As most of you know, my V8 car became my daily driver after I was rear ended in my '71 back in August. About 2 weeks ago tomorrow, I was driving home in HEAVY rain that was moving through the VA area.

In the Hampton Roads area, there are joints in the roads that slowly seperate and become gaps. To remedy this, the surrounding 7 cities like to fill them with asphalt, effectually creating speed bump-like joints every few hundred feet.

Needless to say, I hit one of these, which I'm not entirely sure, but may have made me tap the gas ever so slightly. Regardless, when the rear end hooked up again, it kicked out hard to the right. Initially I hit the brakes, but let off to try to save the spin. I did a 360 across the highway and ended up nose first in the jersey wall. I estimate I hit it between 20-25mph. Luckily the only traffic was about 300yds behind me, so no other cars were involved. I am perfectly fine and am very suprised at the amount of damage, as the impact was very very light.

Let me be very clear before all of the armchair analysts start speculating. No, I am not going to bring a lawsuit against the city. It'd be entirely too tough to prove what happened and I don't have the time or energy to go that route, so lets not even bring it up.

Scotty B has the car at his shop now and he's gone over it. It is very fixable, as ALL of the damage is in front of the gas tank. The front wheel well cut outs for the radiator acted as "crumple zones" and absorbed all of the impact. The drivers side front A-arm is pushed up, however it didn't actually bend the A-arm itself. (The car went UP a little during the impact) I haven't had a chance to verify whether it blew the front shock(s). Interestingly enough(and thank god) the radiator completely survived the accident. As we all know, Griffin's are not cheap. Scott confirmed all of the door gaps are fine so this car may not even need to see a Celette Bench to be fixed.

Now I'm largely on the fence with what to actually do with the car. Have Scotty fix it or dump it for parts? I'm honestly a little frustrated with "914" in general considering my luck with them this year. I love these little cars, however, I don't want to grow to hate them. As we all know, these cars can be basket cases. I'm currently working 70-75hr weeks trying to kick my career into high gear, which leaves very little time for wrenching on a DD 914. I'm well aware that DDing a 914 isn't the grandest of ideas, however 914 owners are generally a little eccentric in the first place.

I'm in the process of buying a reliable DD with heat and air conditioning. With that said, I may just sit on the car until I can afford to have Scott fix it. The car has full coverage on it, however I'm not going to bother with that, as this car is already technically a "bastard"(thats Scott's word in reference to the Chevy V8 in it), and the insurance company won't give me anything for it.

I'm not sure how many V8 cars have been wrecked out there, but I'm willing to bet the fact that the wheel well cut outs acted as crumple zones saved this car from going to the scrapper, or needing to be put on a celette for that matter.

On to the pics....

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Very sorry to see it but glad you're okay!

Pretty amazing how localized the damage seems to be. If I were in your shoes, I'd either tap into insurance or save up to fix it.

Makes me want to close the deal on the Haggerty quote a I got a while back...

Dude, that sucks. Didn't you just get that car when Scotty had the party?

I've owned this car for a grand total of 9wks.

The '71 that I got rear ended in I had from April 'til August of this year.

At this rate, my NEXT teener should last about 2wks.

Rest assured that you are not the only one to go through several cars. I was rear ended in my first one. My GF almost killed us as she wrecked our second one and the same GF spun a third one and jacked it up.
I'm glad that you are ok and it looks like Scotty does good work.

Sorry to hear this. I hope it all works out for you. Scotty is amazing with what he does so I am sure this car will look better than it did.

Wow you've had a sh!t year Adam, sorry to hear this, hopefully Scotty can make it 'new' again (or better )

At this rate, you will be buying wrecked 914s shortly after someone else wrecks them

Sorry to hear this!!!

Looking at the pictures, i strongly disagree with that statement!

Good luck, your car is in good hands ...

That is some bad luck! Glad you are OK though. PM me if you need another car. But then again, you might remove another 914 off the road.
Good luck in the future.

Damn, Adam, sorry to hear and see this. Think of it as an opportunity to get a DD that you don't have a vested personal interest in (think disposable) and for Scotty to take care of the little rough spots you had on the car prior to the accident. Oh, yeah and that one big one on the left fender. Hang in there dude, its got to get better, otherwise whats the point. And leave the blue care in the garage.

Did you ever get the intrusive intake plenum out of the cabin?

Very sad to see and hear about this and your last car. I have to agree that you need a non-914 DD so the 914 can be the fun car.

My car is going to Scotty come March/April so that tells you how much confidence I have in him. Best wishes and certainly glad no injures.

Scotty does genius fixes on real Porsches he can sure fix up your NARP. But Adam, what about your brain injuries?

You should be able to get insurance money from the car., depending on how you had it insured. Of course you know this as you just went through it in August.

Zach

See everyone thinks having your car on jackstands all the time is a joke. It's actually a very clever scheme to keep our cars intact

Man that really sux. Hopefully you have used up all your bad luck and it is smooth sailing in 2012!

That sucks. I know how you feel. I did that in my [now parted out] 944 turbo at the track in a race. Just the slightest bit of gas and/or boost had my instantly sideways - and at that point I was along for the ride and hit a concrete wall. Impact was probably about the same speed, and the nose looked similar (although I had an engine behind the radiator!).

The accident had no effect on them

But the PM Adam sent us . . . .

He typed three complete sentences on the last one. Okay, he did misspell 'the' 4 times but still . . .

Yuk. Bummer.

Its true. I'm actually considering letting you fix the damn car.

Fix the car.

You know you want to.

all our cars would be off-the-factory-floor looking if it were not for lack of GREEN.

engine rebuild $5k
all new weather stripping $1000
rust repair, body work and paint $8000
rebuilt suspension/brakes/new tires/polished wheels $3000
what's that so far? $17k

adam: what's the esitmate to repair that damage? did you car get a clean bill of health regarding possible rust issues elsehwere?

all the best!
jim

At what point did you realize your GF can't drive?

I am curious if a limited slip diff would of helped the situation?

Better yet, how much tread on rear tires? Maybe you hydroplaned?

In my sarcasm of jackstands. I forgot to say sorry man that sucks . Sure hope you can get another one soon or yours fixed. Keep your head up & just glad you weren't hurt

Hard to judge from the pictures, but do you think the holes cut for radiator venting weakened the structure any?

The holes are what kept the damage from going any further.

As for the hydroplaining. This "Rain storm" Was producing 70+ MPH winds according to the news. Our last hurricane, which I am sure most of you heard aboot, was 62-ish MPH winds. This " rain strom" was well out of the norm, it was straight out wicked. There is no doubt in my mind that, Adam had little to do with this incident, and there were definite hydroplaining issues

You are alive and typing...... I say you are a lucky man.

Glad you are OK. Cars can be replaced.

Update: The solidity(rust) of the car will be verified as soon as the rockers are pulled off, which will be done early next year. Considering it checks out, I won't need to look for another solid roller to swap everything over.

Unless something comes up, I'm going to set aside the cash for Scooty B to fix the car back to pre-accident condition.

In the meantime, I'm jumping in on the Flare+Rockers group buy for a build on this car in the future. As originally planned, this car is going to be Flared and painted back to the original Palma Green Metallic by Scott. I've never seen another flared Palma Green Metallic car, so I'm excited to see how it will turn out in a few years. It will also see 7 and 9in fuchs front and rear, with possibly the RSR frosted finish with the inside of the wheel paint matched to the car in Palma Green Metallic. Of course, this is pending a good photoshop as an example. Its going to need some chassis stiffening as well, as the V8 has a good bit of torque.

Its only money, right?