Tales with cars

[the13bats]

I guess these are tall tales or "urban legends" both tales i have heard many times but the one with the war veteran is so very popular that most care cruises will have at least loud mouth who insists is was a family member or close friend who either died or bought the car cheap.

The first involves girls 2 or 3 in an old air cooled volkswagen beetle, florida is full of sink holes that become lakes and natural springs the springs are great for mining fossils,

so depending on the version of the story the beetle drives into a sink hole lake and vanishes, then at some point later a beetle is found in another lake with human skeletons inside,

or the car pops up in a spring, another version is the car acted as a diving bubble and the girls survive but are found in a lake or spring many miles away we are suppose to buy that the car was in some under ground passage, some versions include the girls turning on the headlights ( which would work a short time underwater ) and saw the creatures that lived in these passages.

i find that story total rubbish.

the next, might just get a hit on here, someone might just say they know where it did happen, like always prove it, it would be cool.

a young late teens man in 68 is getting drafted to fight in Vietnam, so he goes to a car dealer ( not sure where he got the $$$ ) and he buys a new car, the make and model change but its always something thats rare and desirible in todays cruiser gearhead world,

so the kid drives the car only a few miles parks it in the garage goes to war and sadly dies,

his greving mother covers the car and forgets it, then a few decades later a guy who is there in her garage usually for some good Samaritan reason asks about the car under the tarp, she teary eyed tells him the story and he offers to buy it,

depending on version the car is sometimes a gift but always dirt pennies on the dollar cheap, the happy new owner then jumps in a car that been sitting neglected all that time and drives it home.

while perhaps somewhere a greving mom sold a passed sons car the ridiculous embeliments are what makes the various cruise spot verions so endearing.

 

[Davros of Skaro]

I seen an instance where a mother was selling her son's $20k Honda Goldwing cruiser for $7k. Her son died in Iraq/Afghanistan? It hardly had 1k miles on it.

I like the UL where a couple runs out of gas on a lonely dark road at night. The BF goes to get gas, and the gf falls asleep, but wakes up to slight scratching on the roof, but goes back to sleep. She gets woken up by the police. They tell her to not look behind her as they help her out of the car.

She looks behind her to see her bf hanging upside-down with his fingernails scratching the roof.

[rashore]

Heh, I've heard of the second one before. The holy grail car. There's just enough of it that happens to help the hope along.

When I was a kid, my older brother and his buddies always scanned and searched the car trader mags and so on for it. A couple of them came sort of close, lol. Not quite so much drama about why the car was stored, but finding the car they loved most in excellent shape stored away somewhere. They got a good deal, but not that sweet deal. And always had to have it towed out because they weren't stupid enough to try starting it there on the spot.

Not quite so UL, but some really sweet cars have been discovered in storage: https://www.hotcars.com/super-rare-cars-that-were-found-hiding-in-storage/

https://www.foxnews.com/auto/barn-find-condition-2009-chevrolet-corvette-z06-found-in-storage-unit-up-for-auction

https://www.latimes.com/local/la-xpm-2012-dec-21-la-me-old-corvette-20121221-story.html

Some serious barn finds: https://www.hagerty.com/articles-videos/articles/2018/12/19/barn-find-hunter-uncovers-fortune-in-vintage-cars

https://yeahmotor.com/cars/barn-finds/

https://www.classicandsportscar.com/gallery/30-greatest-barn-finds-all-time

 

 

[the13bats]

7 hours ago, Davros of Skaro said:

I seen an instance where a mother was selling her son's $20k Honda Goldwing cruiser for $7k. Her son died in Iraq/Afghanistan? It hardly had 1k miles on it.

While i think these stories do not form out of thin air its the endless versions embellishments and tellers who are adamant their version is true because they know,

Davros, this is a version ive heard many times of the story i told about the vet, knowing cycles its not hard for a 20 k honda dresser to become only worth 7k or less even with low miles, my Vietnam version is old school, yours is the modern vamping ive started hearing your same tale but the car is of course some updated import turner dream not a cycle, and is likely actually happening iut there due to the nature that after the late 70s most cars became throw away,

i had forgotten the murdered bf one, it had a zillion versions i like where the bf gets back puts fuel in the car gets in they hear scratching and peel off, then when they get where they were going they discover a hook hand or hay hook on the rear bumper.

rashore, being the internet is the new campfire these barn, warehouse find stories are all over, but ive seen they are written for dramatic flare, normally its not like the stories lead one to believe,  like with the long lost rare lambo that wasnt all that lost.

and we too late 70s early 80s used the newsprint auto trader to find our parts and cars we could afford, that was a time a cherry 60s 302 stang could be bought under 1k, and ragged out VWs were free, by the gas crunch no one wanted muscle cars and into the 80s they were still cheap, around 80 i didnt buy a hemi cuda because i didnt like the color, lol 2k, but i anted up 4500 for a bb convertible vette, i got stupid and swapped it.

our local story was around 1980 an angry ex wife stuck the husbands mint 78 corvette pace car on the trader for 50.00,

the versions vary but the catch in one was the buyer had to rub the husbands nose in it,

i researched the hell out of that tale and a very reliable source from autotrader told me to the effect that rare bargains did pop up it but wasnt like 50.00 on 15k and had that happened he would have known about it.

being i am a car person who likes vettes a story came out in print many years back, very heart felt of a dad of a passed son who kept his sons custom vette for years but decided to sell and money wasnt the object keeping it as the son wanted it to be was, as a person who has always gone george barris on his cars i smelled bs,

swems the dad turned down countless offers of people wanting to return the car to stock but finally basically just about gave it to a kid who reminded him of his son,

then copy cat stories popped up and i was too ADD bored to research it further but it had far too many holes for me to believe the version i read.

 

 

[+Desertrat56]

The VW bug story cannot be true because they don't sink, they float.  My mother had a VW bug and had the experience of hitting water from a flash flood and floating down  a few streets before she hit land and could drive again.

[Davros of Skaro]

@the13bats

 

Just so you know the Honda story is true. I saw it first hand because it was to the side in the garage of an auto glass shop. I'm not into bikes, but if I had the money then I would have bought it. I would drive that beautiful blue Goldwing.

[the13bats]

23 minutes ago, Davros of Skaro said:

@the13bats

 

Just so you know the Honda story is true. I saw it first hand because it was to the side in the garage of an auto glass shop. I'm not into bikes, but if I had the money then I would have bought it. I would drive that beautiful blue Goldwing.

of course, they are always true....

[Herr Falukorv]

1 hour ago, the13bats said:

 

our local story was around 1980 an angry ex wife stuck the husbands mint 78 corvette pace car on the trader for 50.00,

the versions vary but the catch in one was the buyer had to rub the husbands nose in it,

 

Yep heard a tale here in sweden some 15-20 years ago..
The husband had cheated on his wife so she sold his porsche for 50sek (5 dollar)
probably never happened

[the13bats]

8 minutes ago, Herr Falukorv said:

Yep heard a tale here in sweden some 15-20 years ago..
The husband had cheated on his wife so she sold his porsche for 50sek (5 dollar)
probably never happened

cool...its, worldwide i think something fueled the myths, i get a kick out of all the variations and those who insist their version really happened.

in the 80s i knew a guy who was about 60 then i thought he was so old, lol  i went to his shop one day and an old lead sled was getting bodywork for paint, it had countless round filler spots, about as big round as a coffee mug, i asked what the hell ? well the story was the wife an excitable paranoid thought hubby was cheating,  he wasnt he was talking with the wifes sister and mom about a surprise vacation for her birthday.  oops.

 

 

 

[rashore]

Do hell rides count more to UL or no? I find those legends a ton of fun too. Drive a particular route and it takes you to hell. There's a LOT of varying details with this one depending on the location. Ones I grew up with were mostly in the midwest. Plenty of people really did drive, or try to drive the routes.. but most of the tales of UL status were always about another time.. with other folks in someone elses car... ect.

And while driving... the UL's of particular roadside places or sections of roads where there's crazy people who might attack/chase your car- on foot, in a vehicle, even on horseback or the like. Some of that gets more into ghosts than UL's though. Satanists, BEK's, Killer Clowns, and Backseat/Undercar creepers might count.

Back to buying rides. The one that the guy finds a prime car including spotless looking interior for dirt cheap. The reason? Car interior stinks to high heaven because a murder happened in the car and the stink can't be gotten rid of. Even though the interior is spotless. Bonus storytelling points if this one was supposed to have come from a police auction source

[Davros of Skaro]

3 hours ago, the13bats said:

of course, they are always true....

A friend of mine inherited 20k from a deceased grandfather. Saw an ad for his dream car. I forget (not looking it up) a Chevelle with an LX-6 engine. It was cherry. Long story short he wrecked a 1/4 mile drag car going around sharp gravel laden roads (totalled he was all right). About 10 years later I see his model at auction 100k. Ripley's believe it, or not.

[the13bats]

its nothing for ripley that old muscle cars that once were cheap as dirt now some restro mods or special optioned stock model go high at buyme jackass type auctions where guys will pay 100 k for a solid 40k car,

but no 'velle came with an "LX-6" ( what engine is that? )

did you mean LS6 454?

Hell routes, the problem is once a person says for example 411 from 50 to 436 is cursed one can research stats and see its not,

I love stephen kings "Mrs Todds Shortcut"

myth buster which i liked but found they pigeon holed things did that stink in a car, let a pig rot in a c4 corvette, but decaying meat ruins interiors, and gets into fibers, they sold it cheap for parts,

about 15 years ago i gave a buddy a ride to a police impound, his junkie step mother sat in her old cutlass shot up in a big groin vein and i guess ODed or bleed to death or both in the drivers seat,

it basically looked like a person poured about 3 gals chocolate syrup in the leather seat, some went in the floor, heat, bugs, etc it was horrid, the smell was ariund the car a good 20 feet, the inside had become like a greenhouse,

so they gave joe a white disposable jump suit, and he got it started but decided he wanted to clean it before an hour drive home, the carpet was gone, the seat ruined, and this was just from blood,  it always had a weird stink,

i believe cars are sold that people died in but the only way they were clean is if many expensive interior parts were replaced, and the newer the car the worse, all the ac heat ducts will hold that smell forever,

i once left leftover sushi in the back of my 69 vette, it only took about 10 days to eat through the plastic container and bag and into the old loop carpet that it disintegrated, then the smell was in the fiberglass under the carpet, it took daily soakings with straight bleach to kill it, but where it sat still stained the fiberglass.

 

[Davros of Skaro]

@the13bats

Yes. The LS6 454 sounds right with matching numbers, low mileage, and no bondo etc. I'm not really into cars, but that was a very sweet car. I remember telling him he should store it till he gets older (he was 18).

Edited September 21, 2019 by Davros of Skaro

[Gwynbleidd]

You know what Batty? When I first saw this thread it immediately reminded me of two cars in particular -

The 1st one was Christine, that 1958 Plymouth Fury in the movie from the book written by Stephen King.  I always thought his inspiration was from the 2nd car in my list actually.  I was way off!  His inspiration was from driving into his driveway and seeing his odometer click from 9999.9 over to 10000. You can read a short article on it here. https://www.stephenking.com/library/novel/christine_inspiration.html

The 2nd car was the one that James Dean died in which was nicknamed The Little b******.  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_James_Dean#%22Curse%22_of_Dean's_car

 

[Stiff]

On 9/20/2019 at 11:59 PM, the13bats said:

the ac heat ducts will hold that smell forever,

On a similar note, back in the 90's we had an old foreman at a forklift company I worked at who was forever complaining about the younger guys having to use his company van to deliver parts and such. One day, one of the lads had to use the van to go to a fish factory. He'd took one of the dead, rotting fish that was on the forklift (they got everywhere) unscrewed the heater matrix and popping the rotting fish in there. It stunk. The old guy washed his van the next day and searched high and low for the source of the rancid aroma but never found it. It was unbearable in winter with the heater switched on so he rarely switched it on and we often saw him with hat, scarf, gloves and big coat when driving it. Nobody wanted to use the van after that so he got his way in the end 

Never did get rid of that smell and it was there till the day the vans were moved on for newer ones a few years later.

[XenoFish]

The only wreck I ever got it was on a Sunday morning back in early 2000's. We'd moved and there was one box left at the old rental I needed to get. It could'a waited till Monday but I figure "Why not get it done.". So I head out it's maybe 9-10 in the morning. I get behind a church bus full of kids, then all the sudden I get slammed by a car behind me. Bent the frame of my work truck a little, but destroyed the whole front end of the guy's car (I ended up in someone's front yard, got whiplash pretty bad too). Apparently he had robbed a gas station and was making his get away. So I got between him and a bus full of kids. Makes me think sometimes. 

[the13bats]

On 9/21/2019 at 3:15 AM, Davros of Skaro said:

@the13bats

Yes. The LS6 454 sounds right with matching numbers, low mileage, and no bondo etc. I'm not really into cars, but that was a very sweet car. I remember telling him he should store it till he gets older (he was 18).

the big block cars were always more desirable and now fetch tall money but 100k is very high on a 'velle that isnt a "special" car like copo or yenko etc something more that just stock numbers matching, but many restro mods do go 70s 80s,

4 hours ago, Stiff said:

On a similar note, back in the 90's we had an old foreman at a forklift company I worked.....
 

 

Late 70s early 80s a buddy had a hand me down ragged out rusty 68 camaro, a free car then now in that shape would fetch 5k,

so he was always playing jokes on people and to this day not sure but i have suspicions who did it to him, someone laid a slab of limburger cheese and a sardine on the cars intake manifold, it smelled pretty bad all heated up and at a stop light drive thru etc it would be bad, and to make it worse or more fun notes would be on the back of the car blaming the smells on kevin the cars owner, even pressure washing didnt fully fix it so he swapped out the manifold.

but real fish like in that guys heater vent in the back of my car or on kevins engine can just be horrid.

[Matt221]

On 9/20/2019 at 7:23 AM, the13bats said:

I guess these are tall tales or "urban legends" both tales i have heard many times but the one with the war veteran is so very popular that most care cruises will have at least loud mouth who insists is was a family member or close friend who either died or bought the car cheap.

The first involves girls 2 or 3 in an old air cooled volkswagen beetle, florida is full of sink holes that become lakes and natural springs the springs are great for mining fossils,

so depending on the version of the story the beetle drives into a sink hole lake and vanishes, then at some point later a beetle is found in another lake with human skeletons inside,

or the car pops up in a spring, another version is the car acted as a diving bubble and the girls survive but are found in a lake or spring many miles away we are suppose to buy that the car was in some under ground passage, some versions include the girls turning on the headlights ( which would work a short time underwater ) and saw the creatures that lived in these passages.

i find that story total rubbish.

the next, might just get a hit on here, someone might just say they know where it did happen, like always prove it, it would be cool.

a young late teens man in 68 is getting drafted to fight in Vietnam, so he goes to a car dealer ( not sure where he got the $$$ ) and he buys a new car, the make and model change but its always something thats rare and desirible in todays cruiser gearhead world,

so the kid drives the car only a few miles parks it in the garage goes to war and sadly dies,

his greving mother covers the car and forgets it, then a few decades later a guy who is there in her garage usually for some good Samaritan reason asks about the car under the tarp, she teary eyed tells him the story and he offers to buy it,

depending on version the car is sometimes a gift but always dirt pennies on the dollar cheap, the happy new owner then jumps in a car that been sitting neglected all that time and drives it home.

while perhaps somewhere a greving mom sold a passed sons car the ridiculous embeliments are what makes the various cruise spot verions so endearing.

 

The second one was used in a waltons episode the only difference it was ww1 not vietnam

[the13bats]

a varation in a way to the dead son story which i guess falls more under just fish tales and BS is at a car cruise a person will let you know that while your car is "okay" ( a bit of faint praise damnning ) they or fill i  family members _________ has a far nicer, better, faster more rare one, of course they have no pictures and the car isnt at the show, and they got it free or next to free in some wild story akin to the dead son.

normally this guy rode to the show in a buddies wifes mini van.

[Scholar4Truth]

On 9/20/2019 at 1:23 AM, the13bats said:

I guess these are tall tales or "urban legends" both tales i have heard many times but the one with the war veteran is so very popular that most care cruises will have at least loud mouth who insists is was a family member or close friend who either died or bought the car cheap.

The first involves girls 2 or 3 in an old air cooled volkswagen beetle, florida is full of sink holes that become lakes and natural springs the springs are great for mining fossils,

so depending on the version of the story the beetle drives into a sink hole lake and vanishes, then at some point later a beetle is found in another lake with human skeletons inside,

or the car pops up in a spring, another version is the car acted as a diving bubble and the girls survive but are found in a lake or spring many miles away we are suppose to buy that the car was in some under ground passage, some versions include the girls turning on the headlights ( which would work a short time underwater ) and saw the creatures that lived in these passages.

i find that story total rubbish.

the next, might just get a hit on here, someone might just say they know where it did happen, like always prove it, it would be cool.

a young late teens man in 68 is getting drafted to fight in Vietnam, so he goes to a car dealer ( not sure where he got the $$$ ) and he buys a new car, the make and model change but its always something thats rare and desirible in todays cruiser gearhead world,

so the kid drives the car only a few miles parks it in the garage goes to war and sadly dies,

his greving mother covers the car and forgets it, then a few decades later a guy who is there in her garage usually for some good Samaritan reason asks about the car under the tarp, she teary eyed tells him the story and he offers to buy it,

depending on version the car is sometimes a gift but always dirt pennies on the dollar cheap, the happy new owner then jumps in a car that been sitting neglected all that time and drives it home.

while perhaps somewhere a greving mom sold a passed sons car the ridiculous embeliments are what makes the various cruise spot verions so endearing.

 

The story about finding skeletons is a decade old car is known as the lost wreak https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/the-lost-wreck/

There is also a version of the sold car where a wife's husband runs off with another women and she sells his Porsche for $50 https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/the-50-porsche/

Edited September 25, 2019 by Scholar4Truth

[the13bats]

2 hours ago, Scholar4Truth said:

The story about finding skeletons is a decade old car is known as the lost wreak https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/the-lost-wreck/

There is also a version of the sold car where a wife's husband runs off with another women and she sells his Porsche for $50 https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/the-50-porsche/

right, like i was saying many versions of these stories,

[Redefining Success]

On 9/20/2019 at 11:59 PM, the13bats said:

 

it basically looked like a person poured about 3 gals chocolate syrup in the leather seat, some went in the floor, heat, bugs, etc it was horrid, the smell was ariund the car a good 20 feet, the inside had become like a greenhouse,

so they gave joe a white disposable jump suit, and he got it started but decided he wanted to clean it before an hour drive home, the carpet was gone, the seat ruined, and this was just from blood,  it always had a weird stink,

 

 

We had a car many years ago which was stored at the yard, we had it for around 4 years or so as the case was investigated.

A guys wife was pregnant by another man, by all accounts they had a strict Muslim background. 

So this guy finds out, murders his wife, possibly the lover aswell, then drives around the back roads of the county throwing parts of her out the window. 

He's caught and the car is a blood bath, but it's stored as it's a crime scene. First inside in the SOCO bay, during summer a smell develops, so after the critical investigation is done, it's put outside in a corner of the yard. 

Time passes by and the windows change colour, like a heavy smokers car, yellow tinge to them, the interior disappears, literally  seats, carpet, dash and trims are disappearing, turning into a gloop, like melted plastic. 

The smell is still there and getting stronger, especially in summer. Bits of goo are starting to drip out as the rubber bungs in the floor have started to disintegrate. 

Case was closed, husband was sentenced to prison. 

Car was pushed into an industrial incinerator and destroyed. 

 

[+OverSword]

 

[karkev]

Some time in the late 1980s I was a teenager and infatuated with cars. I befriended an elderly man who drove a rather slick 1961 Impala four door sedan in gold and white. A few months after I met the man he passed and the car turned up in his son-in-law and daughter's driveway. I talked to the son-in-law (he went by the nickname, "Goat roper") who said the old man had died of a heart attack but had managed to drive himself to the hospital in the '61 before passing.

After the old man passed the family attempted to drive the car home but it would not start for any of them. Later, while going through the old man's jacket pockets, one of the men found a rotor bug (part that goes inside the distributor). Apparently, as the man was suffering a heart attack, he took the time to pop the hood, pop the distributor cap, remove the rotor bug, pocket it, replace the cap, close the hood and and walk inside to die almost immediately.

About twenty years later, Paul Harvey mentioned a New Jersey funeral home director who came to work one morning to discover a dead man behind the steering wheel of a car in his business parking lot. After identifying the man and contacting his survivors, his children told the police and press that the old man used to swear that he would drive himself to the funeral home when he felt it was his time to die.

I'm not sure what I'll be doing when the time comes for me climb into the wooden Buick for the eternal dirt nap but I just don't see myself being all about cars or saving the family a call to the local mortuary.

[+Desertrat56]

@Stiff your story reminds me of my mother's cousin, who owned a gas station and repair shop in the 60's & 70's.  He had 3 guys working for him and had an old pickup 1950 something pickup for the guys to use to get parts but his wife would show up and take the pickup and keep it all day.  One of the guys got really bothered so he rewired everything so that the window wiper knob turned on the lights the light knob turned the blinkers on and the blinkers turned the wipers on.  She made it a block before she brought the truck back and never borrowed it again.

Edited October 15, 2019 by Desertrat56