

LEBANON TWP. -- Security video shows that the minivan that hit the Wyant family's restored 1950 DeSoto was airborne at the moment of impact. The crash occurred yesterday afternoon on Route 31 near the Creager Road intersection.

Dan Wyant Jr., whose taxidermy shop is nearby, said the car had been his father's "pride and joy," but Dan Wyant Sr. died last year and no one in the family shared Dad's passion for the car, which had been his retirement project. So in August it was parked in front of CARS Auto Body and offered for sale.

Doug North of CARS Auto Body said it was taking so long to sell it because Wyant wanted it to go "to a good home." The asking price was $13,500. The elder Wyant thought so much of the car that its likeness was etched onto his tombstone. When Bloomsbury celebrated its centennial in 2005, the grand marshal drove the DeSoto in the parade, Wyant said.

Wyant shows that there were no skid marks on the pavement where the southbound minivan hit a curb. It went airborne, sailing between a utility pole and a mailbox, hitting the DeSoto on its descent, Wyant said, having viewed the security video. The impact knocked the DeSoto sideways up a curb, taking down the concrete-mounted CARS Auto Body sign and damaging a VW car that had been brought in for a minor repair.

Wyant said he had been planning to garage the car at the end of the month. "All that work; what a shame to see it destroyed," he said.