Pretty worthless..

....here's the scoop!
 

Well, .....I must say that it's a small world! I've had two different people contact me today about this listing on eBay. I was the original owner of the car and had to "give" it to my divorce attorney to satisfy my "final" payment.....it's long story with a happy ending, .....but I was able to keep the Viper! Anyway, he sold the car to a guy in Phoenix and I've kept in touch with him. I must say that he too was surprised to get a call from me today when I wanted to find out what happened.
He said that he was driving the car (approximately 40 mph) and suddenly the car went sideways off the road and into a tree. He doesn't remember much about the crash.
There were no skid marks on the road and he wasn't "hot rodding" the car. The insurance investigator determined that the bolts or bolt on the driver's side rear control arm broke. When this happened, it the turned the car sideways and launched him into the tree.
He received 180 stitches to the head, had a skin graft on his leg and was in the hospital for 5 days. He's okay now. (So....that very well may be blood on the rear quarter!)
Guys, if you have a Superformance.....check or replace the suspension bolts. I understand there have been some recent issues with this. I also heard there is a suspension modification to "beef up" a bracket to avoid these issues.
Bob Q.

Holy Cow. That is quite a story. Thanks for closing the loop on this for us.:)

Bob,

Thanks for providing us with some background regarding the car. Sound like the guy had some serious injuries and I'm happy to hear he's recovered.

Do you happen to know if the rear shock mounts were upgraded on the car? There was a Technical Service Bulletin (080718-TSB) issued where they recommended that the bracket be replaced on cars up to chassis number 1670.

http://superformance.org/bulletins/S...-080718tsb.pdf

I was curious when you described the accident, as the shock mount might have failed.

Wow! This is the 3rd thread about SPF in the last couple of weeks that points at some serious saftey issues.

Nice. What are the other two threads.

The shock tower bracket looks perfectly intact...and it's still in place in the photos. There appears to be an issue with the lower control arm bolts to the hub carrier, but the photos are not clear enough to determine anything about them without it being pure speculation. The geometry of the lower control arm as it attaches to the chassis also looks ok. I do note from the photos there don't appear to be shoulder harnesses installed in the car, tough to be absolutly sure from the photos but it would explain the steering wheel. Could be just a maintenance issue...?
FYI: The suspension modification to "beef-up the bracket" referred to had nothing to do with these bolts...

Thanks Blas. I guess it would have helped if I looked through all of the pics. :o It's possible that the lower control arm damage was a result of the impact vs. a failure.

"give" it to my divorce attorney ,

You have to be laughing your A$$$ off, I know everything that goes around comes around but this is too funny. Sometimes life can be a real biatch.

I know it is a tastelss comment I just made, but every once in a while everything lines up in the universe.

The Carroll Shelby autgraph Glove Box may worth some money, but not $15,000, but close...LOL
Dex..

How is the rear "spindle" held on where in the picture it appears something broke. If you remove the bolts they only go in about 3/4" and not all the way through to the "center" piece. Is there a long sleeve that goes through the assemlby ? If I take my bolts out, nothing happens, the lower a arm stays in place. Any pictures would be greatly appreciated.

I saw the 4422 on the odometer, and I thought 'Another newbie playing Dan Gurney wraps up a Cobra'... after reading thru the thread, I almost wish that WAS the case! :eek:
I hate to hear of any suspension failures on these cars because it makes me paranoid in mine, even though not a Superformance. A great winter project, going thru the car piece by piece to look for trouble. But its impossible to see every bolt, or every crack for that matter! %/
I give kudos to Ven e mous for filling us in, and am glad the guy was able to live to tell the tale. :o

We don't know, and will likely never know the exact cause. To say or imply anything else is like a headline in the Enquirer.

I agree, I have had blow outs, ball joints failures, axle failures on trailers and every single time the car or trailer drops down on that corner and speed decreases exponentially. To say the suspension failed and the car swung around is suspicious at best. It is all speculation, I wonder if a corner was being taken to fast, rear end broke loose curb struck and that caused the suspension damage.

Seriously scary! Maybe someone should post a bulletin on this site to inform those owners who aren't reading this. I'd want to know if this "could" happen to my car.

It appears the newer chassis's have a different design then the one on ebay. Still cant figure out how it is put together, but needed something to figure out anyways LOL!!

The way I read that was that the attorney sold the car to the poor fellow in the accident.

I haven't read the 3rd page of this( probably not all of the second) but our MKIII is 1726, it was delivered in 2002/3. So with that VIN, it is likely close 10 years old. If something failed,although there has been no certainty, it could be that it wasn't maintained/inspected as regularly/well as it should have been.
It is said, often, that these cars are really refined 60s cars and still need that type of attention, they are not Lexii. That is sometimes forgotten.

i dont agree that anything failed before a collosion.

There sure are a lot of armchair QB's on this thread... :rolleyes: