Quite an experience last night

[yelobird2002]

Yesterday afternoon my wife and I were cruizing top down to our Thunderbird Groups meeting at the Red Rock Casino. The wind was blowing about 40 mph as a crosswind from the south while we were traveling about 70 mph west bound. All of a sudden out of the middle of no where a big large black object hit the windshield on the passenger side and then flew over our heads onto the freeway. I could see in the rear view mirror that three or four cars ran over it. Just before it hit the ground I realized what it was. It was our soft top boot. The forward most rivet securing the snap to the plastic trim on the drivers side by the rear of the drivers door broke. The cross wind un-tucked it from under the quarter panel and flung it behind our heads with the last snap on the passenger side still attached, the boot swung in a circle, hit the outside of the windshield on the passenger side and then the last snap let go and the boot became a 70 mph glider. I pulled over and in the mirror saw it was in the middle of the freeway and with the amount of traffic unrecoverable. I went ahead to the next exit, u-turned and headed back east to the previous exit we had passed just earlier. Made another u-turn and creeped down the on ramp looking for any sign of the boot. All of a sudden it jumped up in the air with a big wind gust in the decorative rocks between the freeway and the on ramp. Got out of the car and walked about 75 yards to where it layed. It is bent up, scuffed up, and has some white paint marks on it, but is still in one piece. The portion of the snap that came off the trim when the rivet broke is still snapped into the boot. Guess I will now start looking for a new 02 boot. Was a little bit of a scare before we actually knew what was happening.

[FEsTbird]

Re: Quite an experience last night

Wow! That is a scare!

[SixPac]

Re: Quite an experience last night

To me that was a BIG bit of a scare. Glad both of you are O.K.

[Guest]

Re: Quite an experience last night

Gulp ! A very scary story. Glad you were safe and able to maintain control of your TBird.

Is there any visible damage on your car?

[2K2BIRD]

Re: Quite an experience last night

Lon,

Glad you two were okay. Loo bad about the boot cover. If you would have only known, you could have bought the one from Ron last week.

[Red T-Bird]

Re: Quite an experience last night

Lon, glad your alright.

[Vintage Merlot]

Re: Quite an experience last night

Sounds like it is time to make lemonade...Send it to Lou and have him cover it with vinyl and put a Thunderbird logo on it.....don't be a victim...be a survivor.

[SugarBabe]

Re: Quite an experience last night

That is certainly a new one!! Glad you are both safe. Sounds like the top needs to be up when the wind is blowing that hard!!

[doubutsu]

Re: Quite an experience last night

Lon, I saw you guys with the cover when you got to the Red Rock, as everyone else said glad you both are ok. I can give you the name of the business here who recovered mine.

[Canuck]

Re: Quite an experience last night

Amazing story, nice job of telling the tale and, glad everyone is OK.

[HeelBird]

Re: Quite an experience last night

Glad nothing any worse resulted from this incident. Sounds like you did a good job of maintaining your wits when a large bat flew out of nowhere and crashed into your Bird.

[DavidA]

Re: Quite an experience last night

Lon: Why not just have it recovered in yellow to match your interior? Just a thought.

[007Cruiser]

Re: Quite an experience last night

Glad to hear that no one was hurt. I agree that this could be a great mod opportunity.

[15AGAIN]

Re: Quite an experience last night

Lon, glad to hear that you both are OK. I know you will get the bird fixed.
Good to see you post, just not a good subject!!

[FritsB]

Re: Quite an experience last night

Good thing no one got hurt.