel rolls a circus performer would be in awe of, he got up, shook, pissed and took off running. I finally caught up to him two blocks away and he had that no f...ing way am I getting back in that car look on his mug. It took a Dairy Queen kiddy cup and a lot of pushing and shoving to coax him in the car for the ride home. After that he wouldn't ride in the front seat again until he passed...it did cure his habit of chasing cars though!

 

This is a "What didn't, but could have fallen off" story. I had to go to customer's plant to wire up a piece of industrial equipment. The area where my customer's plant is located is in the heart of quarry country, mainly gravel and lime stone. I'm almost to my destination and I get behind a quad axle dump truck pulling a heavy equipment trailer loaded with 6-12" thick slabs of lime stone, 4-5 layers high, and his chains were loose, nothing holding the stone down and the top one precariously rocking back and forth. I'd bet that top stone weighed at least a ton or more, it was the smallest of the pile. I'm trying to get the driver's attention and follow him through an intersection, turning left, with the stone starting to move off the pile. I finally pull along side and start honking my horn, he gives me a dirty look and pulls into a parking lot, I follow him. He gets out of his truck and I tell what's going on. The pissed off look he gave me you'd think I'd told him I slept with his mother. No "Thanks" or anything, just a grunt and he walked around the other side of the trailer to check his bindings. What an ass, I probably prevented some one from getting killed, or at the very least, him losing his job and having to deal the with the authorities.

I've stopped quite few big truck going down the highway with crap falling, or about to fall off.

Seeing all the pictures of the trailers with bad wheels made me want to tell the incident I had with my car trailer. I picked up a '37 Buick Special parts car up in MN. My son and I go up to get it. The car was sold at auction in an old junk yard. We had to drive the trailer in and back it up to retrieve the car. We get across the state line back in WI about 30 miles and enter a construction zone. Just as we enter the zone my son says, "Hey, I think I see smoke coming out of the trailer." Just as I look in my mirror I see a large cloud of smoke and the rear tire on the driver's side blows out. I slow the truck down to about 15 mph, while I have traffic starting to crawl up my butt. I look for a quick exit and see a sign that says, "Next Exit 3 Miles". I nursed the trailer 3 miles, get off and find not only is the rear most tire blown apart, but the front one has a huge slash in it.

We spent the next 3 hours chasing from a Tractor Supply store that had a 6 ply tire , like I had on my trailer, but couldn't install tires, to a Walmart that only had 4 ply tires but could install tires. I had Walmart take the 6 ply off of my spare rim, mount it on one of the blown wheels and mount the TS tire on the other blown out wheel. I then bought a 4 ply to put on the spare. We got home fours later than we planned. But it was good for another car hobby related story.

 

I used to work at a Horse hiring place as a kid, one trip, we were rtaking a small trailer with 3 or 4 small poneys to a Christmas party and as we were slowing down for a bend, the bloody whole trailer broke free, as we saw it happen, we stopped straight away and the Trailer just rolled to a stop on the grass verge beside the Highway. Poneys diddn't even know anything had happened.

Another time, years later, a poney somehow jumped over the top of the inescapable Crate Trailer, again on a busy road, did a few cartwheels as he hit the ashphalt and by the time we stopped, he was happily grazing by the side of the road, with only a small patch of skin off one knee. We should have changed his name to Lucky, or Houdini after that one. Just goes to show accidents do happen, because the Boss of the place was fanatical about his equipment and the safety of his stock. I fell out of a small trailer, being dragged about the paddocks, in a mock up Chariot race one Christmas. Didn't feel much as I was way too pissed.

 

I lost the deck lid off of a 36 Chevy coupe on the way home with the car. I picked the car up and didn't notice it wasn't bolted to the hinges. By the time I turned around to pick it up, it had been mashed be a car. Lesson learned the hard way!

 

1982 or 83
Paid a good friend in advance to go pickup a decent 66 Nova SS I bought @ Pomona swap meet 150 miles away with my truck and trailer. He loads the car backwards.......

Calls me and says "Trailer was wig-wagging before it came loose and rolled."

Totalled the car, bent both trailer axles, twisted the tongue and bent the hitch.
Guess I shoulda' given him a crash course in tongue weight before departure.

 

The one my wife will never let me forget didn't involve falling...It involved the amazing flight potential of a storm door. I was hauling a storm door lashed down to the roof rack of my mother-in-law's old Aerostar mini van, in a wicked rain/thunder storm, while crossing the Sandusky Bay bridge. A strong gust ripped the door off the roof with a loud BANG! I looked in the rear view mirror and saw the door flying at an altitude of probably 50 feet. When last seen, the door had flown over 3 other highway lanes, and disappeared over the side of the bridge into the bay. Once onto the bridge causeway I started to pull over on the median. Immediately my wife starts screaming "NO...DON'T STOP!". I hit the gas and started checking all my mirrors to see what the problem was. I saw nothing, so I asked her what the problem was. "I'm not getting out to look for it".

 

I lost my one ramp on my trailer one day, searched and never ever found it or any damage... a few days later my entire side mounted spare came off of my trailer bracket and all... never found it either... I looked and looked for it, mars on the road and grass, damaged cars etc. but found nothing... so I figure it dropped off and was snagged by another motorist... they would have been pissed to discover it was bald, rotten and on a bent rim... LOL

My pregnant sister in law came with me to clean out an old farm because loves old cars (I was cleaning out some farms that had sold so I could get the vintage cars and parts they wanted scrapped) we were haling an 80's F150 chassis with wheels and no engine or body, got to an intersection where the gravel met the pavement, and as I went to accelerate the chassis simply rolled half off the trailer... so we go to the back and I figure this is going to be a bitch to lift on with my bad back, next thing I know she grabs the rear bumper and lifts it on by herself... she's 5 foot 6 and normally slender, the chassis had a complete 9 inch and the gas tanks and rear bumper... I wa shocked, and she didn't know why, then I told her how heavy that was and she tried to lift it again and could not... wild!

Other then that and having a few wheels fall off the only thing I ever had come out of my truck was a bag of pop cans while on my way to the depot, the semi behind me swerved... and he bag never ripped!

But i have had a couple close calls, I had a hateful POS New Yorker break the two front straps and dislodge the rears and almost fall off... it was fun to get back in place... now I always have a safety on any car I haul, sometimes on both ends.

That style of spare is really unsafe, the rim fills with debris and makes the cable rust and then you lose it and ruin your day...

I was driving down Jasper ave in Edmonton late one night in my Coronet Police car and way ahead of me I see some sort of animal wandering and wobbling all over the lane I am in... when I spotted it I was about 20 blocks away, by the time I was about 8-10 blocks away it wobbles to the right curb and tips over... I'm thing WTF is going on? As I catch up I see it's a brand new spare from a Ford F150, perfect condition not even all that dirty, the center plug with 5 inches of cable is still stuck in the center of the rim.

As I'm loading the wheel into my back seat it dawns on me that I was the only car on the road... for all that distance I did not see any cars or trucks at all... so how long was it rolling?

 

Me ! I fell off my trailer once while pulling on a come-a-long loading a tractor. Cable broke and I ended up on the ground between the trailer and my truck. Hurt so bad I wanted to cry......but my son was with me ( laughing is a_ _ off by the way ) so had to suck it up.

 

About 15 years ago, my daily was an s-10 pickup. Wife and I had gone to a furniture store maybe 15 miles away, where she'd bought two new chairs, custom upholstered in a material she'd picked out. $600+ each chair. Very well packaged - shrink wrapped and sort of palletized on some very heavy cardboard, to the point that we could only haul one at a time in the little S-10.
"Doncha wanna tie it down?" queries the guy at the dock. "Nah, we'll just shove it up real close to the back of the cab so there'll be no wind. It'll be fine." Yeah, right, stupid me. A few miles down the road, knowing how happy my wife is with the new chairs, I was happy too. BANG! "What was that?" "The chair blew out!" she says. Mmmmm, wife not happy any more.

We went back - it was a divided highway, with little traffic at the time. There was the chair, on the shoulder, upright even, and fixable. About $200 in repairs made it like new. But the furniture store laighed for years about the idiot who didn't tie down a chair in his pickup, and eventually, my wife and I laughed about it too. I think of that incident every time we are loading anything in a truck or trailer.

And if you're wondering, yeah when we went back to get the second chair, I tied it down so well that the truck could have rolled and that chair would have stayed put!

 

Two stories! One falling out and one that I was wishing had of!

1. Years ago I was driving a ford cube van loaded with miscellaneous parts and permanent shelving as I was selling heavy equipment parts, I had stopped to pay a regular visit at a clients workshop and found that he had an 8V92 Detroit Diesel engine (strapped on a really nice steel engine cradle that he had built) That he wanted me to haul to a our engine shop for the next morning. We loaded it in the back, centered it just slightly ahead of the wheels and proceeded to strap it to the EIGHT D-rings that had been installed into the floor for just such an occasion. I headed off doing my daily route and was headed for home around 7 that evening, It was almost dusk and i was travelling through a heavily wooded section of the highway, I came around a blind turn and there in the middle of the road was a massive Moose, well over 1000 pounds with a huge rack!! I pile the brakes on as hard as I can trying to get stopped before I hit him when all of a sudden I heard a very loud SCREECH and a CRASH!!!! I had missed the Moose by less then a 1/4 inch as there was hair caught on the edge of the west coast mirror on the drivers side.... HOWEVER the entire cab was plastered with fiberglass, wood, cardboard boxes AND the water pump of that 8V92 had snapped off the headrest on the passenger seat, The engine had pulled all but one D-ring out of the floor and snapped the last tie strap eye hook off!! I Could have been hamburger!!!! Turned out when the D-rings where installed they had drilled through the 1/4" steel checker plate and used lag bolts to screw them down to the wood underneath!! I could have been hamburger that time!!!!


2. This ones kinda funny, I was doing a lot of mobile service work at the time and had gone with the portable welder to an oil well site to cap off some un-used wells.. Typical Monday fashion the welder wouldn't start.. Messed around with it for awhile and finally got it going... One well almost capped and the welder let a loud bang out of it and quit, The darn thing poked a rod right out through the side of the block! I loaded the truck back up, figured i'd go back to the shop and get rid of it and go pick up a rental machine. As i'm pulling out onto the road from the job site I really had to gas it as there was a car coming quicker then originally suspected, The tires spun in the mud then let out a screech as they hit pavement, just that instant I heard a crash and a screech of tires again, but not from me!! The damn welder busted out through the tailgate and landed on the road and was dragging about 50 feet behind me by the electrode holder! Turns out the car that I saw coming was the RCMP! He was white as a ghost! Thank god he didn't get hit! We both ended up having a good laugh about it after I told him how my day was going lol.... He helped me load it and as for me.. I went home! That was enough of a Monday for me! lol

 

I work at an airline...my job is to deliver plane parts to outgoing planes, the parts are going to other cities and are usually in a hurry, MUST go on a specific flight to be met and installed on a plane in that city. I had 2 heavy boxes (125 lbs each) on the tail of the pickup and a dozen other smaller parts. Very little time to get them delivered so I left in a hurry....forgot to close the tailgate when I pulled away from the dock...heard two thuds...both boxes laying in the middle of the road...did I mention it was dark and raining, I don't know how in the world I picked up both boxes and got them high enough to get them in the truck. ALWAYS shut the tailgate now.
Told the boss about it when I got back, I think he's still laughing.

 

Nope never lost any thing out of my truck or trailer...........well may be just once ok twice lol

Was washing a motor and trans in the bed of my truck with a plastic bed liner mind you at a buddys house one day got all done pulled out to go the 1/4 mile back to the shop soon as i straighted the truck out on the road i heard some thing to look in the rear view to see it sliding out talk about a hopeless feeling in case your wondering it was all 4 grown men could do to lift a complete sbc with a 400 trans out of the middle of the road back in the truck junked them both

Had a late 90's chevy pickup with a cap on it and with no m/t that i loaded on my trailer backwards causde thats how it rolled out of the shop to haul to scrap. Didnt think any thing of it being the weight was rt. Started to the scrap yard in to the wind on one of those realy windy fall days and thought man trucks realy struggling to pull this one. At the same moment I look in the rear view to see the cap come off and fly as high as the telephone poles and clear the other lane and the ditch to come down in the field and explod into a million pieces. Talk about hurrying on down the road laughing so hard. Got luckey that there wasnt any traffic coming at that moment.

About 7 yrs ago me and a buddie road tripped to arizona with a load of lumber on a 35 foot goose neck. While going threw Kanasas we stoppe to get fuel i get out to check the trailer and load to find a wheel rim and everything missing. No idea where it went probley hit a cow lol. Talk about an or deal small town on a sat after noon parts stored had closed early for funeral next town 40 mins away to find a auto zone with only like 3 wheel studs of one style, so after mismatching some together and finding a tire shop to replace one of the spares we had to use and changing it in the pouring down rain we where back on our way.

o the things cars make us do lol

 

Had an entire trailer come off while doing 35mph (locking mechanism on hitch failed, when trailer fell, it broke the safety chains) and jump (literally) into oncoming traffic doing 45mph, hit a ford explorer with a family of 6 inside (4 kids all under 12) head on. Everyone was okay...

Shook me up enough that 8 years later I still haven't pulled another trailer since.

 

I had forgotten about it till I read the newest post, but when I had my car trailer built in 98 my dad and i drove from Alberta to Ontario to pick up my 31 Pontiac, on the north side of Lake Superior the trailer suddenly fell off, got the end of the safety chains and slingshotted forward under the 79 Econoline we were driving, nearly lifting the rear wheels off the ground... did that a few times till we got it under control, then we could not stop for about 3 miles because there were no shoulders, once stopped I went and looked and the bolt had vibrated out of the ball. We had no spare balls with us and no bolts even close to that size, so I hopped on my bike I had brought with me and rode down the highway for a few miles looking for the bolt... I eventually found a bolt in the silt in the one ditch that had been there for a very long time, there was a dry pool of rust surrounding it. I grabbed it just in case it would fit. when i got back we tried it and it was too small, so I wrapped it in electrical tape, and hammered it into to ball and that got us 20 more miles till we found a random wide spot on the edge of the ditch, dropped the trailer and I had my dad leave in the van to find the next town while I stayed with the trailer and my bike. about an hour and a half later he returned, a new bolt in the ball that was also welded top and bottom in place!

I had stayed with the trailer to keep people from stealing it if needed (I was a 200 pound 6 foot tall 15 year old) and I explored the bush on the side of the highway while I waited, I found a few old wrenches and a 7oz bottle of Coke from the 50's that I still have to this day!

I had a crappy home made wooden trailer come off of my hitch going over some train tracks once, I had my neighbour with me and just before we went over the tracks I said the trailer is going to fall off on this bump I bet... and it did LOL!

 

As light as a Crosley is, you can well imagine how hard it was to get this one back on the trailer after I had a minor disagreement with it while I was loading it.



The event convinced me to buy a real trailer.

 

Had a 55 chevy truck on my trailer years ago. It was a project truck with the stepside fenders sitting in the bed. I'm on I-10 and see the fender rise up out of the bed and go scooting down the interstate...and the Greyhound bus following me smashes it to oblivion. I was about 18 at the time, and afraid i'd get in trouble so I had no plans of stopping...Some little man in a Honda accord comes racing up beside me, tooting his horn and waving hysterically..I just looked straight ahead and drove on!

 

I was towing my 4x7 utility trailer behind my 92 Chevy 1-ton dually. Trailer was real full with stuff, all you could see is the stuff above the truck's tailgate, but the back of truck was packed full as well so no real view of trailer. The rest is hid behind the truck and especially the dually fenders. I built the trailer 26 years ago using a Chevy Citation rear axle. Trailer has been used all over and been good.

It was about dusk, and I felt a small vibration. Thinking, shit, lost a tire. Look in side view mirror and see sparks from the back. I have a space saver spare, not ideal but should get me home the approx 150 miles left. Great, the tire shredded and now the rim is scraping the ground. Or so I thought, good thing I have that spare (famous last words). After slowing down steady and in the shoulder on I-40, I get out of truck and go back to assess the situation. I look at the trailer and the whole hub is gone. The spindle broke off. Spare won't do any good with nothing to bolt it to. Looked a bit and never did find the orig tire and hub that came off. The sparks were the axle scraping the ground and ground through the U-bolts.

Called AAA, bastards do not cover trailers. So it cost me $125 to get the trailer picked up on rollback and taken to the tow yard in Gallup, NM the closest town. I continued in the truck to home and went back with my car trailer 3 days later to pick up the utility trailer. Tow yard loaded the utility trailer on the car trailer with a forklift. Rather than get a new Citation hub assy, I just built a new axle with real 3500 lb trailer spindles.

 

I've got 2: El Camino 2 blocks from where I bought it, & right rear tire & wheel off truck I was driving while towing my '65 Chevelle circle tracker. Neither was fun. Never found the wheel, it went into a creek.

 

Had a couple cars come loose, but never come off. Funniest thing to me, was back when i used to haul cars for a"speculator", one of his money guys didn't like my 500 dollar Chevy 4x4, and beat up trailer. Over 100 cars moved, no problems, but a rusty 77 chevy. So he hired a proffesional to move a 69 Charger R/T. Battery went dead, guy jumped it, 5 miles down the road, hood flew open, and got the windshield, roof, etc. I had to laugh at that one

 

Back in the day I raced World Class hydroplanes. We ran different size engines from 350 injected small block Chevys to 500 inch blown big blocks. My transporter was designed so that I could carry two extra engines under the side areas and the back area was for my motorcycle and sidecar. One day I was headed to my engine builder with one of my 427 L-88 engines that I ran in the 7 Liter stock class. This class let us use the same engine that the drag car guys were using with the Chevy 427 L-88 parts like the stock intake and carburetor, distributor, cam and so forth. I placed the engine in the garage area that my sidecar rig normally sat in. I had these engine stands that allowed me to make a quick engine changes between heat races. The stands were easy to make and would slip right off once the engine is lifted into the air. They set on the oil pan rails under the block. So we lifted the engine into the back garage area and didn't think to strap it down. So as I was driving down the road headed to my engine guy I came off the interstate and when I made a left hand turn out came the engine tumbling down the street. It came to a stop in the middle of an intersection with cars having to drive around it. We stopped and backed up blocking the intersection and three of us rolled the engine over placing it back on the engine stand and lifted it back up into the garage area. We then walked around picking up the pieces like the carburetor, fuel pump velocity stack and the distributor. I noticed that the valve covers were all dented up as I was picking up the pieces. As we were picking up the pieces some blow hard was honking his horn repeatedly so one of my buddy's walked over to the guys car and reached in and gave him something to honk about . The guy just drove off bleeding and we never herd a thing about it.
So all we could do was keep on keep en on and brought the broken engine to my engine guy and ordered new parts. At the time I raced in the Grand Prix Class one heat and the stock 7 Liter in a few heats later. We could change engines in around five minutes. Running the 7 Litter class was an extra even tough they were slower than the Grand Prix class only running around 140 MPH but at the time I was in a battle for the points Championship in Canada so broken up engine wasn't going to stop us.
Did I learn anything with this episode? Ya, strap down your engine you damn fool.
Thanks for reading,
Johnny Sweet


Engine was stored in the back area with the large window. The sidecar set in it's little garage and with the window spectators could look in and see the sidecar. I got the idea from a drag racer name TV Tommy Ivo. It's interesting what intrigues some people, and the sidecar in the back of my transporter sure did.




This is when the boat was set up for the 7-Liter engine. The sidecar rig traveled with us to all the races. On our off time we would travel the back roads in the bike and sidecar seeing almost all of North America over the years. This rig was the former 1975 Grand Prix World Champion. The transporter only got around 4 to 6 miles per gallon.

 

1974, Junior year. I worked at Disneyland and made a few friends. There was a Home Savings and Loan on Harbor and Ball (?) and we liked to throw dishwashing detergent water baloons innit. I had a 65 Cutlass F-85 convertable with a 4-speed.
$100 dollar car then kiddies. H/S/L had a fountain
Cousin Kevin was sitting parade style in the passenger side. I made the left, timing it with a green light and grabbed a hand full of second gear. Thats when he left us.
I went around the block and parked. then we went walking to find him. He was on a bus bench lookin like he had kinda lost a fight. The fountain was in full bloom and we considered a success was had. Cousin Kevin went home and was at work the next day. Oddly, he didnt want to do that again.

 

My new hauler truck has a rotty box. Driving up to get a car I get there and stop and the bottom of one of the tool boxes on the utility box has fallen out. I tear it off. The left headlight quit and I slapped it with the palm of my hand because they're well known for corroding and that usually brings them to life. The whole damn thing is loose... bucket's rotted maybe, I haven't dug into it.

The kicker? I loaded up with loose body tin - quarter panels, a door, a '29 chevy hood in pieces, parts to my '51 Merc 2-door donor stuff, then I got to thinking "that '57 Desoto bumper would make a good weight on top of all that tin stuffed in there just in case" .... never tied a thing down and didn't lose anything even being passed by rigs on the interstate at 60-65. I guess the Lord decided enough had fallen out of that truck for one day.