There is a story behind every car....
Cars adopt a personality somewhere along the way through their history. I think that the persone who cares most about their car becomes imprinted on that car.
I have a few wierd stories to tell from personal experience.
1. I owned a Volvo 244DL, it was more reliable than a golden retreiver.... It always ran, never skipped a beat. I worked on the car relentlessly trying to make it look decent, doing some bump work on it, replacing sheetmetal -the whole rear clip, removing trim, adding custom features, customizing the front end- don't ask, it was the 80s...
Anyway, my friends knew how much I was into the car. I was the group driver, going from place to place..Well one day, my friends decided to play a joke on me. I ran in to get some smokes, and my friends stayed in the car. I came back, put my key in the ignition and proceeded to drive off. My friends turned ghostly white. "STOP THE CAR!!!" my friends said. OK...? What gives?
"Dude, open the hood!!" my buddy says. Needless to say, I comply. I look down, and before my eyes, 3 of the distributor wires are disengaged. Now, mind you, this is a 4 cylinder engine.....
2. One instance I can specifically remember with my Volvo. I was driving back from Cleveland to Detroit, and my car started making a funny sound. I was hoping it would go away or it was not that critical that my engine would die. I started losing power and the noise got worse. I was nearly at the 1/2 way point of my journey, with quite a ways to a rest stop and I just kept going and hoping that the car would make it. I did not stop in fear of certain failure to restart.
I drove it right to the shop, and had my mom pick me up. I got the car from the mechanic the next day- He asked me where I broke down. I told him I drove it in from Ohio. He said that would have been impossible. The clutch fan went, the power steering went and the tension on the alternator belt was nearly non-existant. I just laughed and payed for the repairs....
That car was most certainly a freak. I ended up stripping it down to repaint it and losing pieces, interest and eventually giving up on it. I donated the car to one local cause. I think it is still on the road...
3. I owned a first series Datsun 240Z. It was a screamer. LArger displacement 2.8L inline 6, tripple carbs, It ran like the devil. It was a light metallic green. I bought it as a track car, and went through it with a fine tooth comb, replacing item after item, making that thing handle and run awesome.
Well, I was coming home from a quick errand, driving down Woodward Ave, 2 streets from our house, approaching a red traffic light that was about to turn green. I am nearly at a crawl at this point, then from the other street & direction I see an ambulance that just hits the lights and sirens. Now the light is green, the ambulance is at the intersection, and so am I. The ambulance slamms the brakes, and the ambulance driver looks through me. Instantly, I know whats up. It takes a split second to see what's coming and to react accordingly.
WHAM!
I was rear-ended at 50mph by a Jeep Cherokee, and I am in a Dastun 240Z at a roll/dead stop. I have a racing harness on. The force of impact throws the car into the intersection, but I do not hit that ambulance. When I became cognizant again- there were police and rescue all around, scratching their heads.
The rear end was crumpled, the doors were straight, no gas was spilled - (tank in the rear) no glass was broken. Not even the big bcak glass. The police said they never had seen anything like it before. A crash at that speed - SUV and small car, not fatality, no broken glass.
They asked me to move the car and get out. The doors were stuck. The throttle linkage was broken, as well as the seat track, and the rear strut springs were stuck on the flange all jacked up. The cars was shorter by 2.5 inches! The door-skins we peeled from the door inners- essentially an overlap gap at the B-pillar.
Cursed? No. Gaurdian angel? maybe. Haunted? Fate?
I will never know. This cloud definitely had a silver lining. The car was totalled, I got all of my money back in spades. I parted that car out, built another 240Z and made some more coin. That, my friends, is how I got here.
