Peugeot 206 - Spontaneous Combustion?

The Accident

My friend Tim collected an original VW beetle on the passenger side of his 206 Pug - a reasonably strong impact that pushed the passenger door in about 10 cm(?) -just past the 'Peugeot' logo beneath the door. The Airbags deployed in the Pug and nobody was hurt, apart from a few bruises, in either car. Some nice bystanders helped push the green VW (visible in the pictures) off the road. The Pug's horn was going, so Tim disconnected the batteries. Shortly afterwards I arrived and Tim and I decided we might as well push the pug off the road as well.

There was a faint whiff of smoke originally, which we thought might be from the air bags. However much to our surprise, after maybe five or ten minutes, the smoke started to get worse. My fiance' Janine ran back to the house to get a fire extinguisher, and we had a bit or a poke around, but couldn't figure out where it was coming from. We had a look under the car, and there was no sign of smoke there - just thin fingers of smoke coming up from the interior panels and the dashboard.

At this stage someone called the fire brigade, but we were still rather surprised when flames appeared, and within a minute the car was engulfed. Naturally my first thought was to run home and get a camera :-).

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Nice Firemen

Shortly afterwards the fire brigade showed up, and decided that what was really needed was about five olympic swimming pools worth of water. The nice fireman also gave the VW a free wash at the same time.

There's another photo I took shortly afterwards, when the firemen got connected to the hydrant, but I haven't put it up, because you can't see anything. Well, you can see water. Imagine the whole picture on the left white, and save yourself the download.

Don't try this at home

When the smoke had settled, and the flood waters subsided, all that was left was the burnt out shell. The photo doesn't show it particularly well, but you can sort of see the extent of the side dent - significant, but not huge!

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The Firewall works both ways.

You can see from the interior that the car was completely gutted. Curiously, the engine bay was untouched, and looked as good as new; not even discoloured. As Tim said, I guess the firewall works both ways.

EndNote for Beetle Lovers

VW afficionadoes will be relieved to hear that the VW is probably o.k. -> it's front left headlight was shattered, the front bumper got pushed in a bit, and there was a dent to tip of the bonnet. Obviously we don't know what the final story is, but it looked like it would have been quite drivable once the bumper had been pulled clear from the left tire (where it was rubbing). You can see the VW in the first picture (it's the green car that isn't on fire).