Sometimes you’re in the right place at the right time. Such was the case with Robert “Mefi Bob” Radke of MEFIburn.com when he went on what he thought was a routine trip to Costco last week. As he came out of the store, and walked toward his car, he smelled smoke and noticed a small crowd around another car a few rows downwind of where he had parked his Porsche. After moving his car away and upwind Bob could see that the source of the smoke was a 2014 911 Turbo S starting to burn.
“The car started smoking a few rows downwind of where I parked, I moved my car upwind of it and saw the flame action.”
Thankfully, for everyone but the owner (who now gets to relive this horror over and over) Bob decided to take out his cell phone and start filming. Here’s what he saw.
The fire department arrived quickly, as did the owner, but it was still too late.
We spoke with Bob earlier today and he told us he was “amazed at how quickly the fire escalated” and the “intensity” with which it burned. He doesn’t know what might have caused the fire but said it was obvious that the owner cared about the car as he had parked it carefully away from as many of the other cars as possible.
He went on to say that once the fire department got to work they were able to put the fire out quickly. However it didn’t much matter as most of the car was “melted“. At one point it appeared the front clip might be salvageable, but that was before the firefighters tore if off to make sure nothing was still smoldering underneath. “It took them at least 5 minutes of really heavy banging and hammering to get that bumper off,” said Radke.
[Original story via HOTROD Magazine. Pictures used with permission]