43 replies to this topic

[Markway]

This one may actually be true.

The story goes like this. Someone, often two homosexual men, commit suicide with a gun in a new Corvette. They are found months later, but the smell is so bad that some used car dealer is offering the car for some outrageously low price.

I heard this one on Johnnie Carson as an Urban Legend, (he was hostile to the supernatural), but before that, I had heard it from a gearhead friend of mine who looked at one out in Lynden Washington. He said that you couldn't get downwind of it or you would "blow chunks".

As a little bonus, one of my two best friends had a job as an automobile upholsterer, and upon one occaision had to clean up jellied blood from underneath a car seat being somewhat the worse for having held a long term suicide. If you think about how many people commit suicide, there have to be some taking place in cars.

[IceGoddess]

EW!

[bruisepristine]

great, now i'll never get that corvette i always dreamed of...

[Vampchick21]

The Death Car actually has a version for quite literally every region in the world that has cars Sometimes it's as initally described by Markway, sometimes it's a single suicide, sometimes it's a murder victim. I have a book somewhere in this house that has what that author believes to be the root story behind this legend, but who knows exactly where it originated or which of the many, many tales is the original one.

[Simmy]

You know, when my partner and i were restoring an old car and we'd go to the car wreckers to get parts...i always felt like it was a graveyard, i didnt like that feeling, i loved being there, but all those smashed cars, there had to of been some cars there that has lost a human life or two, its rather creepy! Oh and i used to go to a truck place where they took all the smashed trucks, you just know that most of them that are thre, were fatalitys'..thats a creepy feeling too!

Plus I treat my cars like they have a soul, heart and mind lol...so i feel sad when i go there and see all those sore cars

[Bobnoxious]

I'd say this one is classic urban legend. The main reason is because it has such a standard "moral" to it: "You get what you pay for" or "if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is". The car in question is almost always new and a very desirable model, and the asking price is usually so low that any car dealer would just sell the thing for scrap rather than try to sell it for the reported amount.

People absolutely do kill themselves in cars. Who hasn't seen a movie or TV show where someone shuts the garage up tight, turns on the engine, and sits back and waits to die from carbon monoxide inhalation? And of course people also get murdered in cars. However, even if the victim had remained undiscovered in the car long enough for the putrefying bodily fluids to soak into the upholstery, all one would need to do to eradicate the stench is simply replace the seat. Unless, of course, we're talking a supernatural stink. However, none of the death car stories seems to indicate anything supernatural.

The fact that Markway heard the story directly from someone who claimed to have encountered a "death car" personally is pretty rare. Most of the time, this is a "friend of a friend" story. Certainly possible that this guy did run across such a car, but anything that would cause a person to "blow chunks" just from standing downwind of it isn't likely to get off the lot even at the dramatically reduced price the death car usually sells for. How would you drive it away if you had to stop every couple of feet to puke out the window?

[Axman]

I bought a car with a bad smell in it once. I noticed the odor a few days after purchasing it. I spent the afternoon cleaning the car out and scrubbing everything. Upon finishing I closed up the car and went inside the next day the smell returned. After work I returned home and took the back seat out. There was the remnants of a spilled milkshake under the back seat.

[Bridget]

They experimented with a rendition of this on "Mythbusters". They used a dead pig to test the theory in an old Corvette. But for the life of me I can't remember how it turned out! I just remember during the renovation process, the guys were pretty grossed out!

[Bobnoxious]

Axman, on Mar 6 2005, 03:58 PM, said:

I bought a car with a bad smell in it once. I noticed the odor a few days after purchasing it. I spent the afternoon cleaning the car out and scrubbing everything. Upon finishing I closed up the car and went inside the next day the smell returned. After work I returned home and took the back seat out. There was the remnants of a spilled milkshake under the back seat.

LOL! I known some guys whose cars were like that. Seinfeld also did an episode about a bad smelling car, although in that case it was caused by someone's BO. Sad to say, I've known one or two guys like that , too. And as Bridget's comment on the Myth Busters guys and the dead pig... they're better men than I. I don't mind doing the dowsing rod experiment, but I draw the line at leaving dead animals in my car.

[Markway]

I never fleshed-out my death-car story. I feel that I am too long winded and was trying to be more concise.

In college I worked in a Pizza parlour-cum -tavern. Two of the guys I met there were named Bruce Burke, and Jeff Grass. Jeff is now an attorney in Seattle, I haven't heard from Bruce in years. I give you their names as I cannot believe that this would upset them, and besides, I'm not using MY regular name, although they might guess.

Anyway, these two guys were real hot-rodders. Jeff became an attorney after discovering that he enjoyed argueing his traffic tickets in court. Bruce had an Oldsmobile 442, Jeff, a custom Ford Galaxy with a 4-5? Litre engine and custom racing slicks. For kicks they used to pull up to an intersection with a cop and then drive through the red light. Then it was ...RACE TIME!

Anyhow, Bruce's brother came back from the army and wanted his car back. Bruce was like a Heroin addict with no Horse, but he didn't have much money so he went looking for a deal. That's how he found the "Death Car".

The "Death Car" was a Corvette, the product of a murder suicide pact between two gay men who had pulled into the bushes for privacy. The car ended up at a used car lot in Lynden for $350.00. Bruce and Jeff went to look at the car, but couldn't get down-wind of the darn thing. I AM NO EXPERT ON CARS, but Bruce told me that the Corvette couldn't be cleaned on account of the body being made from fiberglass. Being a little cheap, I was yelling, "Buy! Buy!, you could at least sell the motor!". No dice.

As a fill-in car, I think that Bruce bought a used hearse with some huge engine or other, a little ironic. He went from that to a hot Harley-Davidson motorcycle; a coffin in the making.

[Bobnoxious]

Markway, on Mar 6 2005, 08:31 PM, said:

Quote

I never fleshed-out  my death-car story.  I feel that I am too long winded and was trying to be more concise. 

Thanks for doing so now. I personally like longer posts with more details, as is no doubt obvious by ridiculously long posts I sometimes make.

Quote

The "Death Car" was a Corvette, the product of a murder suicide pact between two gay men who had pulled into the bushes for privacy.  The car ended up at a used car lot in Lynden for $350.00.  Bruce and Jeff went to look at the car, but couldn't get down-wind of the darn thing.  I AM NO EXPERT ON CARS, but Bruce told me that the Corvette couldn't be cleaned on account of the body being made from fiberglass.  Being a little cheap, I was yelling, "Buy! Buy!, you could at least sell the motor!". No dice.

With the added details, I'd say your friend's story is believable. I'm assuming this was a fair number of years ago, so $350.00 isn't nearly as cheap as the "death car" of urban legend fame goes for. Also the fact that your friend didn't actually buy the car is markedly different from the legend. Not unlike the fast food urban legends. Although the stories about Kentucky Fried Rats and the like that get spread the most are usually bunk, things similar though less exciting do take place. Sounds like that may be the case here.

By the way, when your friend bought the hearse, hotrodder that he was did he trick it out? I have visions of the Munsters car in my head.

[DarkAlleys]

This all reminds me of the Porsche in which James Dean died in '55. Somewhere I read the wreck was displayed a few places around the country and, supposedly, bad things always happened around it. It "disappeared" on the open road while on the way to another display. Anyone hear if it was ever re-discovered? Or know any more about the "bad things" associated with it?

[Noelle1966]

I also read that the car that the Czar of Russia was shot in (beginning World War I) was also a car of bad luck for everyone around it. It was finally destroyed by the allies in World War II.

[Vampchick21]

That was Archduke Franz Ferdinand heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and his wife, assassinated in Sarajevo. The Czar of Russia was murdered by the Bolshivicks (sp?) in July 1918 in Seberia, outside of the house he and his family were held prisoner in. And there's that whole Arch Duchess Annistasia thing from that. Never heard anything about the Archduke Franz' car though.

As to James Dean's car, I checked Snopes, and they have no mention of what happened to the car after it supposedly disappeared off the back of the truck transporting it in 1958.

[Noelle1966]

Ok - that's right. Shame on me for not knowing my history! Anyway, the car was supposed to be bad luck for everyone who came in contact with it.