86 coupe GT crash

[Dave Lawson <dlawson@ball.com>]

This past thursday my 86 GT was involved in a pretty good crash. My
wife was driving in Boulder, in the left turn lane, sitting in the
intersection
waiting for traffic to clear. Across from her was a big chebby suburban,
awaiting to also turn left. She waited and waited, then light changed to
red and she attempted to complete her turn. As she started moving a
phone comany van comes through the intersection doing 35mph,
or possibly more. The left corner of the van appears to have made 
contact with the inside edge of the passenger headlight. The van 
popped the GT pretty good, and spun my wife 180 degrees and then 
she had steer the car away from hitting the car which was in the turn 
lane immediately behind her. Her chest hit the steering wheel pretty 
hard and she got a brush burn on her collar bone from the seat belt. 
She was pretty dazed. I got the call, turned off the grill, loaded the
kids
and took her to the emergency room for come chest x rays. There was 
no internal chest injury, just the muscle tissue is very sore from the
impact. She is still sore, but getting better.

As for the accident report, she says the light was red, the van driver
says
it was yellow when he entered the intersection and no tickets were
issued.

As for the coupe, it performed its job and protected my wife and she
walked
away. The front of the car is pretty trashed. The impact broke off the
a/c
compressor, sheered off the oil filter and the a/c compressor ended up
sliding 
down the street. The valence, grill, passenger headlight are destroyed.
The 
drivers headlight is cracked. The impact created a V in the valence &
front 
strutcure about 8 in deep. The hood release latch got moved about 6
inches 
towards the drivers side. The hood remained latched. It looks like the
motor 
got shoved into the radiator, but I'm not totally sure. The windshield
didn't 
break.Both fenders got crunched. The passenger door is fine, the drivers

opens but has some interference with the drivers fender. The safety
design 
of the car did its job, if you look from the A pillar on back the car is
perfect, 
if you look at the car from the A pillar forward, its trashed. My
guesstimate
is that the car is totalled. I am planning on trying to keep the car and
part it.
There are many parts which can find a new home on the ur-q and there are
many coupe specific parts which people should be interested in, i.e.
abt/bilstein
/h&r suspension w/5k miles? 14 in msw 5 spoke wheels w/ re71s? And other

goodies on the shelf which i've been storing, yes Bruce B., a set has
your
name on it. I also need to pull the Nakamichi/Proton stereo system, no
salvage
yard deserves a stereo system like that.

As for a replacement, my wife and I have been discussing a 5000/200
TQ wagon/avante. No real hurry right now, as the 83 ur-q will take the
daily 
driver duty, but any leads on 1986 - 1990 quattro wagons appreciated. 

I've been on the q-list  since 93, and lightly follow the 5000/200 turbo
talk. I've dug 
out my original 1987 5000 and 1989 200 brouchures to familiarize myself
with 
the cars. But I do need a primer of sorts. If anyone has a 5000/200
hunting
FAQ, I would appreciate a copy. 

A convert to the green stuff?
-
Dave Lawson
86 GT, graphite metallic, bent
83 ur-q, green, daily driver w/89 200 MC engine installed