Tornado Damage?

Found in Critical Condition next to a Body Shop

How did this late model Firebird get damaged?  Since it was in Bartlesville, OK, I couldn't rule out a tornado hit.  There were no crumpled panels, yet the driver-side door wouldn't close.  The ragtop was there and that would have been the first of the Firebird's feathers torn off in a whirlwind.  The hood had been removed and was leaning against the junker beside it.  What happened?  

 The console cover/arm rest cushion in the center was missing.  They were never attached very well to the lid and it was easy to tear them loose.  There was a release on the driver's side and a hinge next to the passenger, so it didn't open front-to-back, but side-to-side.  It looks like someone expected the former and lifted hard.  Ooops!  The Tee-handle shifter meant this car had an automatic transmission.  Too bad.

The alternator is not in the right place for an LS1 V-8, so I figure it had a V-6 which still made them pretty peppy.

One very bad feature of F-body cars was that the engine sat right between the front wheels.  The axle-line went right through the crankcase.  This put so much weight over the front wheels that it affected the balance of the car and deprived it of rear traction, exactly the wrong thing for a muscle car.  Without some really strange suspension calibration, it would have understeered like it was slipping in an Oklahoma ice storm, but the engineers softened the rear suspension so much and stiffened up the front anti-sway bar and springs to neutralize the handling.  In fact it was pretty easy to get it to oversteer, especially by applying some of the monstrous torque from the V-8.  Oddly, it worked well.  I have a vague memory of Phil Hill once saying of the Camaro SS, a V-8 cousin of this Firebird, "I could lap one of these all day."

  

It was sad to see such a good-looking Firebird with broken bones.  The popped door meant a bent frame.  The poor car was langushing inside a chainlink fence, but not yet consigned to the crusher.  When that happens, your dreams get crushed, too.  Maybe that's why so many owners hang on to them even when they're terminally ill.

When this version came out on the market in 1993, there were few cars that could keep up with them, and none at the price.  The V-8 Trans Ams and Camaros did 0-60 in about 5.8 s, quarter mile in about 13.5 s at over 100 mph, and a top speed of 160 mph, all for about 25,000 dollars.  Cheap speed, indeed!

My grandson, Liam, came with me on this walk.  See the stroller over yonder?  I think he was sad about the car, too.