Legion World Forums LEGION OUTPOST Mission Monitor Board Every 10 Years Forum In praise of a gas guzzler

I hope you'll all forgive a genuinely personal note. I know it doesn't fit with the current role-playing, for which I never had any aptitude.

This car probably saved my younger brother's life on Saturday morning. (He took the picture of it, between me and a friend from Australia.)

Since this picture was taken, we've renovated and repainted the car extensively. We didn't yet do the bumpers.

Yesterday morning, in getting to an early shift at his plant, Tim encountered a railway-crossing sign pole. One of those with the white crossbucks. Not head-on. Some ass of a trucker probably knocked it down, left it in the road, and went about his way to avoid paperwork (so surmise the cops, anyway).

It bashed in the front bumper and grille you see here, trashed the radiator, but otherwise left both Tim and all other persons and property unhurt.

With the physics involved, if my brother had been driving our other car, he'd now probably be dead, with the signpost being flipped up and spearing him through the windshield.

This 390-cubic-inch 1966 Ford Galaxie has been a bane, at times, getting 8 miles per gallon, worse than a Sherman tank, let alone a Hummer.

I'm glad now for every bit of its Detroit muscle-car-era bulk and chrome (yes, that is CHROME, boys and girls, not painted aluminum). It means I'm not mourning my brother today.

If I've seemed distracted or irritable -- the advisors know what I'm talking about -- this uninsured mishap hasn't helped in topping off a stressful and very frustrating month.

But no one is hurt. And my brother is alive in the next bedroom, snoring away.

I'm not a theist, but, well, to the people of Ford, there ought to be a heaven for you somewhere.

And now I'm going to bed.

Wow, Grey, that was certainly lucky. I'm glad it turned out that way, and that nothing bad happened.

I'm glad that worked out Grey, and you're brother is safe. There's something to be said about those old Fords and the 'big-ness' of them--I really think 'they just don't make 'em like they used to'.

I was in 2 accidents last year, and even though I was totally OK, one left my first car totalled and the second left my brand new car with an awful $2,500 dent that I paid for out of my pocket. Accidents just plain suck...but most of the time, they are indeed, accidents. So it's nice when you can rely on a safe car.

I'm glad to hear that your brother made it out ok. I guess those big old cars are good for something.

I wish they made them like they used to.

Is he getting the car repaired and back on the road? Too bad you can't retrofit gas efficiency to those solid old cars.

We're getting the radiator repaired (new core) this morning. That's all that got mechanically damaged.

We didn't yet get the (re-chromed) bumpers, they were to come in a few more months, so we'll just buy sooner for the front what we'd have gotten eventually anyway. And the grille is probably capable of being twisted back into shape.

And as for retrofitting efficiency, we got a new four-barrel Edelbrock carburetor and intake manifold three years ago. State of what's-left-of-the-art with a technology that's being left behind by fuel injection. It went from 6 mpg to 8 mpg in the city, 33 percent improvement! And out on the Interstates it gets up to 13! ... oh well, we're cheered by it.

Thanks for all of your good wishes, folks. We both appreciate it. It's been a rough weekend ...

Wow, Steve, I am so happy that your brother was able to come safely through this potentially deadly accident unscathed. Something else else like this does suck, but it puts everything else in prospective. Also, while it was horrible that it had to happen at all, the fact that your brother hit it and not some family in a small, new compact car is a miracle.

Sometime in the mid-1960's my father bought a Plymouth Fury I at an auction of Oregon State Highway Patrol cars that were being retired. This car was huge, and having been a OHP car, it had a larager then standard engine. We had that thing in the family until the early 90's. I know it saw our family through some accidents, and it saw my brothers and I through our teen driving years too. There is something to be said for the heavy chrome and steel dinasaurs of the past.

Personally though, Scott's life was saved by Hyundai's frame construction. In 1998 (specifically on our 6th wedding anniversary) he was 'T-boned' at an intersection. He was pinned in the car, and he did suffer a bruised kidney, but he lived through it. The car was totally destroyed, but the frame kept it from crushing Scott, and he is a huge guy.

Sometimes miracles DO happen ! Hugs!

Wow, Grey, glad to hear your brother is okay.

Have to tell you though that your post oddly brought back some great memories for me. My very first car was a '66 Ford Galaxy 4 door, white body & black top. I bought it for $250 in '76 from our families pharmacy when it was being replaced as their delivery vehicle. They had bought it from the police department some years earlier (so you can imagine the mileage and wear & tear.)

My Gal served me well for 1 1/2 years. It never left me stranded, and, since I was our groups driver for almost everything, my friends have many fond memories of this car as well. (They STILL recall it with fondness)

My dad, however, hated that car.

Every Saturday morning, he had a ritual of checking all the family's cars for fluids etc. Gal never, ever, ever, had any oil. I would get yelled at every week for running it without oil. I swear that car was a mutant! I would put oil in, it would imeediately spit it out and then continue to run merry along with no oil to speak of in the system. Needless to say, it took months of arguments before my dad actually put oil in himself and realized that I spoke the truth!

Once I was graduated from High School and prepared to head off to college (in Miami from NJ) in the summer of '77, my parents decided they didn't trust my car to make the trip. They ended up buying a new car and I inherited my mom's car...a '67 Ford Fairlane! (Understand that my mom hated to drive so the Fairlane only had 22K original miles at that point although it was 10 years old)

That Fairlane also served me well though it had no A/C (fun in the south Florida sun!)

Glad your brother is okay and three cheers for those old Fords!

Grey,

I'm glad your brother is ok. Cars can be repaired and replaced.

A brother is a lot harder to repair and impossible to replace.

Great to hear that Tim's OK, Grey. Glad you've been able to salvage the car, too.