Death Of A Million Dollar Car

At dawn today, some asshole managed to wrap a Ferrari Enzo around a telephone pole up in Malibu, doing something like 150, and then just walk away.

When I was 17, I had to get up early one Saturday morning and climb into my '66 Karmann Ghia to head down to my job at Music Plus. U2 tickets were going on sale at 6am, and there was already a line. As I rounded a nasty curve in our Fullerton neighborhood, I noticed a brand new Porsche 911 Turbo, sitting in the road, with it's lights on and the drivers door open. I stopped and walked up to the breathtaking red machine, only to notice that the driver, apparently knowing nothing about the fishtailing rear-end dynamics of the 911, had broken the tail loose, hit an old pair of railroad tracks, and slammed the car into a high curb. There was a long gash down the passenger side, and the rear axle had been busted by the impact, forcing the rear right wheel under the car. The heavy passenger side power mirror had been ripped right off, and lay forlornly on the grass next to the dead beauty.

I slid down into the warm brown leather of the driver's seat, and let my hands fall into the meaty three-point wheel. For just one second, I could imagine how such a car could control you, begging you to make it go further then you should. With a sigh, I climbed out of the smashed classic and went back to my rusted two-tone Ghia with the faulty electrical system and smelly rear engine, so alike in design to the 911, but a world apart. There wasn't a soul in sight. Like the fool in Malibu, the owner must have decided to walk it off after a hard night on the town.

I puttered away with the decapitated, busted rear view mirror sitting in my passenger seat, a piece of something that I would never have, something that it's owner didn't deserve. If I'd been up in Malibu, I'd have figured out some way to cart off that lovely V12.