That is the true.
Sly / harris
- Thread starter tommyhill
- Start date
That is the true.
An "expert in the field of auto body and frame repair"
As it happens, I saw the wreck. I was sitting in front of the service station when the wreck happened. I was watching the main road anyway, it was expected that we were at the gas pumps of the full service station when a customer's car stopped so I was watching the entrances of the station. The howl of that little pancake engine caught my attention before the car even came in sight and the car was indeed moving well above normal highway speed of sixty. Driver/customer I saw a few times a week said he was going eighty-five. That I don't know but I'd bet everything I own that he was going a lot faster than sixty miles an hour since I watched cars go by at sixty or sixty-five all the time. He never let off the throttle or touched a brake. Distracted driver.
I know a wee bit about auto body and frame damage and repair having owned three body shops, two auto salvages, and an emergency wrecker service. The court has accepted me as an expert witness in the fields of auto body and frame repair and I have owned thousands of wrecked cars, known the stories behind many of them. Running an emergency wrecker for city, state, and sheriff's departments I was on the scene of many wrecks. The wrecks that people walked away from were more amazing than the ones that killed people.
I went out of a car I barrel rolled over a hundred yards on the street when I rolled a tire off a rim and I flew a couple hundred feet. Neither I or my passenger that stayed in the car were injured beyond scrapes and bruises other than my right forearm hung a little going out the car and it looked like Popeye the Sailer Man's arm for a few months. I went out and shot pool a few hours after the wreck.
I know a man that walked away from a wreck on the highway, combined speed of the vehicles hitting head on was greater than 150mph, documented by police report. A hot rod Camaro lost control and was sideways when it hit the pick-up truck the man was in. The people in the Camaro were killed instantly, it wrapped around the front of the truck so badly there was no chance of the driver surviving when the impact was on the passenger door. The driver of the pick-up wasn't wearing a seat belt and this was before air bags. He suffered very minor injuries and walked away.
I have designed and built a few short track cars that I drove. Some had nascar legal cages some didn't. About the only thing I feared was fire or getting in deep water, seemed there was always a nearby pond. My first car had a nascar legal cage and an empty fire extinguisher with the gauge turned down. If my car caught on fire I planned to be in the press box talking about it before the car stopped rolling. I damned sure wasn't staying in the car and playing with a fire extinguisher!
Hu
Hu, 2500 pounds is not "heavy".
And if that guy hit something doing 85mph, he'd be toast. The car would be toast. And what ever he hit would be toast. So, i'm sure he hit something at 40, and the story grew from there
The new cars are MUCH safer than old cars, it's not even close. Oh, and something else, the new cars are WAY faster too. Oh, the olds ones looked better, most of them, but there are some new ones that look damn good too
But folks don't walk away from 85mph crashes, unless they are in NASCAR
As it happens, I saw the wreck. I was sitting in front of the service station when the wreck happened. I was watching the main road anyway, it was expected that we were at the gas pumps of the full service station when a customer's car stopped so I was watching the entrances of the station. The howl of that little pancake engine caught my attention before the car even came in sight and the car was indeed moving well above normal highway speed of sixty. Driver/customer I saw a few times a week said he was going eighty-five. That I don't know but I'd bet everything I own that he was going a lot faster than sixty miles an hour since I watched cars go by at sixty or sixty-five all the time. He never let off the throttle or touched a brake. Distracted driver.
I know a wee bit about auto body and frame damage and repair having owned three body shops, two auto salvages, and an emergency wrecker service. The court has accepted me as an expert witness in the fields of auto body and frame repair and I have owned thousands of wrecked cars, known the stories behind many of them. Running an emergency wrecker for city, state, and sheriff's departments I was on the scene of many wrecks. The wrecks that people walked away from were more amazing than the ones that killed people.
I went out of a car I barrel rolled over a hundred yards on the street when I rolled a tire off a rim and I flew a couple hundred feet. Neither I or my passenger that stayed in the car were injured beyond scrapes and bruises other than my right forearm hung a little going out the car and it looked like Popeye the Sailer Man's arm for a few months. I went out and shot pool a few hours after the wreck.
I know a man that walked away from a wreck on the highway, combined speed of the vehicles hitting head on was greater than 150mph, documented by police report. A hot rod Camaro lost control and was sideways when it hit the pick-up truck the man was in. The people in the Camaro were killed instantly, it wrapped around the front of the truck so badly there was no chance of the driver surviving when the impact was on the passenger door. The driver of the pick-up wasn't wearing a seat belt and this was before air bags. He suffered very minor injuries and walked away.
I have designed and built a few short track cars that I drove. Some had nascar legal cages some didn't. About the only thing I feared was fire or getting in deep water, seemed there was always a nearby pond. My first car had a nascar legal cage and an empty fire extinguisher with the gauge turned down. If my car caught on fire I planned to be in the press box talking about it before the car stopped rolling. I damned sure wasn't staying in the car and playing with a fire extinguisher!
Hu
Hu, 2500 pounds is not "heavy". Todays cars are just as heavy as the "old" cars. The difference is air bags, crumple zones, a new Toyota Corrolla is heavier than a Corvair Monza, and faster
And if that guy hit something doing 85mph, he'd be toast. The car would be toast. And what ever he hit would be toast. So, i'm sure he hit something at 40, and the story grew from there
The new cars are MUCH safer than old cars, it's not even close. Oh, and something else, the new cars are WAY faster too. Oh, the olds ones looked better, most of them, but there are some new ones that look damn good too
But folks don't walk away from 85mph crashes, unless they are in NASCAR
The "old" cars were built with real steel and all the components were heavier. Just try picking up the hood on a 50's or 60's model American car and you'll feel the difference right there. Same for trunk lids. What makes the new cars safer is the seat belts and air bags, and the side structural support that was missing from older model cars. As far as faster I would contend that as well. Check what sells for the highest prices at car auctions. 60's and early 70's model performance cars like the Dodges with the 383 and 426 hemi engines are among the most popular, as well as high performance 350GT Mustangs, 289 and 427 Cobras and Corvette Sting Rays.
I owned a 1967 'Vette with the 427 engine listed at 435 Horsepower (it was reputed to actually have in excess of 500 HP). My 'Vette had Positraction and 4.11 rear end. There aren't many cars being made today at any price that could pull that car off the line. Stock with good rubber it would do sub 12 second quarters at over 110 mph. That's fast for a street car. 0 to 60 was something under five seconds as well. And the 427 Cobra was faster!
Those dang modern economics
Here's a Yenko Corvair for you
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Cue makers in this thread:
Harris
Sly
Diveney
Searing
Harris
Sly
Diveney
Searing
It's NEW YEARS EVE and am drunk, but, it's bout time you pass the bottle and bong or you may never find reality again
btw, there is one GREAT, one GOOD, one OKAY cue maker in the thread. The fourth, by all accounts...
I have a strong feeling the bottom two shouldn't be if they are being accused of letting anyone complete a cue for them. Kinda lost track of things with all of the side entertainment in this thread.
Jay, I had '63 and 66 Stingray convertibles the '66 with a 411 posi-trac. 350 in it after somebody blew the bigblock but still a sweet street car. Floated the valves top ending it and put a little cam and the heads and rest of the top end off of my circle track car since it was off season. Had the fastest car in town for about three days. Then something broke in the rear end when I hit second gear. Busted three or four inches out of the carrier and every gear in the rear end except oddly enough the pinion didn't have a mark on it.
Think I have probably told the tale before but I had a '65 Mustang 2+2 also. Hopped up 289 I had dropped more in than the car cost new. Wide ratio four speed and only 3:1 rear gears. It would pick up the front end and tote it in first gear so I never got around to putting lower gears in it.
I decided to top end it one night about four AM. I knew where about four miles of straight wide concrete two lane was. I came out of an "S" curve at seventy and easily pegged the 120mph speedometer in third gear still pulling hard. Shifted into fourth and before long I couldn't see anything on the sides of the road close to me to tell where I was at. The car was still accelerating when it started floating so bad it was touching grass on both sides of the road. I decided that if I got it stopped before the "T" in the road and some large woods I wouldn't try to top end it again! The little pony was fast but handling left a lot to be desired.
That Mustang and a Norton 850 were the only two things I owned I didn't know top speed of until I turned 25 and settled down a little. That little Mustang would outrun everything in town except a SOHC Ford 427 somebody had gotten ahold of. Well that car and Motorola! Never actually raced the Ford but those engines were rated at 735HP from the factory!
Hu
And one moron.....
I'm pretty sure the high performance Chevy 427 with the three two barrel carbs came with solid lifters and a better cam. It had a higher compression ratio too (maybe 12.5-1). My brother and I had a '63 Stingray with the 350 and automatic trans. Only rated at 300 HP but still was a kick to drive. We graduated to a '63 split window four speed and my brother added a Paxton Products blower on it and put locked clamps on the hood so people couldn't see what was under there. It had the 3.31 rear end and would top out over 160 MPH. He once got a ticket in Florida where the cops had to set up a road block to catch him, after their cars got lost in the dust.
Our race cars were both '65's, the first with a big block 454 jammed in there. It had a great high end but handled poorly with all that weight up front. The second one was a super clean car with a nicely warmed over 350 in it. It would turn faster laps at Riverside than we did in the big block. It was dropped down about an inch off the ground and we used to call the racing Vettes sleds because you couldn't turn them over, but they would slide all over the place. Our Vette had big rubber on it and flared out to the legal max fender wells, the front tires slightly canted for better handling. It was a kick ass car.
My last Vette was the '67 and at speed (maybe a buck twenty) out in the desert the front end would get light and start moving around. I would always slow down for fear I would lose it if I hit a strong gust of wind. My last truly high speed ride was a stock 1997 Jag XK8. That car will do a legitimate 160! I took it up to 145 one time on a long stretch of California highway heading to Vegas at day break one morning when there wasn't another car in sight. What I liked was the way it hugged the ground. Jag made it right! I could feel that there was more in it but I could see cars and trucks way up ahead and I was gaining on them fast, too fast!
P.S. My last 750 Honda Chopper had an 880 stroker kit on it and had been lightened to just over 300 pounds. It was a full out soft tail chopper with a 14" front end. It would do an easy 140 or more. I loved that bike! I would take it out in the middle of the night during the long hot Summers in Bakersfield when there weren't many cars on the road and it was a tepid 80 degrees outside (no helmet, only wearing eye protection). There are many long straight country roads outside Bakersfield with little dips in them you don't notice at 70 mph, but are exhilarating at 125+! Thank God no one ever pulled out in front of me when I was high and having fun on my bike. I would have been dead meat.
Now, back to Pool! :wink:
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Still has cues for sale.
Yeah, they were great but new vette would eat the old vette's lunch. 0-60 in 2.85 seconds and doing 134mph at the end of the 1/4 mile.
Heck, my Lexus is as fast to 60 as my old 1970 GTO. Just lighter, better engineering, and much, much better transmissions in today's cars.
Of course the old cars are collectible and demanding some big dollars, and so will todays cars in 40 years
Just gotta buy a few $80K cars and tuck them away for 50 years, and wait for your profit
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Then he got lucky, it had nothing to do with the car he was in. The older cars were death traps, no air bags, full body frame. Thus, the car suffered less damages but guess what happened to the "stuff" inside the cars. Heck, some folks parachutes don't open and there are a couple of guys that lived to tell the story, just saying
If folks could walk away from 85mph crashes, what in the hell would they need air bags for
You're saying Searing had people make cues for him??? Are you insane???
None of those guys could sweep Searings floor, let alone make cues or parts for him.
Jason
I have sort of followed this thread from the beginning, and can sort of relate this back to issues that people in management always hear, but people hear in general as it applies to life. It only takes one ( OH Shite ) moment to wipe out a career, following, good standing. It has happened to others that have been cue makers as well as just about any other industry that can be thought up. what has been implied to have taken place may have that impact or it may not have any impact at all! It could turn out that this has just been fodder for key board warriors, only time will tell, and if a known makers sort of fades away then the consequences of the non-disclosure will reared its ugly head. I will now go back to reading on the sidelines,
But even if Leon had someone make a point blank for him or do some inlay work, would you have any reason to be upset? In my opinion the clear answer is No. Leon built you the cue you wanted just like you wanted and even if he had some help so what. I am not saying he did or not as I do not know, but it does not matter either way. What matters is you were delivered the quality of cue you expected and if it had shown up less than up to specs it would be Leon you would be talking to and blaming. So he gets the credit or the blame as it is his cue without help or with help.:deadhorse:
Very good response.
Terrible answer!
You would be another person to add to the never do business with list.
Jason