7 replies to this topic

[Phil Hackett]

Dad seems pretty chill after sonny-boy scratches his Porsche 911 GT3 RS while touring the side of a LA canyon road. Gravity is in effect.

 

[Dave Crevie]

Topanga Canyon road? Looks like the main tub is still straight. The door still closed. So car is fixable, if you want to go to the trouble and expense. If the car is rare enough, you need to make the decision to save it or just write it off.

Surprised the kid wasn't killed. Some interesting vegetation visible in the footage.

[Phil Hackett]

This was on Angeles Crest Highway at mile marker 42 (you can use Google maps to see about where this was). It's really in the "sticks".

 

Topanga Canyon is too heavily trafficked and too many businesses/people to be able to go fast. Even then there are some that try. Besides, that Topanga is at the bottom of a canyon.

 

Mulholland Highway (not Drive) is/was a favorite of mine but it has too many residences and too much traffic control to be fun anymore. One has to be almost in Ventura County part of MH before it gets wild again.

 

As for saving the car: there was a joking post that some (I forgot who) YouTuber known for buying wrecks would buy it for a video project. We may see it in the future or it may get shredded.

[Dave Crevie]

Last I was out there (79) Topanga was where the crotch rocket bikers were getting killed. Almost every day. CHP closed the bad section of the road to bikes for a while. The Porsche doesn't look as bad as the Cobra 427 S/C that my friend rebuilt. He bought it for scrap value. I wish I had a picture of it when he picked it up. It looked like a ball of aluminum foil. 

 

Greg's Cobra after he resurrected it. He was so proud of his metalwork, he drove it in bare aluminum for a while.

 

[Bill Seitz]

I've seen some pretty spectacular video of a car going off the Pike's Peak highway near the summit during the race/time trial there a few years ago. There wasn't much left of the car, but thanks to a full roll cage, the driver survived.

 

A key element is likely whether the car ran more or less straight down the hillside right side up or flipped. The Porsche doesn't appear to have flipped, at least not at any speed.

 

Beautiful Cobra!

[Phil Hackett]

There are better roads to carve than Topanga Canyon. Any fool trying to imitate a rally on TC is asking for it. There's too much traffic. There aren't many fall-offs since the road is at the bottom of the canyon (yes, there's a few but your not going down hundreds of feet) so that's not comparable to Angeles Crest Highway or Glendora Mountain Road.

 

If one wishes to stay closer to the Pacific Ocean there are numerous canyons running up from Highway 1 up to Mulholland Highway and into the West San Fernando Valley. All these have **much** less traffic than Topanga Canyon.

[Dave Crevie]

I got a tour of Topanga Canyon when I was last out there in 1979. Much changed from when I was there in the 1960's. But still a lot of bikes blowing past us. Always liked the hills on either sides in some of it.

The Cobra could only have been saved with the help of Shelby and his shop guys. He loaned the original body bucks to Greg. Greg was a master of the English wheel. Taught me a lot about using one. Greg was the only one who thought it could be saved.

By the way, Greg came out of his relationship with Shelby owning Caroll's GT-40 number 104.

The Coast Highway to Ventura is a fantastic tour!

[Phil Hackett]

Topanga has become so busy due to the growth of the San Fernando Valley, Calabasas, Newberry Park, Thousand Oaks, Agoura and so on. The only ways to get out of the those areas (west or south) is to take the 101 east to the 405 south... not the bestest route... go to Coldwater Canyon and go through the Hollywood Hills...tons of traffic there or take the 101 all the way to the 110 (Harbor freeway) and end up in downtown LA....Sure, there's Malibu Canyon road, Kanan Dume road  and others but they take you to Point Dume and that's far north Topanga.... and the traffic on PCH (Highway 1) isn't exactly light through Malibu.... So, the little 2-lane highway that winds through Topanga Canyon is a main route in to and out of "the valley".