https://currently.att.yahoo.com/autos/classic-mustang-hit-distracted-nissan-190000814.html

I saw the pictures of this wreck and what caught my eye was the amount of paint that peeled off of the Mustang during the wreck. The trunk lost a lot of paint and the sheet metal appears to be rusted under the paint. The hood also lost a lot of paint. I'm suspecting the car had a layer of bondo sitting on the rusted sheet metal and when the panels got hit the sheet of bondo flew off.

This is why I think you don't see people driving nice old cars/trucks around much other than to go to car shows and back. Daily traffic is full of people doing other things besides just driving.

Many shops do the Overhaulin body work thing where they just coat the whole car with filler and then re-sculpt out a new one over top of the original. The desire to have perfect body gaps and body lines is where this started I think. I went to a shop once where a guy was working on a Jensen Interceptor repaint and the whole car had 1/8 to 3/16 of filler ALL over it, and the body on the car was in very respectable shape minus some small door dings here and there. The previous body shop must have just frosted the whole thing like a cake and sanded the filler until it was flat with no regard to how much was still left on the car. There had to have been over a gallon can of wasted filler on this thing covering up nice undamaged metal.

From personal observation, one thing that doesn't help with any older car are how bright the brake lights are (not). Add sun, hazy lenses, a distracted driver and....brake lights? What brake lights? Most new cars, even on the brightest of days, the brake lights can be seen two counties away.

I'll see old cars around here right after the weekly parking lot show, and so many of them have barely one light that comes on when the brakes are applied. The owner can put 800HP under the hood, but can't do a darn thing to the tail lights to make sure they don't get rear ended?

......

I was hit from behind at a stoplight once. Once it happens, you will always automatically check your rear view mirror when stopped.
I remember Ehrenberg had an article in Mopar Action on replacing the brake lights with brighter/faster LEDs.

This is why I just sold my Superbird. Sink tens of thousands of dollars into it to make it really nice and then get font-ended by some 18 year old driving a Kia Soul texting her boyfriend.

I recall making the statement that phones need to be setup that you cannot use them going faster than 15mph or so, excepting 911.

People whined bout "rights" of the passengers to use their phone.

Now replace that smashed up Mustang with your classic, smashed up.

Still think that way?

Exactly. Nobody needs to be on their phone and driving at the same time.

Yeah I think that is what was done with this Mustang. I'm not a body guy but I've seen enough crunched up cars over the years that I know that paint doesn't fall off in sheets when a car gets hit. Sure looks to me like the trunk was coated in bondo and the "frosting fell off the cake" when the car got smashed.

Pretty much the West Coast body treatment that started decades ago....others across the nation soon followed the "carve-a-car" technique....sadly

I hate taking any of my toys out, there's always one or more idiots trying to crawl up my a$$ to take a pic/vid with their phone, with no regard to how they're driving around me or others.... just to get a pic or make a vid...

Not just distracted but many ^&^%^&%^& drivers on the road too. Here in the Detroit area, and sure many other urban areas around the country, uninsured felons with 10 suspended licenses (3 pages every week in the crime section of or local neighborhood paper document it) drive right through red lights DARING the police to do anything (all I can figure). I see it multiple times every day. On my way home the other evening, I was the only car stopped at a red light RIGHT IN FRONT OF A POLICE STATION and I saw a vehicle coming behind me at speed. They whipped around me, WAY TOO CLOSE (this is common now too), passed me at 50+ in a 35 right through the red light with never any intention of stopping. 3 blocks down made a left and pulled into a driveway. and the group got out and casually walked in the house. No emergency. Sad thing is the police cant do anything. They can only giver a ticket to a law abiding person that wouldnt want their insurance to go up. If your license is suspended and dont have insurance what penalty can the police offer? Yep, nothing.

We just moved to an island that takes a ferry to get to (call it a moat). Detroit and the surounding area are NOT getting any better (thats being polite). I don't care how the media trys to sugarcoat it.

Yep quite a bit of delam going on there. Could the primer be the old red oxide that kind of resembles a rust color? The pics were not too clear on my monitor.

...............

It's not just the cell phones that are causing distractions. There's no longer a tactile feel to the stereo, HVAC and many other controls in many new cars. You have to glance away from the road and touch the glass screen in a certain small area to control features. Just another chance for something to happen when eyes aren't on the road.

When I did drive my old stuff, it was weekends and evening away from major traffic spots. California has some pretty dumb people behind the wheel and nobody cares if they do hit someone. Friend of my sisters last week got murdered trying to chase down a hit and run. When he got next to them to identify the driver, they shot him in the face and drove off. Drive where you feel safest, best advice I can give someone.

It was probably not rusted when the filler was applied, but rusted right afterwards and continued on, over a period of time.

Production style work usually entails applying filler to clean bare metal.....the filler gets quite hot as it cures, then cools off.
Beginning with that first temperature change, immediately the stage is set for condensation to form. The slightest chip or
failure anywhere in the topcoat allows moisture to contact the filler which absorbs it like a sponge. If the vehicle
is ever wet sanded and cut through to filler happens anywhere, water touches the filler....then later on, the metal will be rusted underneath.
(DAMHIK).

These days I really prefer to apply filler to areas that have been stripped, sprayed with 2-3 coats of epoxy, and then the filler applied during the recoat period.
The metal is protected against moisture 1000% better than the other method, and the epoxy Helps "glue" the filler in place.
The bond is much stronger than filler's bond to bare metal alone. Production shops seldom do it this way because the first coat of epoxy
does not contribute anything to the appearance of the vehicle, and is therefore considered a waste.

This is why.....sometimes, "Take it to a Pro" can potentially be the wrong answer from certain perspectives.