Highway accident damages Ramblin' Wreck

While being towed en route to a scheduled appearance at a wedding in Savannah, the Ramblin' Wreck was involved in a highway accident on Friday, June 22 that totaled the Ford Expedition and trailer that were pulling it and left the Wreck itself seriously damaged.

It all happened as driver John Bird, a fourth year Polymer, Textile, and Fiber Engineering major, was driving on Interstate 75 in Monroe County about 60 miles south of Atlanta with his younger brother Matt.

"Something in the trailer failed, and the trailer pulled us off the road going 70 miles an hour. We went perpendicular to the lanes of traffic, and we crashed into a ditch on the side of the road," Bird said.

"There wasn't any fishtailing or anything like that. The trailer just snapped and made a 90 degree turn, and I just said 'Matt, hold on' and we hit the ditch. The whole thing lasted about 2 seconds." Bird said.

He stated that he and his brother got whiplash, and his brother bruised his leg, but that otherwise both are fine. While the damage to the Wreck was considerable, it also could have been a lot worse.

"The left side is smashed up pretty good and the roof is torn up. Those are the main issues right now, but the motor is fine and all the wheels are fine," Bird said.

According to Bird he and some former drivers dating back to 1994 are going to try to repair as much of the vehicles themselves as they can.

"We've taken it to body shops and we've had very ridiculous estimates as far as cost, time and that sort of thing, and we don't want to pay a ton of money and not have it ready [for the first fall football home game]. We all know the Wreck inside and out because we've dealt with it so much. [For that reason,] we're going to do the work ourselves. That's what the goal is right now," Bird said.

"I'm pretty positive we can do it all ourselves. The things we can't do are some things like painting, but we can find replacement parts and then send out the parts to be painted for reassembly," Bird said.

The vehicle, Tech's official Ramblin' Wreck since 1961, is a 1930 Ford Model A Sports Coupe owned by the Ramblin' Reck Club, a student organization of which Bird is a member and this year's elected driver. The Ford Expedition that Bird was driving, along with the trailer used to pull the Wreck, were owned by the Alumni Association. They frequently allow the Ramblin' Reck Club to borrow them to use while the Wreck makes appearances.

"We say it belongs to the student body because basically any student that makes it into the Ramblin' Reck Club has the opportunity to possibly drive it at some point and be a part of it. It's always been strongly supported by student government and the dean of Students, and that's always the first line of assistance for the Ramblin Wreck, and then you deal with the Athletic Association or the Alumni Association," Bird said.

The Ramblin' Reck Club makes great efforts to protect the honor of the vehicle and initially was not going to reveal that the Wreck had been damaged.

Only when it became clear that insurance would not cover the damage, and that donations would be required to repair the vehicle, did the Club decide it needed to go to the public with the information and ask for help.

"Monday morning was when I found out the insurance was not going to help, and it broke to the public Monday night," Bird said.

In going to the public, the club has still set some limits. In fact, Bird had a very heated exchange with a local television news station who insisted that Bird provide them with photographs of the wreckage.

"We said we're not showing any pictures of the damaged Wreck. I am supposed to protect the Wreck physically as well as its mystique. The spirit of the Wreck is not to be used like a piece of meat for the media. They got really angry, called me 10-12 more times, went up the chain of command to their head producer, who basically bitched me out, and I said we're not dealing with your station anymore," Bird said.

The station eventually apologized and ran the story without pictures.

The Wreck's insurance won't cover the damage because it was not being driven at the time, and the Alumni Association's insurance on the Ford Expedition doesn't extend to the Wreck it was towing.

"We had some continuity mistakes with our insurance. It's a very complex issue with the insurance and we're still dealing with it, but for the most part we're not getting any help from the insurance," Bird said.

The cost of the damage is still yet to be determined, but one thing is for sure: it's going to be a very high amount.

"We haven't really assessed all the damage because you have to take the car apart to see all the damage, but it could range anywhere from $10,000 to $30,000, and the Sports Coupe is such a rare body type that they don't make reproductions of it," Bird said.

"We either have to find a Model A Sports Coupe to steal parts from, or we have to find a junker or somebody that has a bunch of spare parts laying around."

Fortunately, thousands of dollars in donations have already been made since the news broke, but Bird said much more is still needed.

Donations should be made to the Georgia Tech Foundation and earmarked specifically for the Ramblin' Wreck.

"It's amazing the support that we've gotten from alumni and old drivers. It really is a testament to what the Wreck symbolizes for Tech," said Anu Parvatiyar, undergraduate student body president.

"The car belongs to the student body first and foremost, and we're going to work really hard to have it fixed in time for the first game," Parvatiyar said.

Bird began earlier this year documenting the history of the vehicle, searching through old publications and contacting former drivers.

He said that there have been instances of damage to the vehicle in the past, but that the extent of the damage this time far surpasses any of them.

In 1968 the vehicle struck a telephone pole as it swerved to avoid a drunk student during a pep rally before a football game.

The Wreck survived a scare in 1990 when, on the way to the Citrus Bowl during football's national championship season, the trailer's ball hitch popped off. The trailer was then being towed by the chains rather than by the hitch, and had the driver not pulled over right away an accident like this could have crashed the Wreck at perhaps the worst possible time.