HOT! CMC wide body

May have been carrying some extra fuel up front and sparked with the battery?? Fuel pump leak and a short circuit on the fuel pump?

little JB Weld, WD40 and duct tape,,,,no one will know the difference

Looks like hottest was right behind drivers seat so maybe a good meal of Chile Rellenos?  New tires and I'd flat tow it the 400 miles to FL - all that fuzzy fiberglass would be left along I85.  Engine and trans appear ok.  Can' tell if wheels are the old CMC gold/chrome or Porsche Cookie cutters.  Rear bumper good!

I do like the battery jumper on the wagon, wishful thinking ?

No problem: It'll buff out!

Wow!  

I heard that it’s been getting hot down there in the Florida Panhandle, but that’s really something!

My educated guess is that it started as a harness fire.    I picked up for export only vehicles often at Insurance Auto Auctions  aka "IAA"  in WV and got to talk with a couple of WV Arson Investigators as they looked post car fire claims. The physical evidence is amazingly easy to discover in one form or another and very few, get away with it.

@Alan Merklin posted:

My educated guess is that it started as a harness fire.    I picked up for export only vehicles often at Insurance Auto Auctions  aka "IAA"  in WV and got to talk with a couple of WV Arson Investigators as they looked post car fire claims. The physical evidence is amazingly easy to discover in one form or another and very few, get away with it.

I'm not trying to be contrarian, nor advocating arson - but how would anybody know if more than a very few did indeed "get away with it"?

Getting away with something means escaping detection. The police never catch speeders in front of my house, but that doesn't mean there aren't any. Arson investigators finding obvious signs of arson in some vehicles doesn't mean that they didn't miss the less signs of obvious arson in other vehicles.

I'm never going to, but I guarantee I could burn my car down without leaving any sign.

Unless they're classifying every last burnt car as arson, they're almost assuredly missing some.

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The battery jumper in the wagon might be how it started. Would also explain why it began up front.

Unseen gas vapor in the frunk from a leaky cap or vent line. It pools in the battery box. A spark from a badly done jump start.

There are eight million stories in the naked city.

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@Stan Galat posted:

I'm not trying to be contrarian, nor advocating arson - but how would anybody know if more than a very few did indeed "get away with it"?

Getting away with something means escaping detection. The police never catch speeders in front of my house, but that doesn't mean there aren't any. Arson investigators finding obvious signs of arson in some vehicles doesn't mean that they didn't miss the less signs of obvious arson in other vehicles.

I'm never going to, but I guarantee I could burn my car down without leaving any sign.

Unless they're classifying every last burnt car as arson, they're almost assuredly missing some.

Stolen cars are burned all the time. It's technically an arson and they are never investigated.

The facility depicted in the photo to be either a IAA or COPART Insurance auction yard.

For clarification Stan yes vehicle fires happen, what I'm referring to is vehicle fire events when the insurance company suspects arson deeming said fire as probable cause cases.

"I'm never going to, but I guarantee I could burn my car down without leaving any sign"

......You think you can and that folks is how people get caught.

@Stan Galat posted:

I'm never going to, but I guarantee I could burn my car down without leaving any sign.

That reminds me of a quote by Mickey Rourke to William Hurt in the movie "Body Heat. "

"any time you try a decent crime, you got fifty ways you're gonna f*ck up. If you think of twenty-five of them, then you're a genius - and you ain't no genius."

Of course, Rourke was playing an arsonist...

@Alan Merklin posted:

......You think you can and that folks is how people get caught.

Of course it is. It's also how criminals actually get away with crimes.

I'm sure that the clearance rate for car-fire arson investigators is really high - because the investigators are looking at fires that show signs of arson. But I would be stunned if they give even a cursory second look to even 20% of the fires, because nearly all of them show every sign of being routine

... and most of them are, because a lot of these cars burn.

We don't need to rely on pictures or second hand stories - guys on this site have had fires. Several JPSs I know of, Ron O'Black's car, and almost mine. I'll bet if I dug I could come up with at least 10 full fires, or near-misses of posters on this site. The hard part about this hobby is keeping these cars from burning.

Those fires might get looked at, but because they are so common, they almost never get looked at as a full-fledged insurance-fraud investigation.

All I'm saying is that it's an easy thing to say, "we solve 95% of all car-arsons", but how does anybody really know that none of the hundreds of innocent-looking fires were intentional? I can't say it with certainty and neither can anybody else.

This isn't like a robbery, where everybody knows when a crime has been committed. Nobody has any idea of the actual number of intentionally set car fires, so nobody can know how many people actually get away with it.

"We solve almost all of them" is impossible to prove. It would be just as easy to say that they solve almost none of them. Neither claim can be verified, because nobody knows the actual percentages of intentionally set car fires.

@Stan Galat posted:

All I'm saying is that it's an easy thing to say, "we solve 95% of all car-arsons", but how does anybody really know that none of the hundreds of innocent-looking fires were intentional? I can't say it with certainty and neither can anybody else.

This isn't like a robbery, where everybody knows when a crime has been committed. Nobody has any idea of the actual number of intentionally set car fires, so nobody can know how many people actually get away with it.

"We solve almost all of them" is impossible to prove. It would be just as easy to say that they solve almost none of them. Neither claim can be verified, because nobody knows the actual percentages of intentionally set car fires.

Does "solving" it mean determining that it's an arson fire or determining who set it?

In our county probably 30% of the cars that are stolen are torched. It's easy to determine that the car was stolen and it's a foregone conclusion that it's an arson fire. Of those close to 0% of them are investigated. Car theft is a non-violent property crime and the ensuing arson is an attempt to eliminate the evidence of the car theft. Unless a suspect is identified in the car theft then it won't be investigated.

@Stan Galat I know that I am personally responsible for Tom Dewalt's green coupe(the first from JPS I think) NOT burning down.

I discovered the half-rubbed through fuel line that was not attached to the firewall behind the shroud. It was getting sucked into the fan.

Wanna' burn a speedster and never get it questioned? Put an electric fuel pump on the car, leave your 15 year old cracked soft-lines right where they are, loosen up the electronic pickup screw in your 009 one full turn, open up the mixture screws 4 or 5 turns, oil your air filters, and go for a drive.

It shouldn't be very long.

@DannyP posted:

@Stan Galat I know that I am personally responsible for Tom Dewalt's green coupe(the first from JPS I think) NOT burning down.

I discovered the half-rubbed through fuel line that was not attached to the firewall behind the shroud. It was getting sucked into the fan.

Little Johnny was at it again~

I would clearcoat it, put on some new tires, and drive it as is. It would be a hit at coffee and cars. You could wear a fireman’s outfit for effect.

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@LeadPedal posted:

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I would clearcoat it, put on some new tires, and drive it as is...

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