seeing red after damage to my 76 cutlass yesterday. Took a ride up the interstate yesterday and somehow my passenger side grill broke free from its mounts ,flew up and bounced off the top of my car doing damage to the chrome and front edge of the roof ,as well as 2 tiny chips in the windshield.going to call hagerty today to see if they can help me out on this .

 

Bummer!

Were you able to recover the grill from the side of the road, or did it shatter when it hit the ground?

I'm sure Hagerty will make it right.

 

What are those grills made of, cast iron???

 

 

That will fix up OK. Be glad those grills are plastic. The trim is reparable as well. Thats a very odd problem. Looks like prior damage from the crease in the center area. Id pull the other grill and look at the stand offs.See if you can get a set of grills from ins co. It would be in their best interest to replace both to avoid another incident.

 

 

did get a better look at things .looks like both grilles had one broken lower tab found a decent grill on feeBay ,so thats fixed ,now to the body shop

 

These grills all crack around the standoffs and the side tabs. After I hit the wild turkey, I needed a grill , upper windshield trim and roof line repaired as well.
A side note ; I put a few coats of clear contact cement around the standoffs and tabs, just for more reinforcement .
Here is my 76 with similar damage.

SV100196.JPG SV100194.JPG

 

all i could think of when that grill hit my windshield was how that turkey must have really walloped your car .i remember reading your thread . i actually used a dab of 3m black trim adhesive on my contact points for reassurance .wish i would have checked it before hand.

 

Oh its was one heck of a whack haha, my wife and I were covered in glass bits from the windshield shattering from the inside as well. I heard her scream and then whack, I didn't see it coming .
I paid a $500.00 deductible through my insurance for the repair, maybe your insurance will waive the deductible through "climate change"- high speed wind damages.
The 3M trim tape is a good idea, I think I will add a strip around each standoff as well. It doesn't take much to crack or break off the Old plastic.
I hope the repair looks great when done!

 

Interestingly, my 71 98 has a few tabs in the grill that are damaged. As does my 86 f250. I think after 30+ years the plastic becomes brittle and fails. That's a good idea using 3M tape.

Post some after pics for us when the body shop fixes her up.

 

found a good collision repair shop not far from home to do the repairs.its going to take some time to track down parts so they cant get started as soon as i had hoped. they are going to pull the dent and paint the entire roof and quarter panels .hagerty has been great through the whole process so far.

 

 

Good to hear. I've never heard anything bad about Hagerty and they've treated me right. Nobody wants to make a claim on their classic.