How about a twist on the subject? How about an unusual circumstancs where my Padoda did NOT break down (but should have)?
September, 2006: ongoing runnability issues that just wouldn't go away. I thought I solved one of them, when changeover to Pertronix from Crane eliminated the "dying" while driving. Still had wildly unpredictable and erratic misfiring. What do do? Get in the car and drive on the highway to Chicago, of course, for the MBCA 50th Anniversary...240 miles.
It was stinking hot, and I was caught in stop and go traffic on I94 sandwiched in a rutty construction zone between gravel haulers and tractor trailers. Miraculously, perhaps by divine intervention, no misfire, no overheating, and just as important, no stones kicked up. I eventually get to the banquet hotel and in the parking lot, the misfiring returns big time.
The return home was not as eventful as getting there, but misfiring did happen with alarming regularity.
Several weeks later I change the fuel pump and come to find out that the power connectors that had been crimped on had failed. How any current got through those cruddy connectors is beyond me. By all rights the car should have died right in the middle of that construction zone. But, it held up.