On an early summer weekend in December of 1989 (December through March is summer in the southern hemisphere), the Meerkat Family got a ride with Sanchez Genet and his family out to a pangolin couple who owned a mango grove. Sanchez Genet's old, 1950s model, rusted out, Wartburg Kombi station wagon was crowded with all who was riding along. http://moyomongoose.deviantart.com/art/Sanchez-Genet-s... The mango grove had produced a good crop, and at a stand the pangolins had set up at their place, they had plenty of mangoes they were selling for cheap. The genets and meerkats stopped by and got enough mangoes to fill a few wood crates they had bought along...and those were really nice mangoes too. On the way back to drop the Meerkat Family off at their home, Sanchez Genet found a swinging South African tune on the radio of that old Wartburg Kombi wagon. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ey_nmfP-ezE&list=PL... (The song is on a playlist. If you open a 2nd tab, the music goes good with the story)
During the trip on the way back, as that song still played, Zhang, then age 3, and Sanchez Genet's grandson, Ojo, then age 4, were riding on the cargo floor behind the rear seat where the boxes of mangoes were. As the car went bumping along the dirt road, Zhang and Ojo complained that the floor felt like it was springing up and down, as everyone else in the car was wondering what they meant by that. It quickly became obvious what was going on. The entire rear cargo floor suddenly began to drop out of the bottom of the car. Zhang and Ojo cried half scared out of their wits. Moze quickly grabbed Zhang over into the rear seat. Jorad and Ojo's dad quickly grabbed Ojo into the rear seat. Sanchez realized what was going on and slammed on the brakes. With the car still in motion, the entire rear cargo floor tore away and mangled up under the rear bumper, along with the crates of mangoes. Zhang and Ojo were pulled out of harm's way without a second to spare. By the time Sanchez got the car stopped, the car had no bottom from behind the rear seat to where the back cargo door is. Everyone scrambled out of the car because it had filled up with road dust due to the cargo floor dropping out, mangling and dragging against the dirt road before it had rolled and crumpled out from under the rear bumper. The adults and older cubs comforted and calmed Zhang and Ojo as the dust cleared away, just before everyone surveyed what happened to the car. The meerkats and genets could clearly see that the floor of Sanchez Genet's Wartburg wagon now ended just behind the rear seat with only a rim of rust around the inside of the body where the rear cargo floor use to attach inside the car...The cargo floor was now a mangled wad of rusty sheet metal laying on the dirt road 30 meters behind the car, along with mashed mangoes and splintered crates scattered everywhere. The gas tank did stay with the car though, still attached and dragged along the road inside the car by the filler tube. Even though a Wartburg has a full separate frame, the rear of the frame ends between the rear wheels and does not extend back past the rear suspension. Wartburgs were made so the back of the body overhangs beyond past the frame...So there wasn't even a frame where the cargo floor fell out.
{Older style, 1950s frame with cross leaf springs, like Sanchez Genet's car had, shown in this link, but it does not show rear of frame. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tusiqptP9o
Anything behind the back seat after the cargo floor fell out, would be resting directly on the road, even if still inside the car...like a 'Flintstone car' from behind the rear seat back. The Meerkats and Genets were not really worried about the mangoes. They were just thankful no one was hurt, and were thankful the gas tank didn't blow up in the car when it was dragging along the road inside the car. The gas tank of a Wartburg is normally located above the rear suspension, but Sanchez Genet's car had an old, used gas tank, not made for that car, that was held in place with steel banding, bolted to the underside of what was the cargo floor. In fact, Sanchez Genet mentioned, "O tanque de gasolina. Damos gracas a Deus ele nao explodiu" (The gas tank. We thank God it didn't explode). Lacara replied, "Aw, Sanchez. Eu nao quero pensar NISSO" (Aw Sanchez. I don't want to think of THAT). Moze got chuckles and laughs from everyone when he commented, "Parece que o boter perdeu a sua bunda na estrada" (Seems the car lost it's ass on the road). But there was still yet to be another scarey close call. Where the problem with the car happened was on curve in the road. And while the meerkats and genets were figuring out how to secure the gas tank up off the road so they could get the car home, a hyena driving an old International Harvester pick up with no front brakes came around the curve approaching from behind. The hyena locked up the rear brakes, which worked off the parking brake cable. He steered away and barely missed Sanchez Genet's car as Sanchez dashed back into the car and slammed the door just in time to avoid being struck by the truck or getting the driver's door torn off. The hyena's truck did a 180 degree spin out on the dirt road as it came to a stop beyond Sanchez's car, facing the opposite way from which it came. After everyone calmed down and the hyena was assured everyone was OK, the hyena offered to tow the car for them with a chain he had in the truck. The gas tank was removed from the car and placed in the bed of the hyena's truck. Then it was agreed to tow the car to Bron and Lacara's place, because they had some board planks stored up in a porch loft that another cargo floor can be made from. Bron and Lacara rode in the cab of the truck with the hyena while everyone else rode in the bed, and Sanchez rode in his car to steer it as it was being towed with the chain. It was late in the day, so the Genet Family slept over that night with the Meerkats. The following morning, Sanchez Genet's car was fixed, starting out with two lengths of large size bamboo set apart for two cargo floor support runners. One end of each of the two bamboo supports were secured through holes that were made in the inner surface of the threshold structure under the rear cargo door, which the threshold was still in solid shape. A hammer and a chisel held in a pair of vice grips were used to knock the holes through. The ends of the bamboo that went through the holes in the body under the rear door were pushed against the inside of the outer surface of the threshold. The other ends of the bamboo were wedged over the rear body mount above where the frame ended at the rear suspension, and under the sheet metal floor where it tore off behind the rear seat. That made sort of a rear frame extension constructed out of bamboo that the car didn't originally have. The gas tank was fastened onto the bamboo supports with hemp rope and bailing wire. It was also noticed there were two pinholes in the tank, from the mishap, that had to be repaired with sheet metal screws and teflon tape. Then the animals were ready to set in the new cargo floor. Some of the board planks, that Bron had stored, were then cut to size and nailed across the bamboo support runners to make the new cargo floor out of wood...being careful not to nail into the gas tank. Then the edges of the new, wooden, cargo floor were sealed with duct tape. Then tar was applied over the duct tape and overlapping the wood floor and the rusty inner body walls of the car...But it was sealed with tar only from the underside of the car so no one riding behind the back seat gets tar wads stuck in their fur. The duct tape on the topside of the floor was to prevent tar from oozing up inside the car. The new cargo floor wasn't level though. It had to be run at a slight incline, higher near the rear seat, and tilting down toward the rear door. After all, it wasn't like the animals could shape bamboo to match the contour of the original car floor. Although it wasn't exactly a typical car floor, it worked, and Sanchez Genet was delighted with it. The muffler had also sustained a small amount of damage when the old floor fell out, and the tailpipe had to be straightened back out. But although the car was a bit noisier than usual after it was repaired, the noise level wasn't really all that bad.
Wartburg Motor Company of the former East Germany. The frame does not go all the way back to the rear of the car. The Wartburg that Sanchez Genet had rusted out on the cargo floor, and eventually it fell out.
Wartburg Motor Company of the former East Germany. The frame does not go all the way back to the rea
James Thurber and his bro -if I recall correctly,my memory is funny - played a trick on their grandmother as she drove the car. They threw a large bucket of nuts & bolts out of the car and then yelled that the transmission fell out ! The grandmother was not fooled. The crash of the bucket did NOT sound like the transmission falling out.
I now wonder how much of this Thurber made up. He filled his autobiography with stories about nut relatives.
James Thurber and his bro -if I recall correctly,my memory is funny - played a trick on their grandm
My mom got fooled into thinking she had a flat tire on an old van we had. A Huey helicopter flew by (the kind like the U.S. used in the Vietnam war a lot). As those kind of helicopters approach, they make that loud >pop-a-pop-a-pop-a-pop-a< noise, and it can be mistaken for a car having a flat tire. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G18WF7RvHvU My mom actually pulled the van off the road and stopped just as the helicopter flew over. It was then she realized the noise was coming from the helicopter.
My mom got fooled into thinking she had a flat tire on an old van we had. A Huey helicopter flew by
