Lee Adams of Central Florida loves his sports cars. In addition to a 2009 Corvette ZR1, Adams owns a Ferrari, Mosler and an Ariel Atom, so you can tell he is a real car guy. Unfortunately, Adams recently endured the harrowing and life-changing experience of being locked in the ZR1 when his battery died. In a panic, he calls 911 for help.
Adams retold his experience of being locked in Chevy’s supercar on the FerrariChat forums:
I closed the door and the door locked and would not open. The car would not start. I was trapped!
I called 911 and the police came quickly thankfully. Once the officer assured himself that ilt was a car problem and not a idiot driver problem. He nor I could not figure out what to do.
He called the chevy dealership. They recommended I get out of the seat and crawl to the back of the ZR1 and pull the emergency tag. It is not a pretty sight to see a fat, 65 yr old man crawling to the back of the car. Well I did and the trunk opened.
That was this morning and the ZR1 is sold, gone out of my life. Took it to the dealer that helped me and sold it cold and flat. It is still in my garage I am not going near it. They will have to come to my home and get it out of my garage.
Thank god for the police and the chevy dealer. Boo for GM.
What a stupid system to put onto a car. Just think , if my garage door was closed not open and I did not have a cell phone and my wife just left for Vermont It could have been alot worse.
No more cars for me with automatic door lock systems. FYI the officer said his captain had the same problem with his Corvette.
The electronic door locks are one of the features on the Corvette that seem to flummox many, especially when the battery runs down. Guys like Adams that have multiple cars run into this issue as if they are rarely driven, a drained battery can be the result. Still, Chevy built in some safe guards to the system by providing a manual release on each of the doors (located on the bottom of the door by the seats) as well as the trunk. And let’s not forget that blue OnStar button on the rear-view mirror. (Hasn’t he seen or heard the commercials of freaked out mom’s who lock their kids in the car?)
There are several losers in this story, the biggest being Lee Adams who should have his Man Card pulled for calling 911. The unnamed Chevy dealer also loses points for not knowing about the manual door releases and sending “a fat, 65 yr old man” squirming to the rear to manually open the rear hatch.
The good news and happy ending to the story is that with the help of the members on FerrariChat (who seem to know a lot about some of the Corvette’s “hidden features”), Adams has decided to keep the ZR1: “I love the ZR1 and will keep the car now that I know the door opening trick.” That’s probably a good idea considering he thinks he owns the first one. Adams said in a later post: “I was lucky to get the first ZR1. I had to get my friends at GM who is director of the performance division find one and lock it in for me.”
FYI, my working title for this blog post was “Man Gets Locked Inside a Corvette ZR1, Lives to Tell the Tale”. Seriously, just think what would have happened to that that ZR1 if his garage door was closed and he didn’t have his phone. Dead men tell no tales…
Source:
CorvetteOnline.com via Jalopnik
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This should be filed under ‘seriously?’ I realize most of us car guys can get into any car and figure out just about any feature on our own; but there are always at least a hand full of features that require a once-over of the manual. And what better toilet reading is there when you first get your new car? He should have known better. I second the motion to revoke his man card!
I guess he’s never thought of reading the owner’s manual in all the time he’s owned it. I’m glad he wasn’t in serious trouble, but on the other hand, he got what he deserved for not being familiar with his car.
He does not own the first ZR1. That sold at Barrett-Jackson for $1M big ones. What a fool.
DT:
There are 3 first ZR1s that we are aware of. Ressler bought the special Le Mans Blue ZR1 for $1 million which had its own VIN. Jay Leno has the first retail regular production ZR1. The final 1st ZR1 comes from the line of preproduction engineering cars which I’m pretty sure is not what Lee Adams is driving.
Keith
I love people like dave. May they spend eternity needing the simplest of understanding and cooperation…and get “Daves” all around.
Go get laid. Maybe you can become a human being.
Yes. You’re the only smart person in the world. I’m sure you’re ’82 Fox never locks up.
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