Adventures in Automotive Transport

The 1957 Chevy J.B. and Travis went to pick up when they had the following adventure.

Adventures in Automotive Transport

 

I spend a lot of time on this blog talking about what great, awesome people my sons are.

Well they are, but just because I think they are so incredible doesn’t mean they don’t have their share of goof-ups and mishaps, just like the rest of us.

Sometimes theirs can be quite spectacular.

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The night before Thanksgiving this year several of us were sitting around the snack bar in our kitchen, catching up on things with a couple of my cousins, one of whom hadn’t been home in 10 years, so there was a lot to tell.

Quite a few stories were recounted, many of them bearing more than a passing resemblance to actual fact.

When Travis started to tell one particular anecdote I was familiar with, I knew I needed to record it for posterity.

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As a preface, my second oldest, J.B., loves cars.  Well, several of my sons love cars, but J.B. takes it to another level.  Whereas none of the others has more than three automobiles, J.B… well, last I heard I think his total was nine or ten.

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Most of my boys are family men now, but that doesn’t always stop them from jumping at the chance to help one of their siblings who asks, especially if it sounds like it might end up as an adventure.  This one did.

But, I’ll let Travis tell it.

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T. launched into his tale, “I get a phone call. J.B.’s like, ‘Hey, I’ve got a car over here in North Tulsa that I want to go look at, so I’m coming down.’

“So he gets there and, my wife is always scared anytime I go anywhere with J.B. and…” he chuckles.

One listener interjects, “Aren’t we all!”

Travis smiles and explains, “She just doesn’t know if I’m ever going to come back.”

Everyone laughs.

He continues, “So, we go over here and, it’s kind of a run down neighborhood.  Nothing you wouldn’t expect in North Tulsa, and we look at this car…  It’s, like, STUCK in a garage.  I don’t know how they even got it in there but, somehow, we used dollies to get it out.  We get it loaded on this trailer, and, it’s just a normal wooden bed …”

J.B. chimes in, “16 foot, normal-like utility-slash-‘MIGHT be used as a car hauler’ trailer.”

Travis points out, “NOT meant as a car hauler trailer though…is the main emphasis on that.  So we take a drill and drill holes and bolt these straps down and it looks like it’s pretty secure…

“LOOKS…like it’s pretty secure,” he reiterates.

J.B. adds, “Kind of like the tire nets, with the ‘D’ rings, carriage bolted to the deck…”

Travis continues, “Yeah, so there’s a PROPER way to install them and there’s the way that WE installed them.

“We get everything done, everything signed over, paid for, and we start leaving the neighborhood.

“We get…not even 300 feet away from this guy’s house and we turn onto a four-lane road and, where we are at is the very top of a hill.  We turn on it and, as soon as we turn on it, I look back, and this car is going OFF the trailer!  As it’s going off it starts to come back down (the hill) but, thank God, the wheels turn, and it goes up into a guy’s yard and stops.

“It is 600 feet DOWN this hill.  If it had gone down, the only thing you could do is…I don’t know…LEAVE?  ‘Cause, that thing would have taken some stuff OUT!”

After the listeners’ laughter died down, he continued, “We stopped and, for some reason, there were some cones on the side of the road.   I took the cones and blocked traffic off, so we were safe…  We looked like we knew what we were doing.”

He paused before he added, “except for this car sitting in the guy’s yard.”

“So then the guy that we bought the car from comes back and he’s got a battery-powered winch, and we winch it up there (on the trailer) and strap it down better and never have another problem.”

 

As if that wasn’t enough.

 

 

This is after they pulled the Chevy out of the yard it rolled into when it parted company with the trailer.  I think they should name the car Leaping Lena.

10 Comments on "Adventures in Automotive Transport"

  1. Dottie Phelps | November 28, 2017 at 10:40 am |

    Thanks for the LAUGH. Got my day off to a good start.

  2. Sadly just one of many stories I have of towing vehicles, next time we can tell the one where the trailer and 1 ton dually didn’t make the turn.

    • You bet! Maybe I’ll do “Adventures in Automotive Transport: Part II” Heck, we might even make a collection and publish a book. 🙂

  3. Travis Matthews | November 28, 2017 at 2:58 pm |

    Or changing a transmission on the side of the road!

  4. Crazy kids! 10 year rule keeps getting closer and closer to next day!

  5. Nice story!!! Congrats JB on a new car.

    • Thanks. I should do a followup story on all the work he is doing on it. Knowing JB it will probably be just as funny.

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