Corrected entry: Automobile fires don't go out by themselves. Since the fire department doesn't come to the scene, the car would have burnt to a bare hulk. If the fire department had come to the rescue, they would not have allowed Del and Neal to drive away in what was left.
ckbyers
1st Mar 2011
Correction: It's likely that a passing trucker helped them, especially since later on Del says "we got it in the nick of time" to the state trooper. A trucker would be carrying an onboard fire extinguisher and would not have been in a position to impound the car, allowing Neal and Del to continue on.
Yes but what are truly the odds of a trucker coming by? In the age of Hollywood, - it would have literally be in the script to convey the idea that one did stop. To me, it's more of a sarcastic comment by Neal that "we got it in nick of time" given their string of bad luck, that he was saying it - knowing the car was burnt to a crisp.
ckbyers