I've been around for over 12 years here. Literally half my life. I haven't in all my time here really shared anything personal about my life like some, if not, most of you have. But I figured while this place is still up, I'd share some big moments in my life that happened recently with you all. I won't show my wife's picture for personal reasons, but I'll show pictures and videos of the car.
So obviously the title gives it away, but I'll step back a little further to events leading up to this point. In 1986, my mom traded her 1968 black convertible Camaro for a 1969 gold Camaro SS. My parents drove it all the time and moved from California to Colorado in 1999 with it. They packed all of their stuff on it and in it. In 2000, the engine blew up. It then sat on the side of their house for 20 years. When I turned 10, my mom gave it to me for my birthday. In 2018. I got a job at Arby's as a manager for two years. I worked up over $6000 and I decided in 2020, that I would get it running. I replaced a bunch of parts with better parts, put a high mileage engine and transmission from an 80s caprice, put some racing wheels and brakes on it, and got it running on July 10th 2020, my birthday. I drove it to work the same day. I then daily drove it for two years. I met my now-wife on Facebook in November of 2020. We started dating the following month, got an apartment together in July of 2021, and have been living together ever since.
Flash forward to last month. We were cruising on N Academy Blvd around 8:40 pm, we turned off onto E Woodmen Rd. We merged over into the right lane (there are three lanes on Woodmen Rd) after I looked in my side mirror and over my shoulder to see it was clear. 4 other cars in front of us merged over with us. As we all merged over, a car stalled out in front of us causing us all to stop. When I looked in my mirror before merging, I saw a vehicle in the middle lane a ways away. This vehicle was a brand new 2022 Chevy Silverado 1500. A few seconds after we stopped, that truck had veered over from being distracted and hit us going over the speed limit while we were stopped. The speed limit on that particular part of Woodmen, is 45 mph. I was conscious for the whole thing, but my wife was not. She got hit much harder than I did. We got pushed into another car and totaled their car. The driver of the truck was found 100% at fault. My car is a 1969 Chevy Camaro, it had shoulder and lap belts, but you could not wear them both at the same time. The seats did have headrests, however, I was too tall for them. The rear seats hit us both in the back of our heads and gave us major concussions. After we got hit, I looked over and saw blood all over her and thought the worst. It still haunts me and it keeps me from getting sleep. That car has been in my family over 30 years, and now it is totaled. I've put almost $20000 into it and countless hours. My mom and dad had so much fun in it too. Way too much sentimental value in that car. My wife and I have been getting treatment and things have been getting better for the both of us, but we're still struggling mentally. Firefighters even had to use the jaws of life to get her out of the car.
I got a decent payout for my car, enough to at least buy another Camaro, or build another. It just saddens me that it would take too much to just repair the original car. My parents are deeply saddened by it, and my wife feels even worse since she loved that car just as much as I did. When she came to after the hit, she kept repeating the same thing over and over. I had to tell her we got in an accident multiple times, and she doesn't even remember the whole thing. When we got to the hospital, she started doing better and stopped repeating herself. A week later, we decided we wanted to get married sooner. We got engaged in May of this year and were planning to get married in December like when we started dating. I couldn't imagine my life without her now. When I first looked over, I couldn't breathe. I'm just so happy she's still here with me. We're getting PT and seeing a chiropractor. I'm going to start mental therapy sometime next week just so I can get some sleep since everytime I close my eyes, I see what I first saw after the hit. I can't even look at my car in person anymore, it's just too much. Now we're trying to get into a house and get all of her debt paid off so her credit looks good. And then I'll be able to start with another Camaro. We also have lawyers right now seeking to do a personal injury civil lawsuit against the truck driver, but those kinds of matters can take years to fully finish out.
Here's the album of pictures of my car from before I started working on it, to the process of getting it running, and everything afterwards.Here's a few videos of my car.
Trying to start itGot it running like garbageFirst burnout at only 50% throttleHad to listen to it in a shop while I was working on it
