I'm teaching my teenage daughter how to drive a Stick Shift using my '62 C10. On Thanksgiving, we needed some groceries for dinner and I let her drive my old truck to Walmart.
Well, she needed to make a right hand turn, and go up a small incline to get into the parking lot. No problem for us old die hards, we're used to this. But, she isn't. Well, Parking lot is crowded, she swings a little wide left on her turn into oncoming traffic. I tell her to cut it back into her lane. Well, she overcorrects and while trying to steer, downshift, and make the rest of the needed adjustments, she forgot to turn back to straighten out.
I tried to stop the truck by killing the ignition, but she pushed in the clutch just as I turned the key, negating my action. She also failed to either brake or turn back into her lane and found the big wall on the right.
Could have been worse. No injuries, no other vehicles or pedestrians involved, just minor cosmetic damage to the truck. Right Fender, Grill surround, and front bumper.
She felt pretty bad and thought I would be furious. She knows how much this truck means to me. I just told her that I would drive the rest of the way.
We discussed what happened and why later. I let her know she would have to take responsibility for repairing the truck and she was ok with that.
So the next day, we started hitting the local junkyards and finally found a decent fender and grill surround from a private party on craigslist who was parting out another '62. Picked up a few other parts we needed for the truck while we were there and got away for $90.00.
She has learned a good life lesson and understands why I am not doing the final bodywork until she is done driving my truck and has her own vehicle.
Last edited by 62Stick; 11/27/2012 12:49 AM.
