The PIC whore club! Come on in!

[Kristina]

Auto Union type C/D

Two Estonias

The Rolls Royce which Leonid Brezhnev crashed a truck is exhibited.

This guy in there

has bulletproof windows on his car.

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[Tracy Bowman]

Auto Union type C/D

Two Estonias

The Rolls Royce which Leonid Brezhnev crashed a truck is exhibited.

This guy in there

has bulletproof windows on his car.

Some cool-looking vehicles!

 

[P. A. Schilke]

Auto Union type C/D

Two Estonias

The Rolls Royce which Leonid Brezhnev crashed a truck is exhibited.

This guy in there

has bulletproof windows on his car.

Hi Kristina,

The AU Grand Prix car is I think a type D if it has the supercharged V12. Historic vehicle but a bear to drive being rear engined and tail heavy. It won a ton of races in the hands of pre WWII legends.

Interesting Racer, the Estonia, looks similar to the initial Formula Fords that were once popular in amateur racing here in the USA and the UK.

Very cool pix! Thanks for sharing...

Best,
Phil

 

[NTXTremor]

Last Friday in North Texas, the forecast called for potential severe storms between 4 PM and 10 PM. After an initial wave of storms passed through shortly after 4 PM, I think we all took our guards down. Later in the evening, the pop-up storms ahead of the cold front seemed to have lost their severe potential due to the cooling effect of the earlier storms, or so we thought.

At 6:40 PM while I sat down to enjoy an Old Fashioned after a long week, I got a notification on my phone that my county was under a severe thunderstorm warning. I checked my favorite radar app on my phone, RadarOmega (I highly recommend this app), and saw that a pop-up storm about 10 miles due west of us was headed right towards us and that it was starting to produce hail.

Since one bay of my garage is occupied by my 68 Cutlass project car, and the other bays are full of other stuff from recently selling my in-laws' house after they passed away, both my Tremor and my wife's Lexus were parked outside.

I watched a couple of radar cycles seeing where the hail core was moving, and after two or three cycles, the radar image went from purple to white indicating golf ball sized hail or larger. I told my wife to grab her purse so that we could both drive to a public parking garage about 5 minutes from our house. She decided to use the restroom first, and I debated waiting for her. I decided otherwise since the storm was now about 7 miles west of us.

I was not even half way to the parking garage when the hail started at 6:48 PM, just 8 minutes after the warning. The first few hailstones were small and slushy, smashing on the windshield and hood almost like large snowflakes. Just as I was pulling into the parking garage, the larger stones began to hit. Three much larger hailstones hit, sounding like someone was banging on my truck with a hammer. Luckily, I made it under cover before the even larger hail started.

My wife was about halfway to the parking garage when the larger hail started. Luckily, she noticed that no one was taking shelter under the awning of a bank on her right, and she pulled under the cover just in time.

We both waited out the storm. I watched as golfball sized hail pummeled the ground outside of the parking garage, blown nearly sideways from the 60+ mph winds. I worried that my wife would not be safe under the awning, but luckily due to the size of the awning, none of the wind-driven hail made it to her.

The storm passed about as quickly as it came, and we both made our way home. As I drove north towards our neighborhood, the amount and size of the hail still on the ground was much worse. Pulling into our neighborhood, virtually every car still parked outside had shattered windows, and the ground was covered in tree branches and piles of hail like snow.

All of our neighbors were outside assessing the damage, and after talking with them for a few minutes, I grabbed a couple of the larger stones, now almost 30 minutes old, for photos.

We had been through this before in Texas, back in 2016, but it was obvious that this storm was even worse. We had two broken windows on our house. Our roof is toast. Our gutters are destroyed. Our garage doors are battered. All of the window screens are shredded, and all of the painted wood trim on the house is showing exposed wood.

The last storm we had like this caused over $36K in damage to our old house, but it was not much out of pocket back then due to our deductible. A new law passed a couple of years ago, and the new minimum insurance deductible for a roof is 1% of the home's value. Since Covid, prices of homes in this area have increased 40%, so this is going to cost me more than what I paid for a rust-free 1968 Olds Cutlass convertible in good running condition. Ouch.

But at least both of our cars came out unscathed unlike many of my neighbors. We walked through the neighborhood Saturday morning, and I am sharing some of what we saw. Unfortunately, I was able to witness what would have happened to my Tremor had I not driven to cover, as a neighbor a few streets over has a red Ranger STX that was left outside. Every panel was smashed, and since the floor mats were on his driveway, I think that his windshield shattered, too.

Here are a few of the photos.

This first stone I grabbed measured over 3 inches at its widest, which puts it in the tennis-ball to baseball size category.

The damage to cars was unbelievable.

This is a photo of an outdoor storage container we use for our patio cushions. What amazes me about this is that this container is incredibly strong and tough. It can support up to 250 pounds, and the plastic was not at all brittle.

 

[IdahoRanger]

Wow Mark, that is insane. I will stick with our snowstorms and marble sized hail which is about as bad as we get here. I'm going to look at that weather app which prepared you to take cover..

 

[NTXTremor]

Wow Mark, that is insane. I will stick with our snowstorms and marble sized hail which is about as bad as we get here. I'm going to look at that weather app which prepared you to take cover..

At this point, I would trade some snow for the hail we get here. This is probably the 6th storm in the Dallas area this year that has had this kind of hail. It is just the first to hit us.

At one point, the insurance companies threatened to pull out of Texas altogether due to the hail, which is how that 1% compromise occurred.

Honestly, it could have been much worse. These are first world problems, I know, and I am fortunate enough to be able to pay my deductible. I have to look on the bright side for sure.

But I also need to clean the garage so that we can get all of our cars inside.

 

[AzScorpion]

At this point, I would trade some snow for the hail we get here. This is probably the 6th storm in the Dallas area this year that has had this kind of hail. It is just the first to hit us.

At one point, the insurance companies threatened to pull out of Texas altogether due to the hail, which is how that 1% compromise occurred.

Honestly, it could have been much worse. These are first world problems, I know, and I am fortunate enough to be able to pay my deductible. I have to look on the bright side for sure.

But I also need to clean the garage so that we can get all of our cars inside.

I like your thinking, save the Ranger and the heck with the Lexus! ?

Seriously I'm glad your wife was ok under the bank cover and you both were safe. Ive been through a few nasty hail storms back east and luckily both times found cover for my F150 while others were destroyed like in your pics. While our weather here in intense for most, natural disasters were a huge factor when I was looking for places to relocate. Hope you get the stuff around the house fixed soon. I'm sure with all the damage it'll take a while.

 

[NTXTremor]

I like your thinking, save the Ranger and the heck with the Lexus! ?

Seriously I'm glad your wife was ok under the bank cover and you both were safe. Ive been through a few nasty hail storms back east and luckily both times found cover for my F150 while others were destroyed like in your pics. While our weather here in intense for most, natural disasters were a huge factor when I was looking for places to relocate. Hope you get the stuff around the house fixed soon. I'm sure with all the damage it'll take a while.

LOL. I figured that she did not need me to lead the way to the parking garage.

 

[IdahoRanger]

LOL. I figured that she did not need me to lead the way to the parking garage.

Women and restrooms.

 

[AzScorpion]

Women and restrooms.

I always tease Annie that she has the bladder the size of a grape. I've never met anyone who can take a sip of water and go to the bathroom 5 times! I told her the next trip we take in June she's wearing these.

 

[Kristina]

Women and restrooms.

Now, about that comment…

 

[jpaddy13]

Went to the store, back into a fairly empty section of the lot and came out to find another Ranger had decided to back a few spots down, birds of a different feather but sticking together I suppose. Also, rare moment to relax at work, usually this is not possible.

 

[Rhino]

few pics i took over the weekend while riding with a buddy of mine. the pics are not finalized i still gotta finish editing them.

 

[RedDakooter05]

Spoiler

 

[raytwntrvlr]

Nice Saturday under the shade tree.

Not two years old yet and still looks fresh. Shari says no one cleans under the hood!
Right around 18K miles and no real complaints so far.

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