Wow; looks and sounds very close to the damage done to my daughter's (
cowgirl tink) '96 GT vert.
She attempted to pull out from the stop sign on the road leading to her "office" at the time; only to have her car "de-nosed" by a speeding RAM2500 4x4. The cops (actually Ft. Bragg PMO's "traffic unit") had been complaining about the pines making that a blind corner and more-or-less dealing with some of the speeding on that road for some time; as their building was situated right there. This time, the other driver was caught 5 minutes later with a little more 'assertiveness' by the K-9 unit, as some of her dog-handlers (or more correctly, she was "their dogs' Veterinary Tech") were sitting in the PMO parking lot and witnessed the whole thing. Five minutes later, the guy was 'a little surprised' to find himself surround by 4 Army cops with German Shephards in his parking lot. Moonlight Blue paint marks on his red Dodge and pieces of the Stang's front fascia still stuck in his front bumper/winch mount made it an easy collar.
Apparently, he was known to the PMO guys professionally, and this little 'hit and split' has put the Dodge off-the-road; unless he's sold it to somebody who still has driving priviledges for the forseeable future.
Luckily, Tink was just coming off-duty, so the baby wasn't in the car; and she escaped with only some facial bruising from the airbag.
Insurance 'totaled' the Mustang, which was no surprise to my daughter and son-in-law; as AJ (her husband
SVTCobra306) had his friend who owns a bodyshop look at it and throw out a prelim quote. It looked like the only way it would be doable would be to front-half the car, which was feasibly 'out of the question'; even with AJ handling the engine and
suspension repairs in his own shop.
The real heart-breaker was that, not only was the car very driveable and you might say 'sprirted' (they'd started modding it about 4 hours after buying it) for a first-year 4.6 Mustang; but Tink had bought it with her inheritance from my mom. I got to drive the car last time I was in NC; and it was a beautiful ride; took the twisties like a roller-coaster and barking the Kumho Xtas on 1-2-3-4 shifts was no real problem. Losing the car was pretty tragic, to say the least.
This year, they used their HUGE tax refund to replace the '96 with a '99 Cobra 'vert that was
reportedly "PERFECT CONDITION" from a guy who was once one of the "Rotating Banner Advertisers" at the top of every StangNet Forum page. After a lot of work; AJ has gotten it
nearly perfect; and she's rockin' that car now.
So yeah, losing "Tranquility" (Tink named the car after her Grandma's cabin in the mountains) was a pretty big deal; but Grandma's spirit must've been riding shotgun that day and took care of my daughter, so it was truly "just the car". And just like anything worth having; it could be replaced after some time and effort.
Hang in there.