Lost At Sea

After spending the last week on Oahu, I’ve been thinking about the hazardous nature of shipping cars to these islands.   Mostly I’ve thought about this because I had to mortgage my first born grandchild to rent a Jeep Pickup for a week from a Turo, a service that does for vehicles what Airbnb does for homes.  At the rate I paid, the guy who owns this truck will have it paid for in a year. 

Note.  I was looking forward to trying the new Jeep Gladiator Pickup, it looked interesting.  Now that I’ve driven it….I don’t want one.  Pickups should have at least a six foot bed, preferably 8 feet.  This truck was fun, but basically, it was an overpowered car with an open trunk—essentially neither a good truck nor a good car.  If the Jeep people ever wise up and give it a real bed, a standard transmission, and a smaller engine, I might be interested.  With its present configuration, it is not half the truck my old 1963 Ford was.

 

From what locals have told me, shipping a car from the mainland here costs about two grand and takes about a month for a vehicle to leave the mainland and make the more than 2000 mile trip to Hawaii.  And with my luck, the shipping container containing my vehicle would be the one blown overboard. 

 

This, of course, got my mind wandering to all the great cars that have managed to be lost at sea.

 

Any discussion about great cars lost at sea has to start with the Felicity Ace, a car carrying vessel that was basically a floating parking garage filled with a little over 4000 high-end cars, including Bentleys, Lamborghinis, Porsches, and Audis.  On its journey across the Atlantic, just south of the Azores, the ship caught fire.  The various auto makers were quick to point out that the fire might have been caused by a cook’s carelessly leaving a rag on a hot grill.  Indeed, the fire might have been started by any number of ways, and it would be recklessly premature of you to think the fire was most likely caused by one of the lithium battery  powered vehicles in the ship’s hold.

 

Whether or not those highly problematic batteries caused the fire, the deadly fumes they put out was certainly the reason firefighters could not extinguish the ship as it furiously burned for weeks. The ship finally sank in March 2022, so that those hundreds of millions of dollars worth of luxury cars are two miles underwater—sufficiently deep that by the time we develop the technology to salvage ships at that depth, all that will be left will be the tires.

 

If your Porsche went down with the Felicity Ace, you will be sad to learn that the company who charged you a couple of grand to ship your car will only refund a measly $750 of your shipping fee.  Evidently, you get a partial repayment because your car did make it partway across the Atlantic.  Perhaps you can take solace in the fact that your loss is far from novel:  similar losses have occurred more frequently than you might expect—eight such ships have either sunk or lost their cargo in the last twenty-one years.

 

Of all the cars lost at sea, the most famous has to be the 1912 Renault Type CB Coupe de Ville that went down with the Titanic.  You know, the car that Rose and Jack made famous in James Cameron’s 1997 movie.  (Yes, it has been that long and, in reality, the car that was featured in the movie was the next year’s model, but it was close enough).

 

William Carter, a native of Pennsylvania, fell in love with the luxury car when he took his family to Paris.  Sitting there in the showroom, the black car with large white wheels, gold spokes, and red velvet interior was beautiful.  Carter could well imagine sitting in the glass enclosed rear while his chauffeur, exposed to the elements, steered the powerful car with its 25 horsepower motor up to the dizzying speed of 35 miles per hour.  How could any American resist?  Carter bought the car for the incredible price of $5000  (roughly $140,000 today).

 

Cameron took a few liberties with the facts.  Besides using a later model car, Cameron ignored the fact that the actual Renault was packed in a giant wooden crate, then was stowed into a packed forward cargo hold of the doomed ship.  I guess torrid lovemaking in a packing crate doesn’t sound as romantic.  (You can take solace, perhaps, to learn that at last report, Rose’s handprint left on the window of the car in a moment of passion is still visible.)

 

To date, the Renault has not been located among the wreckage of the Titanic.  Since the bow is largely intact, and the car was supposedly securely crated, it is remotely possible that someday the car might actually be recovered.  Cars in worse condition have been restored, so we might someday see that car again…or at least parts of it.

 

Of all the cars lost at sea, my favorite was lost during my lifetime and is more valuable than any of the vehicles listed above.  On July 25, 1956, the Andrea Doria was sailing to the United. States when it collided with the Stockholm  While most of the passengers of the ship made it safely off the sinking ship, 51 passengers went down with the liner.  Also sinking to the bottom, securely held in a cargo hold, was the only Chrysler Norseman ever produced.

 

The designer of the car was Virgil Exner, who incorporated all the modern innovations that Chrysler intended to introduce into its car line over next few years—features like disappearing headlights and vanishing door handles.  The most noticeable feature was a completely cantilevered roof rising from the rear of the car.  With no front pillars to block the view, the newly designed, specially hardened windows wrapped around three sides of the car.  Car collectors today say the car could easily bring over a million dollars at auction.

 

There is only one way to describe the car:  sleekly beautiful.  Powered with a V8 engine, the car had been hand-built by famed Italian coach-builder Carrozzeria Ghia, to be the star of the 1957 car show circuit.  Since the entire project was kept under wraps, few photos were taken.  Not only was the ship lost before the designers ever got to see it, but to this day, no one is sure what color the car was painted.  The B&W photo at right has been colorized.

 

Since the Andrea Doria sank, divers have descended the 200 feet to the wreck several times, and what remains of the Norseman has been located.  Shortly before the cargo hold containing the vehicle collapsed, a diver reported that what little remained was nothing but a totally rusted pile of unrecognizable metal.  Identification would have been impossible but for the four tires still waiting to drive their first mile.