Firetruck stops, drops and rolls — right on top of classic Firebird

 Posted by on 12 June 2009  Modern Life, Vintage/Retro
Jun 122009
 

Firetruckfirebird

Firetruck, meet Firebird.

When he was 16, Colorado resident Bill Vickery bought a 1969 Firebird for $1,200. Since then he’s spent between $30,000 and $40,000 restoring every part of it. It was a classic that he vowed never to sell, says the Denver Post, unless he could buy a 1967 Corvette to replace it.

He’d better start checking for that Corvette. On Tuesday, a 48,000-pound firetruck tumbled down the hill above his house and, well, smushed his classic ride:

The truck, driven by an Evergreen Fire Rescue firefighter, had been on the road up the hill from the family’s home when something went wrong. Apparently moving to the right on the narrow paved road to make room for a truck heading in the other direction, the driver dropped a tire off the asphalt.

With no shoulder to support the rig, it tumbled down the hill and into the Vickery family’s driveway. The tanker toppled trees and clobbered a camper before landing, right-side-up, atop the Firebird and a Honda all-terrain vehicle. The truck also hit a one-car detached garage, inflicting a still-undetermined amount of damage to it.

No decision has yet been made on whether to cite the firefighter who was driving in the accident. He was quickly released from hospital, after being checked out, and is okay after the crash. The Firebird was not so lucky:

Listing the parts that were salvageable was easier than listing the things that were broken: The chrome wheels. The left-front fender and driver’s door and window. The grille and headlights. The P-O-N-T-I-A-C between the tail lights. The rear bumper. The engine and transmission.

The rest of it was crushed. Even the back seat and the dashboard showed the effects of the crash.

Man, that’s tragic. Oh, I found a picture online of a similar, green, 1969 Firebird. Here’s what it might have looked like before the crash:

firebird

Grant Hamilton

  • Matt Goerzen

    Painful.

  • http://www.absurdintellectual.com/ Amy Breen

    I personally don’t understand dropping that much money on a car, but I cringed the entire time I read this.

  • http://www.absurdintellectual.com/ Grant Hamilton

    I agree — it’s kind of a shocking number at first. But then I started thinking about it. He paid $1,200 for it in 1980 (great deal, by the way) and estimates $40,000 since then. But that’s $40,000 spread over nearly thirty years, so he’s only spending like $1,200 a year on it, every year.

    Heck, I wish I spent that little on my car!

    Now, he could be low-balling the number because he doesn’t want to believe that he’s actually spent closer to $60,000 or even $80,000 on it over the years, but even $80,000 over thirty years is only $225 a month. Pretty sweet car payment on a real classic.