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How can an inanimate object posibly carry an ill-will towards any living creature?
Well, get a load of this........
'In 1914, a French motor manufacturing firm named Phaeton built a long open-topped vehicle that could carry six people. The car was painted blood-red, and this colour turned out to be very appropriate, because this vehicle was later surrounded by death and tragedy. In July 1914, the Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife sat in the rear seats of the red car, and in the front of the vehicle with the chauffeur sat a general and two other notaries. The brand new car was on a tour of Sarajevo, and halfway through the tour, a man ran from a line of people who were waving little flags of Bosnia, and he hurled a bomb at the red car, obviously intending to destroy it and its passengers. But the bomb didn't go off, but bounced off the car's bodywork and rolled behind the vehicle, where four guards were following on horseback. The bomb suddenly exploded, and the blast took down the four unfortunate horses and sent the guards flying into the crowds. The red car carrying the Archduke speeded up and drove on. Minutes later, for some strange reason that has never been explained, the driver of the red car turned the vehicle into a dead-end street which was not a part of the planned route. Seconds after the unscheduled stop, a young Bosnian student ran from a doorway in the street and crossed the cobbled road. He drew a pistol and jumped onto the running board of the red car and emptied six bullets into the shocked Archduke and his wife at point-blank range. The Archduke's wife was dead, and blood was gushing out of her mouth turning her white dress the same colour as the car - blood red. The Archduke also began to cough, and splutter, and blood cascaded from his mouth and the other bullet holes that dotted his body. In those days it was customary to sew up the uniform, so the Archduke bled to death by the time his coat was opened up to treat him. The student who had killed the Archduke and his wife was Gavrilo Princip, and the double assassination he committed was solely responsible for sowing the seeds to the First World War which claimed the lives of millions.
In 1914, an Austrian general took command of the red car that the Archduke had been assassinated in, and 9 days later, the military man suffered a catastrophic defeat against the Serbians, and he was sent to Vienna in disgrace. He couldn't take the shame and he later went insane and died mysteriously. The red car then passed into the hands of Captain Raska, another Austrian. During his first trip in the car, Captain Raska was rounding a bend on a mountain when he suddenly saw two peasants in the road ahead. The captain swerved to avoid them and crashed into a tree. His final agonizing screams were horrifying; the steering wheel had gone through Captain Raska's chest, and he begged the peasants to shoot him as he almost choked on his blood. A few minutes later he stopped screaming and died.
The unlucky car then came into the possession of the Governor of Sarajevo, a man named Alexandrovac, who was a vintage car enthusiast. He had four accidents with the car in four months, then crashed and lost his right arm in the impact. Six months later the car was found upside down in a ditch, and the governor was inside, crushed to death. His neck was also broken. The next owner of the red car was a doctor. He laughed at all the local talk about the car being cursed, but within months his body was found under the car's tyres. No one knows how the doctor came to be under the car, but the vehicle had somehow rolled over the doctor and had crushed his spine. The car was then purchased by a wealthy landowner named Graco. One day the red car stopped dead. Graco got a farmer to tow the vehicle with a horse-drawn cart, but halfway through the journey, the car suddenly started up again. It killed the farmer and his horse, and the driver was thrown through the windscreen and bled to death. The car was repainted a blue colour and purchased by a man named Tiber Hirschfield. He was taking five passengers on a short journey in the jinxed car one day when he suddenly lost control of the vehicle. The car smashed into a wall and all six people in it were killed instantly. The car was repaired and five more people died while driving it over the next six years. The vehicle was finally put on display at a Vienna transport museum. One morning, in 1944, the curator of this museum arrived at the building and told work colleagues he had experienced terrible nightmares the night before about losing his head. Later in the evening, an English bomber plane dropped its load on the museum in Vienna, and the jinxed car was blown into thousands of tiny pieces. In the explosion, part of the panelling from the car flew across the room and decapitated the curator of the museum who had earlier talked about the nightmares he'd had about losing his head.
Another unlucky car was the one the Hollywood actor James Dean died in after a tragic motoring accident in September 1955. After the accident, when the wreck of Dean's car was being towed to a garage, the engine slipped and fell onto a mechanic, breaking both of his legs. The engine was then bought by a doctor, who put it into a racing car. This doctor was killed when his car crashed within days. A man who had bought the drive shaft from Dean's car also died the same day in a car crash. As Dean's car was later being repaired in a garage, a fire of unknown origin broke out and almost destroyed the vehicle. The jinxed car was then put on display at Sacramento, but it mysteriously fell off its mount and landed on a teenager, crushing his hip. The car was then taken to Oregon, where it fell off a truck that was carrying it, and the car smashed through a shop front. Finally, in 1959, for reasons that were never explained, Dean's car suddenly broke into 11 pieces while sitting on stationary steel supports.'
Suddenly my ancient Peugeot seems to be an attractive proposition.....
Hammy x x x
