My friends and I used to take a Renault LeCar out to the local public school playgrounds… and chase rabbits.
It was always nightfall when we chose to make the fateful visit, and few things made us laugh harder than to see a bunch of rabbits bopping up and down in front of our headlights while we did donuts and God knows what else to that car.
This car was also used by a friend of mine as a pizza delivery vehicle. I don’t know how many suspension parts, engine mounts, and major powertrain components were shed during it’s life cycle in northern New Jersey. But as a car that was ‘Born To Run’, it’s safe to say that this suicide machine like never made it out of the Garden State.
His LeCar was LeScrewed. Thanks to a young owner who simply didn’t know better. So how about you? Was there a car that you abused to the point where someday, it would be worth more dead than alive?
Did the LeCar ever catch a rabbit?
Because if it did, you’d have to kill it before it develops a taste for blood!!!!
No, but it did catch air a time or two…
I had a ’79 Fairmont wagon that I abused mercilessly during my ownership. And… she never failed. Used her to haul shingles, cinder block, sheetrock, sand mix, etc. while maintaining the rentals my father owned at the time. Had the tail end of her dragging oh so many times from the weight of her burden… anyhow, I bought the Fairmont from a friend that, shall we say, was a bit lax on maintaining the car regularly, thus resulting in, among other things, an appetite for freeze plugs. One day I was in the city of Elyria, Ohio getting on to I-90 east to head home to the Cleveland suburb of Lakewood (about 25 miles away) when she popped yet another freeze plug. Well, that was that, I was so pissed I decided “F**k it!”, I’ll drive this damn thing ’til she blows and walk to the nearest pay phone. Now mind you, this car had the 200 in. straight six, known to be pretty much bullet proof, but in my mind not bulletproof enough for a 25 mile jaunt with no coolant. How wrong I was. Well, that sucker smoked and clattered all the way into my driveway, where she seized with a bit of a bang. She was so hot the exhaust manifold was glowing a dull red! Got up the next morning figuring I’d call the closest boneyard to come haul her lifeless hulk away, but decided first to see what would happen if I tried to start her up. Turned the key, and she started with that typical Ford six cylinder burble like nothing had ever happened… she mocked me. She won. So… I put yet another Napa bolt-in rubber freeze plug (her seventh or eighth, hell, I lost count), and drove her a while longer until a brand new Sunbird turned left in front of her… I was heartbroken. Thus began my love of Fairmonts (and their Fox brethren) that I have to this day.
Nice!
A few years before I got my license, I worked on a tourist-trappy type of farm in IL called Sonny Acres. One job was to dump trash in a big hole elsewhere on the property. This was the best task on the farm because the garbage truck was a “arm-use” beat-to-a-pulp ’73-’77 F1?0 pickup. Word around the farm is that it was “super-fast” and pretty much every time I saw it moving it was spinning dirt and sliding sideways across the property.
My turn came but no way was I going to tell anyone I had never driven a real vehicle before. I did read a lot though and decided to “Select-Shift” the automatic transmission while my foot was planted on the floorboard. While still spinning the rear tire(s?) around 30-something MPH, my 2-3 shift blasted right through neutral and landed on “R”.
I heard and felt a loud KLUNK after the tires skidded for a brief moment. I sat there stopped, imagining the severe beating in my immediate future as I fully expected to have grenaded the transmission or broken something in the engine as it quit running at klunk-time. However the truck started right up and took me back to its launching pad with zero issues. It withstood continued abuse until I left there when the season ended. I stayed away from it though anyway…
My first, a 1967 Pontiac Firebird 326 Auto. V8, My Father bought it for me in 12/75, even though I could Not Drive for 8 Months, So, in essense he had chosen my First as Well as 2nd cars. Though I would pay for the second, He simply found the base GLC and Drove it to me in Boston. Fire engine Red as he had proclaimed! Loved Dad.
Anyway on my 18th 1 took a left 90 degree turn at 35 MPH and realized that in real life you HAVE TO SLOW DOWN… Im sure a Mechanic resureccted it tho. He gave me $75. for it as a wreck.
Still that was 2 years later on a 700$ car,75-77.
IDrove my $450 Lebaron till it was a $50 trade it… I think thats why I so fondly remember her Hood ornament.
I also made money providing rides during the bus strike in LA. In all K car ragtag glory.
I had an ’81 Toyota Celica GT hatchback that me and my old room mate used to abuse pretty badly. The rear glass was blown out when I got it and a piece of heavy duty clear plastic tarp was siliconed in it’s place. When that developed a sag that began to collect water I ditched it entirely, turning the car into a really comfy sleeping spot for every alley cat in my neighborhood. Anyway, that car survived everything form impromptu off road excursions to several minor collisions. One due to my room mate replacing the front brake pads and neglecting to bleed the air out of the lines. Coolant checks and oil changes? Hah! But the pretty much indestructible R22 engine took whatever abuse and neglect we threw at it without flinching…until it gave up an alternator one day. Not having any money to fix it she sat out on the street and racked up about 400 bucks in parking fines until the City of Hermosa Beach towed her away.
Thanks to the combined incompetence of Ford, an insurance underwriter, and a little old lady; I drove rental cars for three months in high school. The first one fought the good fight for two months. It was a Chevrolet Spectrum, which was what they called Isuzu I-Marks before launching Geo. Loss of reverse and neutral finally did it in, but it had probably reached the point of no return long before that. The interior was saturated with cheap champagne and melting but never evaporating snow. The driver seat tracks had come loose of the floor. The trunk had served ice chest duty. The windshield was broken by a slush ball. The trunk lid was caved in. The left front wheel was bent to an oval shape. The air dam was replaced with black electrical tape and appropriately shaped debris. Both sides of the car bore the scars of exploring over-grown fire roads, as did the bottom of the car, most likely. I’m sure the car suffered other harm, but my recollections of 25 years ago are foggy. The Plymouth Sundance that replaced it was unfortunate in that we were discussing vehicle dynamics in physics class and it became our test car. I think they both paid dearly for my love of reading PJ O’Rourke, particularly “How To Drive Fast on Drugs While Getting Your Wing-Wang Squeezed and Not Spill Your Drink,” which went at great lengths into the handling advantages of rented cars.
PJ is the best. C, try reading some of his stuff, specifically-
http://www.heretical.com/miscella/reptile.html
I have done in so many vehicles on purpose I cant remember them all. The very first one though I remember well. I was a 81 tercel sr-5 two door hatch. We had gotten it for free to be usdd as parts because it owner couldnt keep it running right, some plugs wires a cap and button and it was good to go. We took it acroos the road from my buddys place and onto the railroad tracks, it was too wide to go in the middle so we just saddled one of the rails and hammered down. At 60 or 65 mph it was like tge car was on rails, untill we hit a rough tie and blew out both drivers side tires, that caused the car to spin off the tracks and up onto its side down into a raveen. It was so recked we just left it there. I wounder if its still there actually.
I’ve never intentionally abused a vehicle, whether mine or someone else’s.
Nevertheless, back in the ’80s, I had my moments with a few company vehicles going to and from remote drilling locations in the Rockies, but more from poor decision-making than anything else. Worst probably was the time, in a Toyota Hi-lux pickup, I ran headlong into a pile of gravel stacked right in the middle of the road (too fast for conditions and it wasn’t really visible until it was too late to stop), bending the front suspension to the point that both front wheels were toed in about 30 degrees. It still drove, after a fashion, but as it was thirty miles to the nearest town, it took a while.
Better if I talk about a guy I once worked with who was legendary for coming up with inventive ways to get himself into a pickle. One night he left the rig (out on the eastern Colorado plains) to go to town for a couple hours, in our company supplied F-150 pickup, and due back for his shift at midnight. He didn’t show up, no word as to his fate and this was before there were cell phones so I couldn’t call him to see where he’d gotten to.
Finally, he turns up on location about 9 the next morning, wild-eyed and babbling something about having hit a deer on his way back to the rig, and totalling out the truck. After trying unsuccessfully to get some sense out of him, I sent him to bed and called the office to report the incident. Before I got more than a few words out, the dispatcher said, “We already know about it; the State Police called us. He didn’t hit a deer, it was a cow. And the reason he hit it was because he was driving on open range with his lights off. And the reason he was driving with his lights off was because the state cops were after him. And the reason the state cops were after him was because he sideswiped one of their patrol cars on the highway.”
Amazingly, this guy kept working for us for a couple more years, providing a never-ending source of equally insane stories.
I was not easy on my vehicles in the past.
I killed both my 3100s under hard acceleration, but I don’t know if I’d call that abuse.
I was really hard on my Quad4s (I thought that was the point of that engine) and they always died pre-maturely in spectacular fashion.
On the flip side I treated my early H-bodies like trash and I never had one give up on me.
I’m a lot nicer to my stuff these days.
I got my first new car for my 17th birthday I traded my 65 Marlin for a 1971 Plymouth Cricket(look it up, i’ll wait)……..it least it did not rust out or melt it’s engine like a 71 Vega. It was in the shop and I was using my Dad’s parts runner vehicle, a 1960 VW. I hated that car, did not even have a gas gauge, just a reserve lever on the floor, no A/C, no power anything including the 36 horsepower engine and just an AM radio. One night two of my friends and I took it to the Cape Florida beach and found that it would fit (almost) between the poles that kept cars off the beach. Never had so much fun in a car, then I learned about swing axles as the car did a perfect roll over. It was still running so Tom just hit the inside of the roof and it popped into place. Could not kill it. I can now appreciate how well built it was.
Hillman Avenger US edition quite good cars for the time.
1986 Cavalier station wagon. The abuse started when I was a young kid and left the door open while my mother backed out of the garage. Later I inherited the car, and I learned all about driving dynamics in it. I smashed the front end on the Turnpike during a snowstorm when I intentionally induced an oscillation I found I couldn’t recover from, and I smashed the back end on the very first day the completed PA 581 opened as I took the sharp turn of the Carlisle Pike exit way too fast while it was raining.
Later a spark plug blew out of the head and took the threads so I Heli-Coiled it, which lasted about 6 months until it backfired and blew out the airbox (true story). I got the head replaced only to have the engine literally go up in smoke. It was running badly and it stalled. I cranked on it over and over until it finally started again, blowing out the richest black smoke I’ve ever seen. I nursed it to the lot where I traded it on a 1993 Escort. I am certain it never started again.
I also wrecked the Escort and every car since until the last one which snapped a rod, and the one I’m in now.
I have to make dinner, so I’ll not be getting into the thrashing I gave the others right now. Maybe later. For a taste, though, I’ll simply say this, with zero pride and much embarrassment: there’s a reason I don’t drink anymore.
Lesson learned: don’t replace Cav engines. The one from the scrap yard is just as likely to be hosed than the one your are swapping out. Instead find another beater Cav and have at’er!
Oh and not driving the snot out of cars is a money saver but not nearly as fun.
Even better advise, dont do anything at al to a J body. Its just not worth it to fix anything on them when you can probably get the same, or a better(yeah right) for the price of the part. Drive them till they die and get another. That is if you like a cavalier, which I kinda do and would love to own a 88 z24 with a 3.4 swap. Their used to be a guy local to me that swapped in 3.8 s/c into any j- body using bespoke kits that he had engineered. Back in 03-04 the kit could cost up to twice as much as the car it was going into.
A number of these stories made me LOL. But on to the crux of the matter.
My BFF Roger was the son of the Dodge dealer. Roger’s dad would take “farm cars” in on trade and then just let them rot on his back lot. Claimed it had tax advantages. So Roger decided that rather than let these fuzzy pieces of crap die a slow and natural death, he would facilitate the process. He called those cars culled from the pool of the living dead “ditch jumpers”.
One evening he mentioned to me that his dad had taken in trade a ’49-’50 Frazier 4-de sedan. Fuzzy gray. About a half inch of dried mud on the floor. Dead man walking. So we began to plan its glorious death. It was decided that the two of us would drive it to Milan, IL, about 30 miles away, with the throttle matted in second gear. We never expected that we would get anywhere near Milan, but we did. And we made it all the way back to the Dodge agency in the same fashion, pedal to the metal in second gear. The Continental six refused to die.
Major bummer. A couple of weeks later a friend asked Roger for a ride across town. Roger, being the prince that he was, said sure!, hop in. At the first intersection, at a slow ten mph in second gear, Roger made a right and the thing threw a rod right out the side of the block! Major satisfaction and beers that night.
My first car, a 1986 Mercury Cougar LS bought for $350 off of a friend who had already whipped it good. It was the empty grass lot doughnut champion for all of lower Sarasota County and not too bad of an off-roader, as I found out following my friend in his CJ-6 down a few hill and crevice-laden trails. I might have changed the oil once in 3 years. Nevertheless, it would hit somewhere north of 120 mph (as evidenced by switching the 85 mph digital speedo to KPH mode and feeling it pull past the 199 KPH speedo limit). One time it was raining hard while driving on I-75 and I hydroplaned changing lanes. This caused me to spin out and careen off an embankment and into the trees and palmetto bushes. I’m so lucky to be alive. There was literally dirt and weeds embedded into the rubber door moldings. The best was when I accidentally drove over a concrete parking barrier and tore the whole exhaust pipe off at the cat, making the car loud enough to wake my parents from 2 blocks down the road after curfew. Groundation and lectures, however, were thwarted by gunning it up to 60 or so and turning the engine off while coasting the last block or two to the house. That car could hold up to 3 friends in the trunk while making a sneaky run off my high school campus past the gate patrol. I even miss it’s unique smell–a little bit of girlfriend loving, old beer, and lots of Cheech and Chong. Beat up and loved. I went through 3 sets of hubcaps in that car, need I say more? It actually made it 2 more years under my brother’s not-so-careful ownership before he finally ran the coolant out and cracked the block. If ever there was a car whose entire existence was commuting to hell and back each day, this was it.
Anybody who has read my COAL would know my first car was a 1974 Corolla 1600 two door sedan. This car was seven years old when I got it and had spent three winters in Montreal, so the rot had already started. In all reality, it was better than most of the American stuff around. I got the car at 17 and soon took to road-tripping. Later was added a tent trailer and a canoe on top. I was merciless with that 2T-C but no matter how hard I pushed it, the motor never protested, overheated or did anything other than make smooth power. I took it to the Yukon, to California, all over the place and even loaded to the nines it got a good 30 miles per Imperial gallon.
Finally, in 1985, I was burning down a logging road way too fast and the right front strut went right through the mounting. The car crashed in a blaze of broken canoe but we were fine. The Corolla had 250,000 miles on it by that time. It had cost $2900 and lasted 11 tortured years. Never had one part replaced, not a single one.
Mine was a ’75 Chevy (Isuzu) LUV. 330K mi. I got out of it, used to ‘wheel this thing in a rock quarry, and routinely catch 3ft of air with it. Totally bulletproof, except for the wimpy 9in clutch.
Bought a rusted out ’81 Civic 4 door for $200 in 1998. Door sheet metal flapped in the wind, bald tires. Drove it at least 50 miles a day commuting from home to school to work for three months, but also had lots of fun in the fields and the local gravel pit with a couple of friends who also had a beater ’77 Impala and an ’80 LTD. With winter coming I didn’t feel like freezing and didn’t want to mess with newer tires, so I put it in the paper for $350 and I actually sold it for $300. Never saw it again, though.
Definitely my buddy’s former 1966 Ford Falcon Futura Coupe. 289 with a Cruise-O-Matic, mostly original, and mostly junk. He begged me and anyone ballsy enough to drive and abuse that thing in the safety of a church parking lot at night. Why not further down the road? Well, just having one functioning manual (!) brake pad explains that! I was the only one dumb enough to drive it besides him. Although one time we did manage to get that car with its Mr.Clean- bald tires to a beach for some drifting. I can credit all my race driving skils to that ol heap of iron
I had the sedan 170 6 it could barely wheelspin a total POS
I wound up darn near obliterating my mother’s beat up old ’85 Mercury Topaz. I did everything from drift it on gravel roads when the car was full of people to doing maintenance in the school parking lot because I had to get home. Tearing down country roads going who knows how fast, racing around an off-road track until it overheated. I punctured the gas tank once when I went out down logging roads to a small lake in the back end of nowhere. Countless trips and adventures.
I learned to drive in that car, and it took everything I threw at it and it just kept going. It drove to where it sits now, and packed up. I bet if we fixed the starter it would fire up like nothing had ever happened.
I can’t say I’ve ever beat a car till the point of no return though I sure gave it a try. The closest I came was my 74 Buick Century Luxus that the PO had very crudely swapped in a Ford 302 because he had one and had blown the Buick 350. I put 10-15LT tires on the back and used it extensively on logging trails, towed more than a couple project and friends cars with it and drove it as a daily driver for more than a year and then during the summer (did I mention I made it into a Targa with a jig saw) for over 3 years.
The radiator once sprung a big leak on the freeway right before a big hill and not having a temp gauge or idiot light hooked up meant that it got so hot it wouldn’t turn over when we coasted to the side of the road. Once it cooled down however it fired back up and acted just had it always had. For oil to top it off I used what was drained out of my good car.
What finally did it in was an idiot roommate that I let borrow it. One of the hoses that pieced together the transmission cooling lines let go and not being willing to walk, even to a pay phone he some how drove it 2 or 3 miles home. Now it had happened to me in the past but of course I stopped and investigated when I saw the smoke from the fluid spraying on the exhaust. So I replaced the hose, filled it up and wished for the best but it wasn’t to be.
So I put an ad in the local paper and sold the 302 for $300, not bad considering I had about $100 into it and had driven it for more almost 4 years even earning a fair amount of mileage allowance from driving it for work. Had the idiot stopped and called me, I’m sure it would have lasted through another couple summers worth of abuse and towed many other cars.
So yes a car I owned was beat past the point of no return but I was not the one to put the final nail in the coffin.
Now my current Crown Vic is approaching the point where I’m having a hard time justifying putting any more money into it. It is approaching 200K and still runs like a champ but it really is due for some front suspension work, shocks, it is almost due for tires, and the clear coat is gone above the painted on pinstripe. The interior isn’t looking too good since I drove it to work as a mechanic for a decade coming home in greasy clothes and mud caked work boots since it was parked in a gravel (mud) parking lot and there are some spots of house paint from driving it to maintain my rental properties. The trunk carpet is seriously stained from hauling mechanics and construction tools, engines, transmissions, the center section from a SQHD Rockwell axle, cylinder heads, concrete blocks, lawn mowers, bags of concrete and basically anything I could fit in there. On the other hand I hate to part with it since I know the power train will be good for another 100k and 92’s, with their true aero nose that I really prefer, are getting hard to find. Since I inherited my wife’s old Grand Marquis, it has only been used to haul a lawn mower, though the GM will be passed on to my son when my daughter gets her driver’s license and she gets the Taurus he is driving.
Dastun 120Y Deluxe Wagon from 1978. In orange.
Needed it immediately coz was restoring an Italian Innocenti Cooper 1300 and a Jaaaaaag.
We hated Japanese cars, all drove Brits or Italian, but Dirk made us melt and open our hearts for the Japs.
Dirk always started, in wintertime with half a foot of snow, Dirk was used to jumpstart Leyland Princesses, Rover 3500’s VW Beetles and lots of others.
Dirk was covered in rust, but never missed a beat.
Dented,it looked awfull, so awfull any taxi driver would give you the right of way.
Dirk was used to move house for firend, delivering engines gearboxes and everything.
We all beat the crap out of Dirk the Datsun (bought it for $25 ) but we were all sad when a friend ran Dirk through a solid brick wall.
Dirk never chased rabbits, he was far too friendly a person to do such a thing.
You know, most Mg;s, Triumphs and Alfá’s have been long since forgotten, but every party reminicing with my old mates, Dirk is always a topic
RIP Dirk !
I’ve always been careful with my cars, but my son not so much. When he was 16 in 2005 he bought a 1989 Ford Telstar Ghia hatchback (badge engineered Mazda 626) with a 2.2 litre DOHC 4 cylinder and 4 speed automatic (JATCO?) He learnt to drive on it and when he turned 17 he got his licence. One weekend he drove it down south to the country with some friends and decided to bush bash it in a paddock. He must have bogged it in the sand and burnt out the transmission trying to get it out. It stayed in neutral no matter where the gear selector was placed. I got a phone call asking what he should do. Unfortunately I was 300 miles north of our home on holiday so there was not a lot I could do. He got a friend with a SUV and car trailer to take him and the car home, a distance of about 150 miles. We went to a nearby wreckers and got them to fit another transmission for about $1000. Shortly afterwards he lost interest in the car and bought a 1999 Ford Fairlane ( a longer wheelbase version of our Falcon) The Telstar sat on the road outside our house until the council fined him for illegal parking. He had it towed away and we never saw it again. A pity cos it was a nice car – cruise control,electric windows and locks and air con, 4 wheel disc brakes etc when these features were only on up market cars.
1953 Plymouth Cranbrook 4-dr.
Bought it in Sonora, California, for $35.00, when I was sixteen(1963), to drive back home to Tacoma, Washington. It only had 2nd & 3rd gears, no first or reverse and one rear door window was plywood.. Floors were gone..rust.
I had spent the Summer with my Uncle, and had bought a beautiful 56′ Ford ‘Vicky’ hardtop on payments from a dealer in Sonora. When I had the final balance, I went down to pick up the car. When it was started, it threw a rod, my dreams of driving home in style, squashed.
I needed to get home, it was late August and school was about to start. A friend mentioned that his dad had this old Plymouth…cheap. I bought it.
My uncle upon hearing my plans, forbid me to drive home. So early one morning, I took off. Stopping by some friends to say goodbye, I heard, that my uncle had called the cops to have me picked up, so I avoided the main highway back to Oakland.
My chosen route put me on the crookedest road in the country, the one seen in the movie ‘The Long Long Trailer’ with Desi Arnaz pulling a trailer up it. That road was a real adventure, steep, and with no first gear, a challenge.
Going back down the other side, I coasted where I could too save the brakes. On the way down the accessory belt failed, but I was able to coast to a small run down town. Seemed like a ghost town from ‘The Grapes Wrath’, with only a dog in sight. Finally this old codger was walking by. I asked him where I might find a fan belt, he pointed to a bunch of scrap cars and equipment, and walked on. I found a belt and was back on the road to the Bay area.
Interstate-5 was still under construction and I had never seen the ocean, so I hit Hwy-1 North of Frisco, drove to Grants Pass, Oregon, where I connected up with Hwy-99 to Tacoma. The trip took me 3 days, I lived on a bag of Salt Water Taffy for the entire trip.
As I was driving through Portland, the tire wrench fell through a hole in the trunk, cartwheeled down the road and went into the grille of a new Cadillac. Steam immediately erupted from the Caddy, I kept going.
Shortly after I arrived home the fan belt let go again, I took the Plymouth to a nearby forested area and attempted to destroy it off roading… it wouldn’t die. Finally drove over to my grandfathers back forty and parked it with the rest of the vehilcles, where, over time, it was picked of its good parts, even the abused engine and the tranny, which was good, just the 1st-reverse linkage disconnected.
That was my first long multi state drive, and quite an adventure for a sixteen year old.
That’s quite a story! Thanks for sharing; loved it.
I had a friend who was given a late ’80s medium sized Olds by someone who admitted they inherited it in perfect condition with very low miles and never did ANYTHING to it. To prove that claim, when I first saw it I tried checking the oil and could NOT…the hood was rusted shut! My friend drove it carefully for over a year until failing, make that failed, brakes made it completely unsafe to drive.
My friend’s 1977 Datsun 280Z. He got it in 1981 when he got his license. Me and a couple of other friends would take it to empty, huge parking lots and drift, do donuts, and race other cars. It finally died when a friend was racing it against a Mustang II, lost control at 60 MPH, swerved, rolled twice, hit a pole, and got hit by a Toyota Celica entering the lot.
RIP
“Fatsun” The Datsun
1977 – 1984
There was also a Pacer that we brought into the parking lot. Died winning a race, hitting a pothole, then hitting a pole at 40MPH
RIP
Stripe the Pacer
1976 – 1982