What a damn shame!

General Discussion
1

An elderly man spent his last years restoring his beloved 1950 Desoto.
Now, both the man and his Desoto are gone.
The man passed away previously, and the Desoto was destroyed today by some jerk in a minivan.

How fast do you have to be going in order to destroy a tank-like 1950 Desoto?

Aside from the tragedy of having this car destroyed, I am amazed that nobody had bought this restored car for the asking price of only $1,350.
Heck…if I had known about it, I would have bought it!

2

That is a shame. The car looked like a real sweet ride too.

Yosemite

3

Horrible tragedy and it’s amazing to me that considering the collectibility of old Chrysler products that no one had snapped that car up for a giveaway price.

A salvage yard about 40 miles west of me has about 10 acres of old cars and I think the cheapest asking price on any rusty, non-running old sled out there is around 600 dollars and working their way up.

It’s bad but it can be fixed. Hopefully some Mopar nut will read about it and save it from a crusher.

4

I’d like to know why the Mini van went airborne. On the cel phone???

Yosemite

5

Nice car for sure but the asking price was $13,000 not $1300. I would have bought it for $1300 too.

6

@Bing–Everything is a matter of timing–as usual.
The text of that article was…updated…a few minutes before you read it.
The state of journalism today is such that much misinformation finds its way into print or online news, and is only corrected after the fact.

I was skeptical of that very low asking price, but–unfortunately–I assumed that the writer knew where to place a decimal point. My mistake…

7

This is the risk you take when you drive or transport your “Classic Car”…That Desoto was powered by a 100hp flat-head six…Car collectors don’t get too excited about those…

8

^
But, that car was not being driven or transported!
It was parked in a lot, in front of an auto body shop, when the jerky minivan driver did…something…and became airborne.

9

This is a good illustration of how easily a 1950 ‘tank’ could be damaged. They had very little side impact protection. Of course, the van might have been going VERY fast, but this kind of crash bring out the worst in the ‘old iron’. I wonder what the van looked like…

10

…and, if that Desoto–with a full perimeter frame–sustained that kind of damage, can you imagine what would have happened to a '60s-era Chevy with the notorious X-frame?

11

I agree . . . this is proof positive that old cars are less safe than newer cars

12
^ Of course, you and I will never be able to convince the folks who say, "They just don't build them like they used to". My answer is always, "Yes, thank God", but there are folks who insist that the cars of yesteryear were safer and more reliable than modern cars.

I will grant you that those old cars were extremely easy to repair (in most cases), but they were neither safe nor reliable in comparison to modern cars.

13

That is a shame. I suppose it’s good in a way that he didn’t live to see it happen.

14

Not that it is important, but from the pictures, the Desoto is a 1951 and not a 1950. The grille on the 1950 was a lot different than the 1951. Even though the appearance is similar, I don’t believe it is a 1952. Had this Desoto been a 1952, it might have had the V-8 engine–a smaller displacement version of the hemispherical combustion chamber introduced in the Chrysler Saratoga and New Yorker in 1951.

15

Much less safe, though much of that safety comes from absorption, not rigidity. A modern car can look destroyed, but still protect the passengers. The old tanks transmitted forces right into the dashboard, windshield, and steering wheel. Or the passenger’s side. The bad old days were pretty bad.