[CLICK ON ANY PHOTO TO SEE IT FULL SCREEN IN HI RES]
There’s a famous Latin expression, used primarily by the legal community, that goes Res Ipsa Loquitur, which pretty much means “The Thing Speaks for Itself” somewhat filling the need for the classic definition of “hard evidence.”
I was attending the Porsche 356 Club’s annual Porsche Week Swap Meet in mid-February, at the Boys Republic School in Chino Hills, California; (www.boysrepublic.org, https://performance.ford.com/enthusiasts/quick-look/2022/02/steve-mcqueen-car-show.html), and saw a substantive crowd gathered around this hapless 356 Roadster (something similar, but a bit different in several ways, to the more commonly referenced 356 Speedster and Cabriolet).
It had been raining here in SoCal for weeks on end, and anything resembling a dirt field was deep soaked and muddy, it not outright swampy.
The arrogant, potentially brainless putz driving this lovely little car was meandering the narrow, paved, single file entry road into the event, and decided he was simply too important to wait in line with the rest of us normal humans, so he pulled to the left and hit the swamp in an attempt to cut the line (remember, mom and dad always taught you “no Cutsies”, but this cocky lemming must have missed that lesson). In his uber lame attempt to pass a row of cars on the left by surfing through the mud, he got stuck in deep; axles deep in fact, which on a 356s means the floorpans, some suspension, and parts of the powertrain are bottoming out. I can’t imagine this does a lot of good for your brakepads either.
The result is these “what was he thinking?” or “WTF?” photos. This no doubt became the most Instagram’d photo of the day anywhere in the world. The car sat beached in the mud for several hours. I don’t know the final outcome, but it’s likely to have spent the rest of the day there until a tow truck or flatbed, hopefully operated by some skilled and very careful tow techs, could nudge, wench, and coerce the poor thing back on land. If nothing else, the car deserves a new owner with less ego and a functioning brain.
The moral is: be smart, be patient, use your eyes (and perhaps your head), wait your turn and don’t take cuts.
