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C7 Corvette Hits Deer, the Damage is an Eyesore

If you’re living in the Mid and Southwest, then you might know that roadkill incidents are a day-to-day reality and an unfortunate matter of course for our furry friends. Oh, almost forgot to tell you that rendering an animal into the proverbial highway pizza puts some damage on our cars too.
C7 Corvette vs Deer 14 photos
Photo: d_toll on CorvetteForum.com
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In Australia, motorists adopted the roo bar as a prime means of protection from roadkill incidents. No points will be awarded to the reader that guesses what roo bar stands for and what’s Kangaroo Jack’s opinion on this appliance. But today’s flat meat story comes from Fort Wayne, Indiana, and the vehicle is a bullbarless C7 Corvette, not a pickup truck.

Yes, boys and girls, your hunch is spot on - deer are the furry mongrels that are most likely to cause damage to our cars in North America and Europe. In 1920, naturalist Joseph Grinnell noted: “This [roadkill] is a relatively new source of fatality; and if one were to estimate the entire mileage of such roads in the state [California], the mortality must mount into the hundreds and perhaps thousands every 24 hours." Considering this bit of intel, go figure the jumbo roadkill count of Anno Domini 2015. Wonder what happens when you exchange the roo bar-ed pickup truck for a C7 Corvette in a headfirst collision with a deer?

d_toll is a junior member of the CorvetteForum and, from the looks of it, Bambi isn’t his favorite Walt Disney movie. In the man's words: “On my way to work this morning at around 2:15 AM and a deer decided to check out the Vette. Waiting to hear from the insurance on what's next." In addition to the unfortunate accident, d_toll adds: “The only reason I was driving it [the C7] today was because I was supposed to get the windshield replaced after work.”

Well, it so happens that the windshield is the least of this Corvette owner’s worries. d_toll was going 76 mph (122 km/h) when the collision occurred and the photographs in the gallery below speak for themselves. Damage to the exterior isn’t cringeworthy, but carbon fiber and those panel gaps can’t be labeled cheap fixes. The perplexing damage inside the American sports car seems to be harder to repair though.

“System is acting like the airbag deployed, and I believe it tried. During the initial hit the inside of the car filed with smoke or a powder of some sort. The passenger side seatbelt clinched so tight that it pulled the metal clip into the side of the plastic on the seat and cut into it. There's a gap difference between the top and both A-pillars. Behind the drivers door the gap is off compared to the passenger side... The passenger side seatbelt pulled so hard that it strained the panels behind it and popped them out."

It pains us to see a damaged Corvette, but we are happy that d_toll is safe and the car will be fixed in a jiffy.
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About the author: Mircea Panait
Mircea Panait profile photo

After a 1:43 scale model of a Ferrari 250 GTO sparked Mircea's interest for cars when he was a kid, an early internship at Top Gear sealed his career path. He's most interested in muscle cars and American trucks, but he takes a passing interest in quirky kei cars as well.
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