Watch 1,300 Horsepower Muscle Car Lose its Brakes—and Learn How to Stay Safe
The footage is dramatic: The bright red muscle car’s driver says, “Oh sh–, I just lost the brakes!” He begins to swerve back and fourth across the road. The passenger clutches his seat, obviously terrified. Then the driver shouts, “Hold on!” and they smash headlong into a black minivan.
The classic car is a bright red 1964 Mercury Comet, with a supercharged V8 making upwards of 1300 horsepower. The driver is Russ Stover. The passenger is Shawn Davis, host of the Autotopia LA YouTube channel, who was in the midst of filming a show. The footage is enough to make anyone who has test driven a project car physically uncomfortable.
The crash “completely blew out” Stover’s elbow as he stiff armed against the steering wheel. It also broke four of Davis’ teeth when he smashed, face-first, into the metal dashboard. But they both made a full recovery. Stover announced, “As far as I know, driver of van was not seriously injured.”
Members of the automotive enthusiast community weighed in with comments such as, “This wasn’t brake failure this was driver failure.” But every story has two sides. After Davis recovered, he sat down for a video explaining what happened and offering some warnings to other classic car enthusiasts.
The hot-rodded Mercury Comet has been Russ Stover’s baby for decades. It has been a work in progress as he upgraded one system first, then another, then another. When asked what it cost he likes to joke, “23 years, $208,000, and two wives.”
By the time the infamous Mercury finally appeared on Autotopia LA, it had a 632 cubic-inch Chevy V8 with a 1471 BDS “blower” or supercharger. It made about 1300 horsepower and 900 lb-ft of torque. It put all that power to the road through a B&M ratchet shifter, engineered for drag racing.
The first red flag that Davis admits he missed was that Stover did the Mercury’s brakes “first.” That is a responsible choice when you first get a project car. But it meant that by the time the Mercury rolled into the Autotopia LA garage, its brake system was 17 years old. And honestly, it was way underbuilt for the 1,000+ horsepower beast the car had become.
In fact, while showing off the car, Stover straight-up said, “I’ve got a couple of things on my wish list. Should probably put bigger brakes on it…you got to remember 23 years ago no one had 700 horsepower Hellcats.”
After the two men talked and the camera crew snapped some pictures of the car, they took it for a cruise to get some video of it rolling through Los Angeles. The two men actually debated putting on the full racing harnesses–which the car is equipped with–and settled on sticking to lap belts.
While driving, Stover pointed out to Davis that the car was idling high–at about 2,200 rpm. Stover lated wrote, “In a normal car throttle sticking at 2200 RPM’s is not the end of the world, in my car that’s 900 ft/lbs of torque. I should have realized the load that was putting on the brakes. Didn’t cross my mind at the time.”
Stover’s solution to the malfunction was to ride the brake pedal for most of the drive, keeping the car from taking off like a drag racer. But riding the brakes in this way heats them up, which in turn heats up the brake fluid. Davis even noticed it and said to Stover, “Is that a little bit of brake I smell?” and Stover admitted, “I’m riding it.”
When the brake fluid reaches about 300 degrees Fahrenheit, it boils. This introduces gas bubbles and the entire hydraulic system becomes useless. This is what happened the moment Stover said, “Oh sh–, I just lost the brakes!”
Stover acted fast, trying to throw his ratchet transmission into park, but it just ground gears. Unfortunately, the ratchet shifter setup prevented him from downshifted and using the engine’s compression to slow the car. Finally, he had no emergency brake system.
Later, Stover wrote that before the shoot he, “got a quote at Good Guy’s Del Mar for an electronic e-brake & bigger brakes. Hindsight’s 20-20, I was just gonna trailer it to a few shows & not drive it much till I could do that.”
Davis said the purpose of his video on the crash was “educate you a bit” because he admits there was “a lot of learning” he did because of this crash. He urges his viewers to make a brake system strong enough for their car a priority. But he has three more suggestions:
- Install full harnesses or at least shoulder belts–and wear them
- Take your built car in for regular inspections with a technician, even if you don’t race it
- Install an emergency brake system
Next, watch police force a fleeing motorcycle off the road, or see the Autotopia LA episode embedded below:
