Saturday, May 28, 2022

The Wiskowski's vacation came to a sudden end

 


17 comments:

  1. Wow. Look at all that expensive 35 cents a gallon gas pouring out.

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    1. Not necessarily gasoline from the car's tank. Could be water from the trunk or the camper, or even water to extinguish a possible fire from sliding on the road, but a fire would be uncommon.

      I don't recall cars leaking fuel back then, from mild rollovers. By the time of fuel injection on everything, 2000+, never, and I was very experienced on flipping them back on their wheels at that point.
      (Weirdest one was a Jetta flipped in rush hour traffic, with not a mark on it except the scuffed roof it was sitting on.)

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  2. Ma and Pa don't look any worse for the wear. Must have been a safe car. Unless I'm reading wrong, looks like it's a Pontiac Catalina, maybe around '70. My parents had a '60 Catalina and it wasn't quite like that around the nose.

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  3. Their camper is on its side as well. I hope a smoker doesn't toss a butt and send it all up in blazes.

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  4. I thought those Pontiacs were advertised as 'wide track' for better stability!

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  5. I'd guess that the trailer got whipping and flipped taking the car with it. Good thing the Wiskowskis were riding in 5,000 pounds or American made steel. Good time to check the undercarriage for service items. Probably be able to roll the car back over, fill the fluids and continue on.

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  6. We had a Catalina wagon from that year. My dad just showed up at home with it as a surprise. Had a transparent steering wheel. I remember the commercials from that year, a guy with a baseball bat, slugging the bumpers....

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    1. Lived thru similar (age 13): a series of wide spaced washboards in the pavement and the car and trailer start going different directions at the wrong time. The tail wags the dog effect and the next thing that happens is all your stuff is stretched along the road, the trailer on it's side, the car or pickup on its top, you are definitely shaken and stirred, while people drive and ogle the disaster. That's if you're lucky.

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  7. Looks like the dud from Law & Order.

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  8. Is this the spot where we discuss tongue loading?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9Dgxe584Ss

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    1. Yes. And how to recover from a fishtail sitution.

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    2. Yup, both ball height and tongue weight, stabilizers, chains, trailer gross weighta and cg loading, etc. etc.

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    3. And I forgot to mention electric brakes that assist in taming fishtailing!

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  9. Mom had a '69 Bonneville with a 360 hp 428 cu in. Very heavy and very fast. It would smoke the RR tire for freaking ever and bury the 120 mph speedometer.

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  10. My in-laws got 25 miles out of town when one arm broke off the equalizer hitch at 55. Fortunately the suburban didn't flip but the trailer finally broke off and just disintegrated tornado-fashion. Got a cute photo of my mother-in-law sitting in her recliner in the median. It was the only bit of remains you could recognize.

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  11. This was the result of letting Mrs. Wiskowski navigate. As per usual, she called out a simple turn 2 seconds after her husband had passed it ("That's the turn, you just passed it!"), and the resultant panic splurge Two-handed Polish Heart Attack turn maneuver did the rest.

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