The Resurrection of Heidi

[mr2peak]

I believe the engine is currently listed for sale on r3v.

Shit happens, this was sad

[ReSoP]

Wow, this truly saddens me. I can't even begin to think of how this felt. I hope you can do something to get justice for the car.

[E30NJ]

NO NO NO!!! Haven't seen this thread in a while, so sorry for your loss. :(

[CurrusDei]

Ugh, just saw this. People who drive without insurance are pieces of shit. Sue. Mercilessly.


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[Bglad]

This is the exact reason I carry full coverage. I wish they would make it a law in all states to have proof, and directly associate it with a license plate.

[15Michaeljoseph]

Quote this thread when you go to court. stand up and read the fucking poetry you've writter and sue this pos for everything they have. no insurance...no license!!! Fuck these stupid assholes who are so cocky as to live their lives this way. makes me afraid to drive. I HATE this person with you.


--Mike

[tinkwithanr]

1) Denial

It wasn’t real. It couldn’t be. Truly great things of such magnitude can’t be shot down in such short order. The next few mornings would start with a blissful ignorance. A bright day full of optimism, only to be crushed and overrun as the daunting weight of reality set it. As days past, reality works its way into your subconscious. It doesn’t wait for you to wipe the sleep from your eyes. There is no glimmer of hope. Only the painful truth that you have to accept. You slowly get used to the pain, numbing yourself just enough to get through each day. Only to be greeted again the next morning.

I stayed away from the shop for a while, I didn’t want to face the truth, I couldn’t. Eventually I was able to call my insurance company to start my own claim.




2) Anger

The numbness turns the pain into anger. It’s never fair. A truly great car is lost, and what do they get? A simple ticket? A fine? No, handcuff them. Take them away. Their careless mistake cost others so much more, and they go on their way with a slap on the wrist. Your stomach turns in knots and your blood boils just thinking about it. No physical pain from the accident can even match the emotion and mental turmoil.

Trying to distract myself didn’t work. Anything could take my mind back to the moment it happened, starting the rage all over again. All the while waiting to hear from insurance. Surely it couldn’t be valued as a normal e28. But with so few examples to go off of, what other choice would they have?





3) Bargaining

The mind can only handle anger for so long. When it tires, a million other scenarios fly through it, a flock migrating towards anywhere else. Why wasn’t I one lane over? Why didn’t they just stop? Maybe the damage isn’t as bad as it seems. Maybe the chassis could be straightened. Anything to get away from the relentless reality of losing her.

I tried to avoid getting body shop estimates at first. My mind figured without a repair estimate how could it be declared totaled? But life support wasn’t the way she was meant to live, and her time came.





4) Depression

She’s too far gone. You know it. You can feel it. After being towed to the shop, where you were driving together before it all happened, you visit a few days later. And you just know. The rear door can’t shut. The roof is buckled. The wheel well tears away at the tire with every rotation. Before there was a long hill to climb. Now it’s a bottomless pit, unfathomably deep and impossible to overcome.

I wish I could tell you Heidi fought the good fight. I wish I could tell you that. But this is no fairytale world. The body shop never said the word. But I knew it. There were enough numbers to the right of the dollar sign to speak volumes with their silence.





5) Acceptance

People say time heals all wounds. But people lie. Some wounds never truly heal. Some wounds leave scars, reminders of past struggles. And reminders that those struggles are exactly that, in the past. Scars show strength, show determination. Remnants of experiences and turmoil that shape you into the person that you are today, and the person you will be tomorrow.

This is where you want me to say I will fix her. After all, I bought her back from the insurance company. Roofs can be pulled. Frames can be straightened. This is where you want me to say no road is too long, too difficult. And god do I wish I could. Ever since the accident my mind wanted one thing and one thing only, to bring her back. But the more I tried to convince myself, the harder it became. Maybe if it was just the accident, without the rust. Maybe if she hadn’t sacrificed herself for me, buckling in the center to save me from serious injury. But card after card stacked against her, and I couldn’t ignore reality anymore.


She was totaled.


I like to think I made her last bit of time on these roads better, that the time we had together was truly special. I'll never forget her, the things I learned or the time we spent together. Other cars will come and go, but I'll always have a piece of her with me.

R.I.P. Heidi

[FredK]

Oof. Glad to see you posting but not for this reason. Thanks for the update.

[AwakenNoMore]

I'm sorry for your loss. Where is her heart going? Will it live on in another project?

[DER E30]

Damn, that almost brought a tear to my eye. I remember loosing my mom's e46. I loved that car.

RIP Heidi

[ThatOneEuroE30]

Damn. Maybe keep all the m5 goodies and swap them into a cleaner shell

[rturbo 930]

S38 swapped 2002. Do it.

[lemansguy]

wow what a story. her heart deserves to live on in something epic.

[steve68]

M5 clone,

[tinkwithanr]

This will be the last update for a while, maybe forever. As the pain of loosing her fades a few things have happened. First and foremost, let this be a lesson to everyone that if you care about your car at all, make sure to have it fully insured from day 1. I look back and think how easy it would have been to not worry about it, after all I was just doing short test drives. If I'd waiting even a few days this story would have a much sadder ending. But thankfully I made the right choice, and my insurance company came through. They ended up at a value that, if I'm honest, was very generous given the overall condition of her. Which meant I had more than enough money to buy her back and then some.

For the time being I'm holding onto her bigger parts. Namely the drivetrain and a few other misc pieces. I may end up selling them, I may end up using them in another project down the road. But for right now I have enough on my plate, when the time comes I'll know it and I'll go from there. Some of her smaller pieces have gone out to help other e28 M5's live on, which I think she would have liked. Her wheels are now in San Francisco, her front air dam is in Tennessee and her transmission brace made it all the way to Sweden. So in a way she is living on through them, and that's pretty cool if you ask me.

Finally, some of you may be wondering what I did with the rest of the insurance check. You can find that answer here:

http://www.r3vlimited.com/board/showthread.php?p=4439124#post4439124