PontiacBonnevilleClub.com

I don't come on here much but I wanted to share the sad story of my SSEI.

I bought this car last May with 170k miles. Paid 630 dollars for it. The trans was broken at the mount. I replaced the trans and then proceeded to repair all the little problems over the next 11 months. Replaced the missing radio (thanks again Haro), the weak fuel pump/inop sender, the pegged oil sender, worn out rear air shocks, 2 tires, etc. Noticed a light lower end knock so I put a low mile engine in it. Did the 3.4 pulley, 3 inch downpipe/no cat, Intense PCM, 180 t-stat, colder plugs, etc. This car was loaded, everything but sunroof.
I finally felt that I had a great running, dependable car by March of this year.
On May 9th, my 22 year old's car broke down (97 SE factory supercharged) and I loaned him mine till I could fix his. He had driven it before. Never had any tickets. Just finished 5 years of college last May with a Bio-engineering degree at a 3.9 GPA.

For whatever reason (still trying to figure out why) he decided that he would see what 140 MPH felt like in my car. He ended up airborne for 153 feet, hit a telephone pole in mid air, then a tree, bounced a few times and came to a stop. He had some light bruising on his left arm and that was it. He did spend 18 days locked down in a mental ward. They thought he was trying to kill himself though he denies it.

It did still have freon in the A/C (I don't know how). The engine only has a bent water pump pulley. The belts were still on it. By some miracle, it still had oil in it, the aluminum pan is not broken or cracked.

Anyway, on to the pics

He's one lucky boy!

It's amazing anyone could walk away from that.

I wanna say that the good construction of the car saved him, but it's probably luck more than anything.

It's hard to believe that he was not injured mores seriously after looking at the car. He is one lucky young man. We used to have an '88 SSE and I spent a lot of time fixing it up. It had 225,000 miles on it but looked and ran great. Then my daughter spun out on a wet on ramp and was t-boned by another car on the driver's side and totaled it. But she didn't have a scratch on her.

nos4blood70 wrote:I wanna say that the good construction of the car saved him, but it's probably luck more than anything.

Coming from someone who analyzes everything, I am going to say it is both actually.

Please bear with me, I mean no disrespect, by analyzing this. I know it was a hectic thing to live through.

The biggest thing that saved him was the bouncing about, and the indirect hits. The passenger side damages stayed outside of the right frame rail, but I have to admit how well the A-pillar held up in that impact. A lesser car would have the damages straight through, instead of going around the A-pillar. I suspect this is the second hit. The other hit, on the drivers side, is also interesting. It looks like he went through what ever it was that he hit, as it seems to have laid over on the rest of the car, missing most of the drivers head. This is another props to the car. This hit also could have been a problem in a lesser car.

As far as there still being oil, refrigerant, etc, I have to admit, that is not very surprising. All of this equipment is inside the frame rails. The front impact bar, and the whole area between the frame rails is pretty intact.

Over all, I have to admit, your son is VERY lucky to be alive, VERY lucky that things went down the way that they did, and VERY fortunate to be in the car that he was. Anything different could have become a VERY big problem VERY quickly.

Thanks for sharing with us, I know it's not easy.

Glad he is ok and hopefully things work out.

This is the exact reason why none of my kids get to drive my car. They walk or ride the bus if their car is broke down, or they get to put gas in my truck and drive it.

So, are you now the new owner of a 97 SE?

Looks like the airbag forgot to deploy.

We all do stupid things, even bioengineering grads. Hopefully this isnt indicative of deeper issues and he takes full advantage of what must seem like a second chance.

It's good that he's alright. Cars can be replaced.

edit: Where the hell did he do a 140 pull? These aren't exactly top end monsters. I've gone that fast(in video games), and it took awhile to get there.

Wow. Glad he wasn't hurt any worse than he was from that.

Really, really glad he is okay! Sorry about the car, but hope he has learned that the only place you can go that fast is a race track. The Bonneville was know to do extremely well in crash tests. Glad that was proven in your son's case, but not for the car. - BC

Good God almighty! someone was definitely looking out for him upstairs ...

Thank you Lord for watching over Him.

That's crazy he walked away. Sad to hear they made him stay in a mental institution for that long, but I guess the rest of the world figures that anyone who wants to go 140 must be messed up. Surprised he needed to get that out of his system considering he drives a S/C 97...

That's crazy.

00Beast wrote:

That's crazy he walked away. Sad to hear they made him stay in a mental institution for that long, but I guess the rest of the world figures that anyone who wants to go 140 must be messed up. Surprised he needed to get that out of his system considering he drives a S/C 97...

Well, guess I'll "let the cat outta the bag." Back in the very late 60's west bound on I-70 out of Indianapolis from I-465 to the first exit (Plainfield - about a 5 mile stretch) was smooth, reasonably straight (the three curves were very gentle), no major hills, three lanes wide and no place for law enforcement to hide. More times than I care to think either myself or someone I was with would see how close we could come to redlining our cars in top gear. Some of us would approach 140mph. I still can't believe someone wasn't killed because of at least a tire failure. I definitely would not recommend anyone trying to do that even today unless on a closed course with emergency personal on sight. Some of the stupid things you do when you're young and you wonder how you lived. - BC

Holy sheat!!!!!

He's extremely lucky to be alive.

Wow! One very lucky man. Sad to see the car’s life end like this after all you put into it. What it’s worth to you and what insurance sees won’t even be close. Hopefully he can live and learn from this unfortunate event. It’s easy to get carried away and feel invincible behind the wheel but when I see and hear stories like this it always puts things back into perspective.

Wow, those are shocking pictures. Hard to find a panel on that car that isn't damaged. He certainly was very lucky to get out of that.

holy crap

im glad your son is still with you today,