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Washington, D.C., circa 1920. "Garage elevator wreck." Coming back up will be trickier, if less spectacular. National Photo Co. glass negative. View full size.
No one else has mentioned it, and it isn't in the caption. What I want to know is what happened to whomever drove that car into that hole?
It seems to me that the person would have been seriously injured if not killed.
The strapped in box by the rear axle is the battery. The gas tank under the front seat held 10 gallons
That's what I heard when I had one of my several Jaguar fires towed to the shop. Doubtless, so had also the exiled Prince of Austria, whose leopard-skin upholstered Daimler was on the lift next to my car. One morning on about the 20th weekly visit to ask, "When?" I entered the shop to see the poor Prince's Daimler in just this position, in considerably worse repair than when it had arrived. The shop crew was gathered around, pondering how it could have fallen from the lift, which was still up. Gradually, it dawned on me--"Earthquake this morning"--the first I'd ever experienced and unheard of around there. Fortunately, it didn't fall on my car, which I took possession of, half-finished, 8 weeks later.
The car is clearly in the elevator pit as evidenced by the bumper springs in the foreground. Either the car was driven from an upper floor into the shaft with the elevator car above it, or the floor of the elevator car gave way with the car in it and the floor is hanging like a open barn door still attached to the elevator car. My money is on driving into an open shaft.
...do you see why bald tires are dangerous?
What's that strapped down box by the driveshaft?
How many gallons did the gas tank hold on those things?
I've heard stories (Shorpy and elsewhere) of driving Model-T's backwards up a hill to keep them from starving for gas.
---there's a Model T Ford in every 1920s Shorpy
As a lubrication service we turn your car upside down for an oil change. That gets all the old oil out, not just most of it.
As an added premium we also empty the battery acid into the rear seating area. That gets those nasty kid stains out of the upholstery.
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