Yeah, it seems I’ve covered this track before. We know the famous cars from the movies that haunted us: The Duel Peterbilt, Christine, The Car, The Wraith. But that’s not what I’m going for with this week’s question. Instead, look back at your life, at all the rides you’ve encountered. There has to be one that stands out as the one that raised the hairs on the back of your neck as a kid. The one that sent a cold shiver up the back of your spine as it rolled on by. The one up the street that would make you duck every time the guy revved it up. The one you swore was going to run you and your friends down as you were out playing. The one everyone thought was running drugs…or had bodies in the trunk. THAT car.
I know the exact one I’m still freaked out about. There was a older guy that lived about two streets away from where my grandfather lived in Colorado Springs in the late 1980s. I’d join my grandpa on his daily walks and he introduced me to the guy. He was nice enough, but his car scared the holy bejeezus out of me. He had a black Lincoln Continental four-door. I was about five then, but I’m 95% sure it was a 1970…it didn’t have the Rolls-style grille like the later Marks did, but instead had that low-slung grille with the carryover trim in the center of the headlamp doors that in my young mind, looked like the eyes of a pissed-off minion just waiting on orders. The guy was always screwing around with the carb, and between the engine, fan, and the cheap-ass glass packs the car had on it, the Lincoln sounded like violence. Nowadays, I’d say something else, but the breaking point occurred later in the evening one August night.
I’ll put it bluntly: I was an unsupervised child, so I’m out playing in the yard at about…oh, nine at night…when the long black shape of the Continental creeped slowly around the corner and came to a stop at the base of the street I lived on, a one-block hill. It sat there for a minute, then, apparently feeling very froggy, he buried the pedal into the carpet. The car sank in the back and rose in the front hard, smoke started pouring out of the back of the car, and as soon as forward progress started, he turned on the headlights, flipping open the doors with the high-beams on. I’m amazed I didn’t run through the damn screen door, the car looked and sounded like the apocalypse. I asked my grandpa years later about that, and apparently the two old men had been having a war of opinions about cars, with my grandfather defending his Chrysler E-class’s fuel economy and size over the Lincoln’s old-school ways and the Lincoln guy felt like showing off.
So what car kept you awake at night and why?
Anything built by GM in the last ten years 😉
LOL
Are you sleeping dreaming that you have some choice – in a black car – I can hear your thoughts decide – I can see your dreams collide
This is where the lights turn red
This is where you’re better dead
Happy Helloween
By the way I agree – anything by GM would cause me to puke myself to death!
A ’73 Olds Ninety-Eight in black w/”here kitty kitty” license plate on the front.
My wife contends that my flat black 77 Firebird is scary, both whenever it’s behind her, or when she’s riding in it. I think those mid 70s Peterbilts in black and billowing black smoke are terrifying.
A big time fad down on the coast here is my biggest fear it can be any car really Import, Domestic, High End, Tuner. Whatever type painted obnoxiously bright colours, not high impact but bright yet bland colours such as dijon yellow, and completely covered and filled with anything Hello Kitty. That is just plain scary.
I swear my black ’65 Impala scares people. People who have never seen me or how I drive get out of it’s way. I take it to the grocery store and everytime there is some mother of young children walking down the middle of the parking row while on the phone oblivious to the world. They hear my loud exhaust, see that low gloss black paint; they hang up the phone and grab their children and practically run in between parked cars. It’s as if they had been hearing about this type of car mowing down mothers and children at Walmart parking lots on the news. It’s quite hysterical.
A black Pontiac Aztek
My first girl friends moms car driving up the driveway 😉 scared me a few times.
Currently silver people movers , bland 4 door sedans, seem to want to kill me.
Anything driven by a clown… Ice cream trucks, too
427 a/c cobra, had a dream where i was driving one, crashed it in a bad way and got killed in the crash, woke up sweating, can’t go near a cobra ever since.
Bill Cosby, is that you?
generally Prius, mainly the drivers, they act like they are not really driving, scary
Any kind of black hearse from the 40’s or 50’s. Especially junked out ones sitting out in a field, its as if death came for its minion.
I always though the 58 thru 62 model years made some of the funkiest as well as creepyu looking cars like the the ’60 Buicks http://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CAcQjRw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fphotos.aaca.org%2Fshowimage.php%3Fi%3D13461%26c%3D506&ei=De5MVIz8OoqfyQSOtoAI&bvm=bv.77880786,d.aWw&psig=AFQjCNEsvoXf2MrVR1nE3nFQYgj6Z6kn1A&ust=1414414162518078
When I was about 12 years old there was a movie car sales lot not to far from my house. Inside was the black Lincoln from the 1977 movie “The Car”. It was awesome and low and mean and had windows so dark you couldn’t see inside. So here I am with my face pressed against the window trying to get a glimpse of what was inside when the car roars to life. The un-muffled engine screams to redline, the horn is honking and the headlights are blinking on and off. I about jumped out of my skin. My parents came running sure that I was up to no good. Inside the sales office the manager was laughing like a mad man as he held the remote that controlled The Car. Everyone had a pretty good laugh at my expense. Love that car.
The infamous 1978 Mustang II Cobra, V8 powered pile of cheap tin. If you hit anything going faster than 10 mph, you and your occupants were pretty much toast.
I would trust being in the back seat of a Pinto, with a snow plow up my ass, than to ever get into another Mustang II.
JFK $ Lincoln
Any car that has a Obama 2008 and 2012 sticker on it, as if four years of this POS wasn’t bad enough.
It scares me too, that these people exist and are allowed to drive.
See Prius
I’ve always loved cars and never been in one that scared me. I have ridden with some drivers that scared the crap outta me but it wasn’t the cars fault.
As an apprentice, I got thrown an actually simple but seemingly complex diagnosis on a Land Cruiser with drive by wire throttle control. It was in failsafe mode and pushing the throttle did nothing until the bottom bit of pedal travel, where a cable provided “limp mode” throttle activation to 30% open or so.
Well, one thing led to another and I created the opposite of limp mode.
I created “death mode”.
The car drove normally to 25% throttle or so. Then?
Then it pegged redline, bouncing off the limiter. 4.7 liters of hatred. If it had been handed back to the customer, he’d have shit. Hell, it was unnerving to me enough as it was to have this thing doing it in my stall.
Took a long time before the boss figured out what must have happened…
Land Cruiser of Death.
Two days later and I am still laughing at McTaggarts description of that black Lincoln. Looked and sounded like the apocalypes. LMAO
When I was in High School it was any 1985-86 Suburban in pealing black and silver. I just knew my mom was following me.