Every few months I take a trip up north to northern California. It’s about 800 miles round trip and I usually do it I. One day. If was about 5 am before sunrise. I was going up through the grapevine which is a steep grade up and over the mountains surrounding the Los anfeles basin. Cars on one side of me, big rigs on the other and a big red object appeared in my lane. I went over it directly and heardma horrible thud. Then a dragging, scraping sound. I hoped it wasn’t as bad as it sounded. It sounded and felt like my front subframe was rubbing against the asphalt. I hit my hazard lights and pulled over asap. I still didn’t know what I had run over but it was stuck under the car. I tried to put two wheel on the curb on the side if the freeway but it was a small curb. No luck. So I limped about a mile to the closest exit and found a curb. Put the passenger side of the car up on a curb and the noise stopped. Great! I got out and looked and it was a gas can! A red gas can! Lucky it was empty. I looked under the car for leaks or anything not looking good and saw the dangling speedo cable. So it took out my speedo cable. I kept going and used my iPhone GPS for the speed on the trip. I like to average about 85 mph on long road trips. After this incident the rest of the trip was trouble free. Aside from the miserable heat I experienced in the way back, and what I think was a mild case of heat stroke it was a rather enjoyable drive. This car was truly designed and engineered for all day high speed cruising.
