Like many of you BangShifters, I love to peruse Craigslist for deals on cheap cars. Lately, I’ve had a thing for old Dodge trucks, and since most of them have rusted away to nothingness where I live, I point my search a little further south with dreams of doing a super sketchy ‘fly and drive” scenario on a rust free D100/D150 bouncing around in my head. I also include vans in my search, because custom vans are sweet. And every once in a while, folks, you strike gold.
As I was perusing the selection of fine vehicles on the Richmond, VA Craigslist, this headline grabbed my attention:
Wrecked 2001 Dodge Ram 3500 Wagon – May be possessed – $750
Uh… WHAT? Yeah, I’m definitely clicking that! I was greeted with a word castle of epic proportions, detailing how and why the seller thinks the van is damned for all eternity. See for yourself:
First things first. This van is cursed. Please, oh please take it away from my house before it kills me. Secondly, the mileage listed above is wrong. Read on, dear buyer, and find out why.
I bought this van for our delivery drivers to deliver newspapers in. Since the driver’s had no ownership in the van, they didn’t care what happened to it. First, a yellow scrape appeared on the passenger side. These things happen, they say. Then it backed into a little old lady in a PT Cruiser. Nearly totaled her car and literally didn’t scratch the unbelievably sturdy bumper on the back of this nightmare. “I didn’t see her back there,” they say. “That’s why I left and the police called you asking about a hit and run involving your truck,” they say.
For a little while after that, things were fine. According to the VIN, this is equipped with the 5.2 liter V8 making dizzying amounts of power and torque. Dizzyingly low, but dizzying all the same. 225hp at 4400rpm and 295ftlbs at 3200rpm, if you were wondering. Still, it has enough get up and go to get out of its own way and run over little old lady’s PT Cruisers without any problems.
Then I got a phone call.
Employee: “Um, bossman? I need you to come out to RoadName.”
Me: “Oh, what’s up?”
E: “I, uh, hit something.”
So I figure he’s hit another PT Cruiser, no big deal. Not a fan of their styling anyway.
I get there and he’s rear-ended an EIGHT HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLAR JOHN DEERE TRACTOR THAT IS LITERALLY 15 FEET WIDE. HOW A TRACTOR SNUCK OUT IN THE ROAD IN FRONT OF YOU IS A MYSTERY I’LL TAKE TO MY GRAVE. YOU COULD HAVE FLIPPED THE VAN INTO A PARKING LOT OF RARE NASH METROPOLITANS AND NOT HIT 50 THINGS TOTALING THAT KIND OF MONEY.
The tractor drove away with some minor damage that the kindly farmer decided to fix himself. The van has never moved under its own power again. We towed it to our friend’s shop where it sat for a few months while I secretly hoped that my friend would burn it or file an abandoned vehicle title and take it from me before it killed again, but no. He called and asked me to come get it.
I called another friend and he came over with his rollback wrecker and towed it the hour to my office. When he got there, he came inside and said: “The van just rolled into your car.” “Get out of here, you hilarious jokester,” I said.
“No,” he says, “The thing up and rolled off the truck and rolled into your car. Did you just get a new car?”
“No,” I said. “That would be the loaner vehicle from the dealership while they’re changing my oil.”
TEN AND A HALF THOUSAND DOLLARS OF DAMAGE to the dealership’s car. The demon-van? Not a scratch.
If you’re keeping score, that’s assault of one yellow pole, hit and run on at least one PT Cruiser, aggravated assault of a gigantic John Deere and attempted murder of a dealership’s car with about 2000 miles on it.
I don’t want this van in my life anymore. I am sure there are some useful things you could do with it. Like burn it at the stake. Or store old tires in it. Or live in it down by the river. I don’t care. Just take it away. I bet this thing would beat everything at the local demolition derby, as long as you back into everyone and there aren’t any John Deere’s competing.
In all seriousness, I *believe* it would try and kill again, I mean run again if someone pulled the radiator out of the engine, replaced the belt driven fan and the C-shaped radiator. I am not willing to try. I am terrified that it will at some point succeed in either killing me or causing me to kill myself. I would haul it to the scrapyard, where they’d pay me a few hundred dollars and then crush it, but I’m scared to move it.
Also, when I went by to take pictures today, the front seats are gone. I don’t know where they went. Maybe, if you’re lucky, that was the cursed portion of the van and everything will be fine. The mileage listed (157,896) is incorrect, since the odometer requires that I put a battery in the truck and the only way I can be sure that it won’t come after me is if the wheels are chocked and the battery is dead. If that matters to you, I will risk my life and sanity to find out what the actual mileage is.
Pros:
Really sturdy rear bumper.
Lots of space inside, especially now that the front seats are gone. I’ll throw in a five-gallon bucket to sit on if you want.
Lots of windows for not seeing PT Cruisers out of.
Spacious front windshield for not seeing John Deere’s out of.
Rare long wheelbase model, what for hitting poles with.
35-gallon fuel tank. There may even be gas left in it.
Sold new for $26,365.
According to dodgeforum.com’s VIN decoder, it was manufactured in Canada. Who knew.
Fairly new tires with good tread.Cons:
Will try to kill everything you love.Edit to add: I listed this on an auction site and they were kind enough to provide a vehicle report detailing the history of this vehicle. In short, its previous owners before me have had just as much misery as I have. It’s been wrecked, sold, used in a rental fleet, repossessed and sold at auction at least twice.
Fine print: This van is sold as is, where is, and how is. You are responsible for moving it. I don’t know how. It fits on a rollback if by fits you mean hangs over the rear of the truck far enough to need an escort vehicle blocking traffic. There is no guarantee, no warranty, and no promises expressed or implied. I also cannot promise I won’t laugh hysterically as you leave, dragging this demon infested, life-ruining piece of Manitoba engineering out of my world forever.
This thing has been punched in the mouth a few times, most notably by a very expensive John Deere tractor.
That bumper looks remarkably straight for having totalled a PT Cruiser AND a practically new dealer loaner car.
Plenty of tread left on the tires though, folks!
Well, then. Maybe it IS cursed. This van has taken out a PT Cruiser, a nearly new dealership loaner car, and attempted to try and kill a very expensive John Deere tractor, but failed. Will it live to kill again? Who knows. It’s a $750 buy in to find out. Might make a great gift for your worst enemy.
Do you think this thing’s cursed? Can a vehicle even BE cursed? Let us know what you think in the comments section!
Read this?
You have to be joking!
I skipped the whole article to make this comment as I don’t want the curse to spread to my home area…….
Relax folks , the add is gone . Well then again it was made by the same corperation as Christine .
That is hilarious. I can tell you that a family friend purchased a 3rd gen camaro in the 90’s that wasn’t running. They used the sloped driveway to push it onto a flat trailer. A brake line blew the moment he hit the brakes and it went straight into the tailgate of the truck. That was only the start of what would be a miserable year or 2, before it got passed onto its next victim, I mean owner.