Haunted cars ......from the grave to life.

I got my avatar the “Hard” way, I hope it’s haunted. My mom would never let dad get rid of it.

 

The only thing I'm haunted by, is the memories of all the hot rods I've had to sell, in order to finish the next one.

 

SCARY!!!

 

Not particularly scary, but I've had cars which have looked out for me, I guess. Others with a big old streak of jealousy.

I owned a well known custom for nearly a decade in England- a '71 Vauxhall pick-up which had been around the houses, so to speak (it looked like a 65 ElCo that had shrunk in the wash).
It had been not particularly well looked after, but I was doing my best to fix it up as I drove it as my DD. Late one afternoon I'm not exactly driving slowly into the city, as my mother had called and missed her ride home from work.
I must've been doing 80-90 mph on a busy four-lane road which passed over a viaduct. Tore on down into town, abusing the brakes and gas, weaving though the narrow streets, ducking and dodging the parked cars into incoming traffic- the roads in and around the city date to mediaeval times, horses and carts were narrower and slower back in the day.
I round the corner outside my mother's office, nudge the curb and BANG, the front left wheel disappears up into the wheel well, bringing the car to an abrupt halt. I hate to think what would've happened had the ball joint failed ten minutes sooner, nor why it didn't fail as I was hightailing it through the city.

Same car, different day- the Buick 215 gets a really bad rap for being a turd- am all aluminum block and heads combination, known for overheating and locking up solid never to run again.
The small coolant return line from the intake to the radiator broke off and gently emptied the engine of water at 60 mph on the freeway. I glanced in the mirror, car burbling along happily, a haze of smoke behind me... Looked down at the temperature gauge, which was pegged off the bad end of H- let off the gas and pulled onto the shoulder, coasted the final hundred feet as the engine seized up.
The oil was boiling, it was so hot. 2 hours of sitting at the side of the road and adding water still boiled and thumped as I poured it in.
Twisted the key and not only did it crank over but fired up. Drove to where I was going and back and didn't even use a drop of water. That car looked out for me, I swear.

Second one, jealousy. I had bought an OT 1990 Nissan Bluebird. It was a nice car, bright red, shiny, with all the bells and whistles. The motor was warmed over a little and I drove it like I had stolen it, everywhere. It behaved flawlessly, needing only regular maintenance. My fiance (now wife) came to visit, so we went on a road trip to see all the sights- Stonehenge, Edinburgh, all the "must-do" places. We hop in the car which proceeded to crank but not fire, then the sunroof jammed open. Then the passenger door glass fell off it's tracks and vanished down into the door. Then the turbo decided it didn't want to spin any more so driving it was horrible on the highway. We caught rain on the way home, I put the wipers on and the driver's side arm came detached from the linkage and refused to go back on (I spent the rest of the journey leaning against my now-wife to look out the passenger side).
The morning she was due to leave, I went out to start the car and it only had compression on one cylinder, having overnight completely blown its head gasket. Jealous car. Sold it, and to this day (15 years on) it's still going.

Thankfully my Pontiac hasn't had any episodes like that...

 

Has anyone listened to “Haunted Hotrod “ by Ryan Cain and the Abel’s? Check it out on YouTube, it’s hilarious, especially his description of the car. It sounds like my ‘50.

 

Halloween is over and apparently so is the discussion about haunted cars. Well perhaps next year.