I would say my parents made the mistake of letting me buy a mustang gt when I was 16. I was a hellion in that car and im surprised I lived to tell about it.
Suggested by: Brody Eskelsen
My first car was a 1991 Pontiac Grand Prix SE coupe, and I could have done with about 100 fewer horsepower. If my first car was a Mustang GT, I’d be eating all of my food through a straw.
Overcooked a corner in my VW. Back end came around, I overcorrected, went through the ditch, over a small tree, flipped once, landed back on the road, right side up, engine still running. Roof was bashed in a little, but after I shook off the shock, I got it back into gear and (slowly) motored back home.
Dad was not pleased.
Suggested by: ThatGuy
The secret with rear engine cars is to be abrupt and jerky with your inputs, especially mid-corner, if you want to avoid spinning out.
Two weeks into having my drivers license and driving a ’74 Triumph TR6 on a nice summer day with the top down. I’m in the left hand turn lane at a busy intersection about 1/2 mile from home. Light turns green, and I give it some gas, and the throttle linkage sticks mid-turn. Back end kicks out. Throttle still stuck. I have no idea what is going on. There’s a small strip mall parking lot with some empty spaces that I’m going to bail into… except I went over a curb to get there.
Destroyed my front sway bar and the plate it attached too. Both of them pushed up into the bottom of the radiator, forcing the radiator into my engine-driven cooling fan. So by the time I ended up in the parking spot, I had a pretty big plume of steam exiting the engine bay.
I have no idea why I didn’t shift into neutral when the throttle stuck. I didn’t think of it, I also didn’t know then what had happened… until the throttle stuck again on me some time later. I do remember going into neutral then and finally figuring out and fixing the issue.
Did I mention that the parking lot of the strip mall happened to be where my barber shop was and the hair salon where my mother got her hair done. Everyone knew who that 17 year old kid with the TR6 was that crashed over the curb and into their parking lot.
Suggested by: F1appassionato
I genuinely believe we should teach disaster preparedness and failure mode mitigation in driver education. What do you do if your brakes fail, if your throttle sticks wide open, if your control arm snaps in half mid-corner? Kids should know these things!
I shattered the windshield on my ’88 MR2. Went through all the steps to give it a good suspension, stickier, modern tires, a bit more power, and some (admittedly cringey) aesthetic modifications. What I did not know is that this era of MR2 had a chassis that was about as stiff as wet paper.
“But it’s Toyota!” I thought. “Toyota’s are dead-nuts reliable and they use great materials, the steel’s fine!”
… It was not fine.
Back chicane on a track during a track day? Quick right on hard braking into the left, and the weight transfer twisted the chassis enough to overstress the windshield. I thought I hit something, so I pulled off into the runoff. The marshal came over, older gentleman, I don’t remember his name, but I remember asking, “What’d I hit?”
He told me, “Nothing. You got cross-bracing on that car?”
“Uhhhh, no? It’s a Toyota, chassis should be sound, right?”
He just laughed.
That was one expensive mistake, as insurance wouldn’t cover the windshield because I was on a track. I started looking up how much cross-bracing I’d need. Turns out, with the amount of cross-bracing I’d need to make this car work, the added weight made it heavier than if I’d just gone with an SW20 MR2 or a Fiero instead from the start. So that’s what I did. ’85 Fiero Notchback with an ’88 Cradle swap, L67 swap and GM F40 6-speed transmission. (Brakes, front suspension, tires, wheels, and some tower braces later…)
The only failures are mistakes you don’t learn from.
Suggested by: JustACarGuy
I’m not going to be too hard on you, JustACarGuy, that’s a mistake anybody could make. How would you know that would happen? This is just such a cool story it had to go somewhere.
