What would you pay for a banged-up Chevy Malibu? Not a cool Malibu, mind you, but a 1980 Malibu, after they’d been all boringed-up by the crack team of enboringificators GM employed so lavishly in the 1980s. My guess is it’s probably well under, oh, $2,000. See that 1980 Malibu up there, with the pretty severe rear-end damage? Well, that very car is insured for over a million dollars, and has been exhibited all over the world. Normally, the only way that insuring that car for a million dollars would make sense is if it had $1,000,015 stashed inside it somewhere, which I can tell you it does not. What it does have is either incredibly good or bad luck, depending on how you look at it, and a simple yet dramatic story. I better explain.
Want a hint? Look at the damage on that Malibu. Note how the bumper is pretty much intact, but the trunk lid is a mess. What would cause damage like that? Hm.
That red Malibu has been shown in New York and Tokyo and Germany and Paris not because it’s an amazing example of an automotive triumph, but because it’s an amazing example of a rock-from-space-hitting-something triumph.
This Malibu is the famed Peekskill Meteorite Car.
Maybe I’m not traveling in the right space rock circles, but somehow I’ve managed to not hear about this remarkable Chevy until now, the only automobile in human history to be directly struck by a meteorite. That meteorite was the 26.5 pound chunk of space rock that landed in Peekskill, New York on October 9, 1992, punching its way through the trunk of that Malibu, narrowly missing the fuel tank, and exiting through the bottom to carve out a crater below the car.
What’s especially remarkable about the Peekskill Meteorite, classified as an H6 Chondrite and which was going about 180 mph when it impacted the car, significantly slowed down from the 25,000 mph it was traveling before impacting the Earth’s atmosphere, is that it entered the atmosphere at the right time and place so that it coincided with a number of high school football games, which means that, incredibly, there were multiple people with camcorders who were able to capture the meteorite’s entry on video.
At least 16 different locations captured the meteorite on video, giving scientists a relative wealth of data with which to calculate the meteor’s likely orbital path and entry vector.
Look, here’s a bunch of science:
Hoo boy, that’s some science right there! Also interesting is the computed orbital path of the meteor, which seems to have been an inner solar system object with a heliocentric but eccentric orbit that took it past the orbits of Mercury and Venus before finally smacking into Earth, the only planet where both Chevy Malibus and Fruit Roll-Ups are made. Check it out for yourself!
The meteorite itself has been recovered and studied extensively, and, when sliced, looks like some sort of exciting, moldy-strong cheese:
The Malibu was owned by an 18-year-old Michelle Knapp, who bought the car for $400 from her grandmother. After hearing what sounded like “a three car crash,” Michelle went out to survey the damage, and initially thought that vandals had caused it:
Michelle called the Peekskill police who initially reported this as an act of vandalism. It was a neighbor who reasoned that vandals can’t throw rocks through cars and surmised that the rock was from outer space.
That neighbor did some top-notch forensic work there, surmising that your average vandal isn’t normally able to “throw rocks through cars,” which is one of those details of life I think we should all be more grateful about. The car was sold to Iris Lang, wife of meteorite collector Al Lang, for $25,000, which is a pretty good deal for a damaged 1980 Malibu, especially in early ’90s money.
Of course, when you realize that a broken taillight bulb and the car’s original title sold for $5,312 at auction, the big money starts to make more sense. Also, I suspect that may be the most ever paid for a taillight bulb, too. I bet it was an 1157.
The car has been exhibited in science museums all over the world, and even once was part of an art installation in the UK and New York by Los Angeles-based artist Mark Hagen in a work called Guest Star.
You know, looking at the Malibu from this angle, I’m struck by what great shape the rest of the car is in, aside from the hole punched through the back by the lump of iron and silica from space. That’s a clean Malibu!
This has to be the most valuable 1980 Malibu in the world, perhaps the known universe. And its value is entirely because of chance, a value imbued by a wild sort of improbability, literally the kind that has become the cliché for an unlikely event: getting hit by a meteorite.
I think the takeaway here for all of us owners of maybe not-so-valuable cars is to not garage your cars, lest you miss out from the proven value-enhancing plan of letting your car get walloped by a space rock.
This Is What A Coolant Leak Looks Like In Space
The Positives Of Negative Space: Cold Start
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This reminds me of when I was in college in the late 80’s. One of my housemates and I were home one afternoon when the alarm went off on her ’87 Nova. We went out to take a look and see what had happened and it turned out that an avocado had fallen from one of our trees onto the fender of her car. It didn’t cause the same level of damage as happened to this car, but the angle and location of impact was about the same. The future value of the car, however, didn’t follow the same trajectory…
You’re not traveling in the right space rock circles. Not only is it not the only automobile in human history to be directly struck by a meteorite it’s not even the only famous car-meteorite incident:
https://astronomy.com/news/2020/09/the-benld-meteorite
Through the garage roof, the car’s roof, the seat, and the floor, coming to a stop when it banged into the muffler.
Amazing story. Funny enough, one of my father’s favorite stories was when a micro meteorite hit his 2cv when he and his brother were on a long road trip into parts of the Sahara back in the 50’s. They were camping out one night and all of a sudden there was a loud bang and a flash. Amazingly, a meteorite the size of a quarter hit their hood and fused in place. Mere feet from where they were sleeping. Years later, my father sold the car, complete with meteorite on the hood. Who knows if it still exists somewhere?
It’s a 2CV, so of course it still exists.
My old ‘79 2CV is still on the road. I sold it to my cousin who drove it to the Sahara, and stopped off in Germany on the way back to replace the chassis.
Still not as cool as the Malibu from Repo Man
Just needs dead aliens in the trunk.
I can’t help wishing it had hit a Mercury Meteor, or at least a Saturn.
Plymouth Satellite?
Comet?
This has to be the most valuable 1980 Malibu in the world
This one Malibu represents 99.9999999% of the collective value of every extant Malibu.
That was my thought as well. It’s worth more than every other 1980 Malibu on Earth combined.
I say let’s call an even trade…toss the Malibu back into space and keep meteorite to keep the world in balance. One hunk of metal in = One hunk of metal out.
This brings to mind a comic I saw in the late 70s : cozy suburban house with a massive Personal Luxury Coupe for sale out front-sporting weeds, cobwebs, and a For Sale sign. “Well, I guess we can park it out back and hope Skylab hits it”
I still don’t quite know why I found that funny. Maybe the mix of hopelessness & optimism that fit the times so well
Seeing that Malibu displayed in the museum like that makes me think of some poorly written 1970s dystopian future fiction, where some mundane 20th century item is being displayed as an historical object not quite far enough in the future for people to be believably ignorant of it.
“This was what they called an automobile, it says Chevrolet in it, so we figure that was the name of the maker. As near as we can tell, it would have been used for the ceremonial transportation of a high ranking individual, like a village chief or a high priest”
Man the used car market is still crazy huh?
Seriously though, I… don’t get it. Like it’s an awesome story, and to be able to say you have had a car hit by a meteorite, also cool. But it’s not that culturally significant is it? I’m more interested in the actual meteorite than the car it hit, if I stumbled onto the car in person somewhere it would be cool to look over but objectively, it’s a damaged Malibu.
Wow. Followed the link about the car and there is a picture of Michelle Knapp. She had some BIG hair back in the day!
Okay Michelle bought it for $600 and sold it for $25,000 after damaged by a meteorite? Did she collect an insurance payout? Wouldnt this be insurance fraud? If they fixed the damage would the value go down and therefore require an insurance payout? How do you insure and then collect on sonething like this?
In addition I wouldnt pay $1 million dollars for every Malibu still in existance.
$400 not $600, but in either case, she probably only had liability insurance. As a teen, she’d have paid that $400 3x over the course of a year if she had collision insurance. So I am guessing she had only the minimum insurance.
Do you honestly think an 18 year old was carrying comprehensive coverage on the 12 year old, $400 beater she bought from grandma?
This is why I’m totally fine with a 12MPG 7 seat SUV that I drive alone. I’ve never seen one damaged by a meteor. Safety first kids!
I’ve never seen an Isetta with meteorite damage, so that should be at least as safe as a motorcycle.
Safety third, don’t be ridiculous!
I don’t know how many times my father told me, “Don’t park the car outside during a meteor storm.” Did I listen? Nooo …
It held up better than the Exploding Whale Oldsmobile.
https://thisistrue.com/wp-content/uploads/whaled-olds.jpg
What gives with all the GM cars and disasters?? Like the 5:04 car, also an Oldsmobile, from the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake: https://www.dangerranger.org/504PM/History.html
It was also the first art car to appear at Burning Man.
the FB and HQ holdens hanging off the edge of the collapsed tasman bridge also come to mind.
GM had like 50% of the new car market for ages, it was still like 46% into the early 1980s
Once the Malibu impacted the ground, I think you’re supposed to call it a Malibuite.
Joe Meteorite, meet Joe Malibu!
When I was a lad, my family had a 1981 Malibu Classic. It had a 229CID V-6 and was RWD, which somehow didn’t make it interesting. A meteorite or three would have helped.
It had cloth seats *and* AC, though, which was nice. Changing the spark plugs involved jacking up the front end and going in through the fenderwell, which was not nice.
Was wondering if they had the date wrong and thought it was a 1964 Malibu….
“Twenty thousand dollars for a Chevy Malibu? Who’s double X finance?”
Well played, Otto!
Plate o’ shrimpz
Aliens!
That Malibu is in peak bought-from-grandmother condition.
I remember reading about this car in a book published by Klutz. Remember Klutz? They did some fun educational books.
Go figure. The only way to make an A-body Malibu more valuable is to damage it.
…from SPACE!
I’m not surprised by this. Aftar all, Chevy likes a rock.
That awful jingle has apparently lain dormant in my brain for nearly 20 years without me thinking about it at all until you shook it awake, and now it is stuck clear as day in my ear. You will be hearing from my lawyer.
Ooooh, like a rock!
Can you call it a jingle when it’s a snippet of an actual song?
Like a rock that ended up grounded to the ground, you mean?
Booooooo! (and have an upvote for just how terrible that was)
Man, now I want to know if anyone tried to cash in on the cars that were damaged by exploding whale chunks in similar fashion. I know the state had to buy a few that were totaled.
Probably just outdoor exhibitions in that case.
I wish she had gotten herself a more interesting car, instead of leaving the world with this drab 1980s GM to keep for eternity.