Wow... my X finally came through, searching for old pics.
She scanned them, and sent them to me for my 46th birthday.

The first day home...well maybe
the next day at least.

camping in the Spit 1982 (second time)

Me (at 24?) and my first new car.
It was my 21st automobile, but the
first 'NEW CAR' I ever bought. 
(Ha! .... the urban wizard maniac hustler.  Dig the hair. It makes me wonder ... but still 20+ years later I can/could still grow it that long! 

That's my X's yellow '77 in the background. Well... she wasn't even my wife yet at that time.

Now....
    here's what the car did.

...amazingly... I had just installed the
hardtop that morning before.

   Just past dusk, in the middle of a left curve, I was struck in the left rear quarter panel by a truck over the line on my side of the road. This sent me sliding to the right, and towards the outside edge of the bend.

This sides wheels were OK, driver side wheels were flat.  Dirt packed into both headlight rims but the glass of the lights, and the cast light surrounds were unbroken.

The passenger's head rest was completely stuffed down into the top of the seat.  Neither of the hardtop's rear side windows were broken. The gas tank filler cap was only pulled up about 2 inches but the tank was un-damaged. Front bonnet still operable.

   After being struck, the spin had the right rear wheel, drop off the edge of the pavement, first.  This acted like a slot car rail, steering the rear of the car. As the front end caught up to steering into the direction the car was spinning/sliding, the front right wheel was now off the pavement.  Since we were now steering into the slide, the car naturally...side first, slid into the culvert and slammed side first, down into the drainage ditch, up against the hill. Now the problem was the car's momentum not only, forced the car to roll onto it's side, into the culvert, but it carried it onto it's roof and up the hill. Since we on the outside of the curve, we were also 'inside the bowl'  of the hill. The car's arch was interrupted by what was now the wall on the inside of the bowl. We rolled up the hill back onto  the wheels, traveled perhaps three car lengths like a bobsled up on the wall, and finished off (of course), by nose-diving down off the wall back into the culvert.

  I still remember thinking, the car had stopped moving. THEN...feeling myself being slammed hard, straight down into my seat.

"....the car stood on it's nose for about 2 seconds, slowly pirouetted and fell on it's wheels, facing us... ".  So says the witnesses in the car right behind us.

  update....

.... seems that just over this last year, I've also come find,.... an old friend who bought what remained of this car, (after the insurance payoff and buy back, and what got stuck in my X's Spit, ) may still have it as part of an unfinished project, still sitting in his garage. I may be able to re-acquire it!