Re: Winter Weirdness

[dmiller@iea.com (Doug Miller)]

>> Date:          Thu, 16 Jan 1997 10:08:33 -0600
>> From:          Glenn Lawton <lawtonglenn@gsmai.com>
>> Reply-to:      lawtonglenn@gsmai.com
>> To:            Jim & Bev <jazman@accunet.net>
>> Cc:            quattro@coimbra.ans.net
>> Subject:       Re: Winter Weirdness
>
>> Jim & Bev wrote:
>> > So...No other Q listers will 'fess up to beaching his Quattro on a snow
>> > drift.  I know someone else must have done this.  Where are the
>> > bravehearts?
>>
>> I did it a few years back. If you get enough snow under the belly to
>> support
>> the car's weight, the tires don't touch the ground, and you are left
>> trying to find a couple of buddies to push you off.
>>
>> Glenn
>>
>     My head down and mumbling: me too.  As mentioned before it was
>at the Steamboat event last year. Did it in soiling trouser fashion.
>Took diffs locked and a 4wd Ford ranger to get me out. Not a scratch
>on the car! Opened the hood and found snow  in place of  what used to
>be an engine. Thanks to soft snow banks. Ok Darin, that's enough laughing!
>
>   Chad Clark


Ya know, my memory banks coughed up a "beached quattro" event in my own
past. I was a Product Planner at GM HQ in Detroit and a closet German car
guy. One snowy day in 1986 I signed out an 80 Quattro and went plowing
around the streets. Finding an unplowed parking lot with 10 inches of snow
behind a nearby GM plant, I went happily crisscrossing the lot with an
audience of scowling UAW guys hanging around the back door smoking and
trying not to be impressed.  Somewhere in there, I lost control and the
last thing I saw before snow came over the hood was a loading ramp.

The mighty quattro came to rest with its front wheels hanging over the edge
of the loading ramp (I'd come at the loading ramp from a 90 degree angle
and it was only a foot or so below the parking lot level at this point, on
its way down to a depth of 6 feet or so where the back of the truck was
designed to mate with the loading dock at the bottom).  I got out and took
stock of my predicament while the UAW guys hooted and hollered at the
"suit" in the "furren car" from 50 feet away.

My brother had (still has) an 854kQ at the time and I knew the thing would
really go if you could weight the tires.  I got back in as my audience
grew, located the diff locks and did the last thing they expected - surfed
off the snowy edge down into the sloped loading ramp, disappearing from
their sight as I turned it hard right (nearly hitting the wall due to
locked front diff).  The slope of the ramp made it easy going and I was
counting on this downhill pass breaking a trail I might get back up. The
snow at the bottom was not as deep either, and gave me a really good start.
I came shooting back up the ramp in reverse and reappeared to the cheers
and whoops of a now appreciative bunch, and laughed all the way out of the
parking lot.  Not a scratch, though the wheels were packed with snow and
out of balance.

Doug Miller