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1957, friends father had bought a 1957, 283, chevy coupe, we called them hardtop convertibles. It was fast and were cruising around Stockton, we lived in the country but drove down to Stockton and Sac to look for girls. We were bombing away from every stop light, laying rubber and thinking we were hot stuff. Stopped at a light, guy comes along side of us driving a '32 Ford, chopped top and something big for an engine, don't know what.

He was looking over at my friend reving the engine and wanting to race, my friend didn't really want to race his dad's car, but he goosed the throttle a few times, had an automatic transmission, he accidentally let up on the brake just briefly and the Chevy moved about an two inches.

The guy in the '32 Ford was watching us and not the light, he thought the light had changed and he stood on it, flew into the intersection, got hit from two directions at the same time, was thrown out of the drivers side window but his feet hooked onto the inside of the window and he didn't hit the ground. When the dust settled he was unhurt, Ford was ruined, which was a shame as it was a fine car.

Cop rolled up and gave my friend a ticket for "racing" even though we weren't, hauled the other guy off to jail. I bet his insurance wasn't too happy either. No one was hurt in the wreck, which was blind luck.

That Chevy with the little 283 was a real screamer in its day and my first "real" car was a '57 Chevy when I got out of the army a few years later.