In the summer of 1972 the Chevelle was seriously damaged in an accident. A drunk driver piloting a large Oldsmobile caromed off numerous cars and then plowed into the Chevelle at a high rate of speed. It was VERY seriously damaged as you can see.
This photo shows the results: crushed Chevelle, the culprit: the Oldsmobile and the distraught owner: the owner's wife seems quite upset, I assume the owner is merely in shock about it all. Luckily no one was hurt, even the driver of the Olds walked away. Well, stumbled away, he was really bombed. To get an idea how hard the car got hit while it was parked, it was originally parked on the far side of the front yard in the street of the red house on the right side of the photo.
To be honest, if it wasn't for this horrible accident I probably would have never eventually obtained this car nor would it have been so well preserved. At this point the car was only seven years old and was very clean and rust free. It already had almost 140,000 hard-driven miles on it as well. Imagine what would have become of the car had it not been damaged and had continued to be driven in harsh Nebraska winters and received further enthusiastic use? As it is, the car has been off the road more years than it has been on the road. The owner kept the car in this condition for nine more years and took it with him on two separate city-to-city moves! He was thrilled when he found out I ended up with the car and had begun a restoration. Had the car not survived in such good shape mechanically and rust-wise it wouldn't have been worth restoring from this condition. I guess you can call this accident a blessing in disguise in some respects.
This is the car not long before I acquired it. He had hauled it over two moves but could never get around to fixing it. In my opinion, he did the right thing and sold it before it deteriorated. He had kept it garaged and cared for over these nine years!
