Oops

Very sad, IMO. Moron taking out a 13 million dollar car in rain and pushing it..

I remember once at Lime Rock, it was just sprinkling rain, and the vintage cars were spinning out all over the place, and thank goodness, they cut the race short.

It's not just another asset, it's a piece of history.

You think so? What if that's original sheet metal that now has to be replaced? Part of the car is gone forever.

It's an interesting discussion to have. By and large, I think people's personal possessions are theirs and they can do what they want with them. If someone wants to melt his car down, he can.

BUT, as a society, we don't feel that's absolute. That's why, with buildings, we give properties "landmark status," so people can't just tear down historically significant structures that they own. In England the Grade I, Grade II, and Grade II* listing system for historically significant buildings and homes is even more extensive.

Here, certainly, there is no law against driving any car pedal to the metal. But, morally, I think any owner of important antiques, art, etc., has to think of himself as a caretaker. No, we aren't going to fine a guy for burning his Picasso like we are for tearing down his Grade I listed house. But as a moral matter I think people should be responsible for taking care of their important possessions and violate a moral duty to the rest of the world not to be negligent in their ownership. In my opinion, that means not pushing a hugely significant car in the rain.

Unfortunately, this isn't a minor infraction like a fender bender. It will be repaired but it will never be the same. The chassis is very fragile and once bent is VERY hard to repair and will require new tubes. If the hit traveled across the axle, and it looks like it did, the gearbox is gone and that's the original gear box that raced in the day. It may have cracked the bell housing and even the block.

That car is a piece of history that belongs to all of us.

Kai, I know you track your car, and I appreciate your perspective. However, just as there is a middle-road between hanging art in a museum for everybody to see and keeping it in a vault for nobody to see, so too is there a middle-road in between keeping a car stored in a garage and driving it pedal to the metal.

In my opinion, the suggestion by many here, "Great - this is how the car is meant to be driven, and the owner is using the car in the way it was designed to perform" fails.

Let me ask this. Paintings were made to be looked at and enjoyed. If someone acquired the Mona Lisa and would most enjoy it hanging it his office, where he spends almost all his time and gets all the sun in his house, would you be ok with him hanging the painting right in the sun? It's going to fade and ruin it. But he's going to be enjoying it while it's hanging there.

The same issue applies here. If the original gear box case is cracked, it can't be restored. It can be re-manufactured but the one that ran at Le Mans and finished third at Daytona, and has the original stamps to prove it, is gone for ever.

The problem with the argument that vintage cars should be driven balls-to-the-wall is that it is self-defeating.

We all agree that these cars were meant to be driven. The problem with concluding that as a result they should be driven 9/10 or 10/10 in competition is that this significantly increases the chances of severe damage or complete destruction. This means that nobody in the future will be able to enjoy the car as it was intended. If your use of an item destroys other people's future use of that item, then your use defeats the very lofty purposes that you are claiming to pursue, because it renders the item unable to be used as it was intended.

The point is that enjoying and driving a car does not mean driving it 10/10th any more than enjoying a painting means hanging it in the sun. There are other ways to enjoy a historically significant item responsibly without significantly endangering the item's use for others in the future. As a result, I believe some responsibility comes with ownership to keep these things around for other people to enjoy. You can still enjoy the car and drive it hard while achieving that.