While I was in the US Air Force I was stationed at an Army Post in Germany. One day as I was coming out of the Post Exchange, I heard a loud bang and then I saw smoke billowing out of the wheel wells of a car parked nearby. People were starting to gather around the car and a man I recognized as a captain in our unit was running toward the car. It was his car, which he had recently picked up at the seaport where it had been unloaded after being shipped from the United States. The car was not on fire, as everyone suspected at first, but it had to be towed away.
Because the captain was in our unit I was able to find out exactly what had happened. When the car was unloaded with a crane at the dock it was dropped several feet, but landed on its wheels, causing no visible damage. The unsuspecting captain picked up his car and drove it for several days until that fateful day in the Post Exchange parking lot. When the car was dropped, the suspension system received a severe strain which created cracks in the springs and broke the shock absorbers. It took a few miles of driving before everything let go at once. What looked like smoke at first, was dust and rust being knocked loose and becoming airborne when the body of the car dropped unto the axles.
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