LouieM

Long ago I had just tuned up my Datsun 510 and thought it was in neutral, but it was in first gear. I reached in to start it and it caught immediately. The car leaped forward and demolished the water heater for the overhead garage apartment where the occupant happened to be taking a shower. Very embarrassing, but State Farm paid for a new water heater and replaced my car's front bumper. The guy with the water heater never liked me after that.

rayvaflav

Years ago I rebuilt the transmission valve body on a 1959 Cadillac Limousine in a corrugated steel shop building that I was renting. I had the car running and was adding fluid to the transmission when it slowly started moving backwards toward one of the outside walls of this metal building. My first instinct was to try and physically hold back this 6,500 lb. behemoth by holding onto the core support. That didn't work. I ran around to the driver's door (which is a pretty long trek on a 150 inch wheelbase car) and since I was in the middle of a restoration there was no outside door handle to grab. Or open the door with. The car is still slowly reversing. I had to reach inside of the car and release the lock with the inside rod. Once inside the car there was no seat to brace myself upon. I finally make it to the brake pedal but it was all for naught. The car had stopped on it's own. Well actually the outside wall of the building did most of the work. No damage to the car, it's a pretty stout old piece. The building, though ... I went by this same building about 15 years after this incident and looking on that wall from the outside it is still there: two perfectly matching convex protrusions on the outside of that wall, about four feet up from the ground, both 1959 Cadillac pointed-fin shaped.

Ray

DansYellow66

That's pretty funny - although at the time it probably didn't seem so.

65GTO

Nice story !!! Ditto above 'not so funny at the time'...

Reminds me of the time I was in High School auto shop and one kid was trying to drive a car up the entry ramp on a car that needed a new clutch (our auto shop was on a 2nd floor of all things and a large ramp went up to the entry doors from the street level). The kid kept making it up 1/2 way the ramp, and the then would roll back down the ramp.

After seeing him do that about 4 times, 1/2 way up the ramp I grabbed him out of the car and said 'let me show you how it is done pal'.

I goosed the car up to must what have been 4 grand on the tach and dumped the clutch. Still had the drivers door wide open while doing this.

Well.. quite the spectacle.. I (dope) actually had the car in reverse, not 1st gear. When I dumped the clutch the car bolted down the ramp, just about face planted my teeth into the steering where it went backwards so fast... open drivers door hitting the kid I just told 'let me show you how its done', hit another car parked on the ramp with the open door, bending the door forward until it was facing the front of the car, then t-boned a car that was across the street at the bottom of the ramp.

Yeah... 'let me show you how it is done'... yeah.

On a more serious note... It is surprising how may instances we hear of real life stories in the local news of people trying to stop their run away cars, with major injury and even fatalities occurring. Example; People jumping between the front of their car and a wall trying to stop the car.

jimh_1962

Back in the day, there was a corvette going down one of the streets. The person lost control and ran through someone's detached garage. The incident gave the owner of the home an idea of a mural on the side of the garage.

You can guess what it is... A midyear crashing though the side of detached garage.

I need to take a picture of it for you all.

Long time ago, before I was born my parents parked their VW bug on the side of the road next to my aunts house on a steep incline. My sister and cousin were playing outside and decided it would be a fun to play in the VW bug. Well one of them took the vehicle out of gear and the VW rolled back about 1/8 mile down the hill onto a grassy area. Luckily none of the kids were hurt.

Rich Yanulis

Smart man.

Imagine what the headline would be when it hits the National News........

Railroadman

This isn't Corvette-related, but as long as we are talking about vehicles and buildings....

A small railroad in New York state had a large piece of machinery for repairing tracks. One of their people (no, not me!) was in the shop repairing the brakes. When he figured they were done, he slowly ran the machine outdoors a ways, then throttled up and roared toward the shop. And learned that he had not fixed the brakes yet, after all!

I was no longer working there so sorry, no pics!

68hemi

About 15 years ago on a cool winter morning I started my 1978 Dodge Lil Red Express Truck to warm up and went back in the house. The UPS driver came to the door wide-eyed and said "you better come outside." The truck was in reverse rather than park and the neutral safety switch apparently did not work and after the auto trans built pressure the truck took off (on fast idle)just missing the UPS truck, side swiping a tree and crashing into the neighbors front porch across the street.::train wreck:

DansYellow66

Those old Torqueflites always seemed to have touchy shift linkage. I had a heck of a time getting my 67 GTX adjusted where it would definitely lock in park and yet allow me to go into first gear. I high school I had a 64 Plymouth Sport Fury with Torqueflite and occasionally it would not go all the way into park. I usually parked in the parents driveway which had a gentle slope to the street. One weekend morning I got up and eventually went outside and it had rolled out of the driveway and was sitting cross ways in the middle of the street blocking it. Polite neighbors - no one seemed overly concerned about it and I guess decided if they had to go somewhere they could leave out in the other direction as no one knocked on the door.

LateOutDrsMn

My first vehicle was a 79 Blazer. It was an ex Baja Race(and then chase) truck. 　


I remember parking it at the bank to go inside and cash my check. The parking lot was sort of bowl shaped with the bank in the middle. I come out of the bank a short time later to find it had backed up and parked it's drivers side rear tire (36x12r15) squarely on the hood of this little old lady's 80's compact Nissan. Her engine was touching the ground! That cost me $2700 in damages. 　


I was at work, working in the back, and I heard my boss yell, "where's he Going?". As I was the only other person in the place, I yelled back "who". He said "you"! I stuck my head out, and he started pointing out the front saying my truck was driving off. I ran up to see it slowly backing through the parking lot (not hitting any cars) to the opposite end. By now I was running after it. At the far side of the parking lot was a 15ft cliff. I got lucky though, it hit the dumpster parked there. It knocked the dumpster down the cliff, and the truck stopped. Boss didn't charge me for the damage to the dumpster. I just had to drag it back up the cliff, and bang the dents out of it. I also had to park on the downhill side of the parking lot from then on.　


3rd time. I was at home doing homework with a friend from across the street. His father rang our bell. My father answered. His father told us how my truck had rolled out of our driveway, hit his sons car, and rolled back up into the driveway part way and stopped. We all ran out side, and sure enough, my truck was only 1/3 up the driveway, and the drivers side roof support and his windshield were crushed. We backed up the truck and it was a perfect match for my rear bumper. Cost me $1800 in repairs.　


All 3 of these happened in 1 month. We couldn't figure out what was happening. The brake was still set each time. and the truck was still in gear all three times when we got to the truck. We started calling it Christine from the stephen king movie, and i started carrying blocks to chock the tires every where i went.

Frankie the Fink

I bought an El Cheap set of Wally Mart steel ramps (without the reinforcing bar that go from front to rear - one piece) and had my Mustang up on it overnight...the next morning the freakin' ramps were FLAT. Sometimes - sheet happens...

champs65

Sounds like one of the new Farmers' Ins. commercials

LateOutDrsMn

actually I think a lot of these could be in one of those commercials.

TJefferson2020

As a senior in high school I built a 69 Ford Falcon 2 door hardtop (19K original miles) ditching the six banger and dropping in a blueprinted and balanced 302 Boss from a Gran Torino and the C4 cast iron automatic transmission to a shortened Dana rear end.

My mother was all worried I was going to kill myself in that car so I offered to let her drive it. She got in, started it, shifted the B&M auto shifter into Reverse and punched it. (why? I don't know.).

She roared down the driveway, burning rubber, across the street, through the neighbors bushes and all the way into the middle of their front yard.

She got out, pissed off, slammed the door and didn't say a word. Just walked back to the house in a huff. Neighbor was like WTF. His yard was all trashed.

I told her she probably should have feathered the gas pedal instead of stomping it. Good grief. I think she still thought it had the 160 straight six in it or something.

No damage to the car except for some scuffs on the rear bumper. Never let her drive it again.

SJW

A damned good thing you weren't under it at the time! Scary stuff...

Live well,

SJW

RatDog

Thats what I was thinking, too.

I use use to own ramps like that. I never really felt "right " about them. I don't have them anymore.

Steve

tuxnharley

It depends on how that style of ramp is made - there are "ok" ones, and bad ones. The ok ones are at least tack welded at the bends in the ramp structure where the folds come together between the vertical, horizontal, and inclined sections. The bad ones are just folded over..... and can compress/go flat under extended duration of use. Those are usually tagged with a weight limit warning that soon falls off and/ or gets ignored......

That said, I certainly prefer and use those with the horizontal reinforcing bar as well!