I always stay by my car so that the dipshits of this world can't get their dirty little pecker tongs all over my car. If I go for a walk-about, I roll up the windows & lock the doors & close the hood if it is up. Some people are oblivious to the amount of cash & labor we have invested. I went to the drags in a nearby city & ran into one of my fellow club members. He told me I should clean up my plug wires & lube my hood hinges? WTF? Here is a real car guy(that I know) that owns many real nice cars. I asked him how he knows that. It took til I asked him that question for him to realize that he crossed the line? Car guy or no car guy, stay the fuck away from my stuff unless you are invited!!! Look but definitely don't touch.
people are stupid. I used to work with one. he was telling me about the model A club at some shopping mall where he went to open a hood on one and could not understand why the owner did not like that. must have thought it was a ride at Disneyland. doing stupid things at a show is one thing, but in a parking lot at a store? that's a good way to get hurt. I can only assume anyone in my car at a store is trying to steal it.
I really do not know what folks are thinking when they feel the urge to use someone else's property as their own.. The one and only time I had a car at our big outdoor show I came back from getting coffee to find a woman rummaging through a pile of crap on my hood. She had emptied out her purse all over my lacquer paint. "Lady, what do you think you're doing?" "Looking for my car keys.." What do you say to that? Another time I had my '33 parked at a restaurant and returned to find a fellow shooting pics of his two little kids using the front fender as a slide! I don't suppose there is any hope for expecting kids to grow up respecting other people's property with the examples their parents provide.. Sigh.. Dave
That as primitive a system as it is I always do. Really a no brainer. I also as I did with my vintage HD do visual checks whenever I am not there due to being out of visual range. If it's a roadster or unlockable that is a dilemma.
My wife and I took a drive down to the coast and found a nice spot to park near a little beach in Laguna, CA. After hanging out at the beach for a short time we walked back to the car and as we approached there were a couple of teenage girls in bikini's posing in front of my car and sitting on the tires, while a friend took their pictures. They left before we got back to the car, but I wasn't upset about it, I thought it was pretty cool. The wife was less enthused about it....
Fact: no matter how your old car looks or how much time and money you spent on it, 90% of the population considers it, "just an old car" and because of that, fucking with it is okay.
Happened to me twice in one day at a hot rod run in my 32 sedan. First some big fat f**k let himself in and sat in the drivers seat. Didn't like it when I told him to get out. Then later two young kids using the front fender as a slippery slide!!!
No cant lock the doors. The button in the handle wont turn. And the rod to lock from the inside is gone. Something I now plan on fixing very soon.
I've been enjoying the HAMB for ten years and have never read a thread that has shocked me more than this one has. Call me naive but I could never imagine someone having the audacity to sit in or even open the doors on someone else's car. I hope to someday finish and drive my '40 but now I'm having to reconsider ever leaving it unattended.
I have never had someone it in my car however I did come out of a diner to find to college girls sitting on the fender taking "selfies". I told them "To please get off my car." They couldn't understand why I was upset they were only taking photos. When I told them because I don't want people sitting on my car scratching the paint they looked in bewilderment. The fact it was not their car was not enough of a reason not to do it!
I sometimes walk outside at work and see dozens of teens sitting in my bus I sometimes get mad then realize I'm a teacher
Geez, all I got's a tweaker sitting in the pass-side of my DD one nite, coming out of the local store. Said he must have mistaken it for his wife's car. I told him to GTFO before I knocked his tooth out.
Kind of gives some validation to the "Please don't touch" sign guys (if people actually abide by them). It's never happened to me..but I know I wouldn't be all polite and welcoming. So, I guess if your house is interesting to them, and unlocked, it would also be okay to go inside and check it out? Why do people do, what people do?
So a drug patent is good for 20 years before it goes public...... A copyright holds for 70 years....... Well there must be a law somewhere that after a certain amount of years a vehicle is public domain and fair game to cop a feel.
Yup, happened to me, hot Saturday nite on robson street in Vancouver, one of the few times I ever got Mrs Troll into my T bucket. We stopped on the street, corner parking spot, went into an ice cream shop and returned five or ten minutes later to find a child behind the wheel while his mother encouraged him. We watched for a few, before I politely asked her where her car was, she asked why, I said, I'd like to sit and play in her car. A deeper red face I've never seen, a bunch of apologies, she said she hadn't gave it a moments thought and didn't think it would hurt anything, got the kid out with more apologies. So...I offered to take the kid and her around the block, but she declined, me and the boss laughed all the way home. So, if you think it won't happen to you, it may.
Years ago I found a guy sitting in my car talking on one of those 1980's cell phones with the antennae sticking up. Asked him what he was doing and he whips out a business card telling me he wants to buy my car to add to his collection and was just checking it out. I was steaming as I was just waiting for that antennae to poke through the headliner. I ripped him up and down and he couldn't see why I was upset.
I don't think I've ever taken my 56 Chevy to a car show where some Bubba hasn't shown his over weight Bubbette how smart he is by dropping the left tail light to show her where the gas filler is. Some people have more balls then brains.
Brand new OT pick up truck, parked way down in the parking lot away from everyone, no other car around. Came back about three hours later, beater parked beside me, only car around big dent in my drivers door from them slamming their door into mine. I bent over to look at the damage and fell into the other vehicle, caved the entire door in and scratched the paint on their bed side with my keys on the way down. Got up, dusted myself off, and got in drove away.
A few months ago I took my dad to the Petersen automotive museum. The main exhibit on the ground floor was the Bugatti family legacy. Every car there was an early Bugatti (some of the most gorgeous hand crafted cars I have ever seen) after about 30 minutes of walking around I noticed a quite hefty middle eastern man walking up and leaning at roughly a 45 degree angle on the drivers side front fender of every single Bugatti so his wife could take pictures of him. And from the distance she was standing away, the pictures most likely only contained him, as she was too close to fit him and the cars in the picture. I finally had to speak up when he was lookin to climb up on one of the exhibits to get inside one of the cars. He didn’t understand me. I had to walk away at that point. I don’t know if he actually made it up inside the car, and I have no clue how he wasn’t tackled by a group of security guards.
Only other story I have is my old Ford F-250 I was selling, had it parked in a parking lot with a for sale sign on it. For some reason my dad found a guy sitting on the tailgate talking on his phone smoking a cigarette. My dad told him “it don’t look like much, but it sure as HELL isnt a park bench.” And had to escort the gentleman away from my truck.
The Jalopy Journal
