As the saying goes, not all heroes wear capes. Austin Owens certainly doesn’t, though the fellow car enthusiasts and a large chunk of the Internet believes he could – easily so, given his recent, very awesome gesture towards a perfect stranger.
This is the kind of story that brings all the feels and should, at least in partially, restore faith in humanity. Austin Owens was in Gulfport, Mississippi, and happened to see on a Mazda owners Facebook group a photo of a beautiful orange RX-7 sitting in a flooding garage. He learned that the car was nearby, at the Golden Nugget Casino in Biloxi, Mississippi and, instead of offering some pitiful comment online, he sprung into action.
He called a friend and jumped into a Ford Bronco, rushing to rescue the car of a man neither he nor the friend had ever seen. In fact, Owens tells Jalopnik, they had no other detail about the car except the fact that it was sitting in a flooded garage, in the middle of Tropical Storm Cristobal and that the water level was about to rise again.
Before heading out to Biloxi, the pair stopped by Home Depot and bought several cinder blocks, which they would then use to prop the Mazda up. When they arrived at the spot, the owner was there, together with two other people, trying to get a Ferrari 360 that had been parked alongside the Mazda out of the water. While they worked on the Ferrari, Owens and his friend worked on the Mazda, which had already been lifted on bricks, but they weren’t high enough to keep the water out.
“It’s a beautiful rare car, and there’s not too many of them around anymore. It’s one of my dream cars,” Owens tells the media outlet of his gesture, echoing his original Facebook post. “There’s no way I can leave that car sitting there like that.”
He doesn’t want praise, but settles for imagining someone would do the same for him, if he ever ran into similar trouble.
As for how the Mazda and the Ferrari ended up in the flooded garage, one of the people on scene tells Jalopnik that the owner of both assumed it was safe from flooding, based on what locals had told him. Apparently, thanks to Owens, the owner was able to drive off in the RX-7 because there was no water damage.
He called a friend and jumped into a Ford Bronco, rushing to rescue the car of a man neither he nor the friend had ever seen. In fact, Owens tells Jalopnik, they had no other detail about the car except the fact that it was sitting in a flooded garage, in the middle of Tropical Storm Cristobal and that the water level was about to rise again.
Before heading out to Biloxi, the pair stopped by Home Depot and bought several cinder blocks, which they would then use to prop the Mazda up. When they arrived at the spot, the owner was there, together with two other people, trying to get a Ferrari 360 that had been parked alongside the Mazda out of the water. While they worked on the Ferrari, Owens and his friend worked on the Mazda, which had already been lifted on bricks, but they weren’t high enough to keep the water out.
“It’s a beautiful rare car, and there’s not too many of them around anymore. It’s one of my dream cars,” Owens tells the media outlet of his gesture, echoing his original Facebook post. “There’s no way I can leave that car sitting there like that.”
He doesn’t want praise, but settles for imagining someone would do the same for him, if he ever ran into similar trouble.
As for how the Mazda and the Ferrari ended up in the flooded garage, one of the people on scene tells Jalopnik that the owner of both assumed it was safe from flooding, based on what locals had told him. Apparently, thanks to Owens, the owner was able to drive off in the RX-7 because there was no water damage.