The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area General Truck Talk Big lies and stories

What's the most outrageous vehicle story you ever heard? I mean one that is such BS, you're embarrassed for the person telling it?
My favorite is the one about a guy who buys a new car, but it seems it was a special one off built by the factory, and the factory buys it back for twice the money paid for it.

It hasn't been a week since I heard again about the corvette someone's friend said their friend's friend found in a barn and has been there since 1954. The man wouldn't sell it because it belonged to his son who died. I've heard it so many times I'm going to tell the next person they didn't make that many!!!!

Now if I could just find out where this barn is we could spot and steal.....spot it in the daytime and steal it at night :p

The barn stories of (fill in the car) the guy who left for Vietnam (always 'Nam!) and never came back for that one-of-x whatever musclecar. It's either in pristine shape (after 40 years in a non-climate controlled environment!) or it has deteriorated to the point where the guy's dad/mother/brother/uncle/cousin just can't (or won't) let it go.

Another is the one (for you Mopar fans, like me!) where the police department/state patrol/sheriff's office ordered up some HEMI-powered cop cars (NONE were EVER built by the factory at any time, nor custom-built or dealer-converted, in case you did not know!) and the story is always from the guy who swears he'd seen the car for himself. Another Mopar story is the long-lost one-of-one HEMI pickup built from '66-'71 sometime, of which there was none. That and the mysterious HEMI wagon, too!

The weirdness continues.

The one I like is the story of the 100-MPG carburetor! The inventor was either:

A. Assassainated by Big Oil

B. Bought out by Big Oil, who then deep-sixed the patent.

C. Kidnapped by a bunch of Arabs, and sold into slavery in some backwoods country.

Take your pick of the endings, they're all about the same degree of possible!
Jerry

I always like a good "barn" story........ www.carsinbarns.com

Ofcourse, the old lady that only drove it to church and it has 6,000 miles on it.

In the late 70's I actually knew a lady that had a '64 vw bug with less than 10k miles and she only drove it like once a week. I think it was to the grocery store though. She had it in a garage in SF. I wonder where that car is now.

There was a link to a corvette story on the old 'bolt.
I believe it was about a guy who bought a totally original 54 vette with only 1800 miles on it. Evidently the original owners won it in a radio contest and didn't like the way it handled wo they put it in their barn for 48 years. Anybody recall that?

My fave is the $500.00 Porsche. Seems a guy responds to a classified ad for a brand new Porsche for $500.00. The woman selling it says that her hubby ran off with his secretary and then sent her an e-mail demanding that she sell the Porsche and send him the money. She was doing as he said.

There was a real low mileage VW bug on ebay a while back. I don't know if this was the same one. Seems like this one was bought new, and never used, or kept by the dealer or something.

The story, or legend that we used to hear was about the railroad car that sat abandoned on some siding out in the desert for years and years. When it was finally opened up, it was full of brand new 1948 (or pick your year) Chevy cars. Amazing how none of these have ever surfaced either!!!

every time someone opens their mouths about oldsmobiles, I cringe.

"Hey, that thing got the original 442 CI motor in it?"
"HOw's the buick running?"
"Nice Chevelle"
"my olds has a 307 and runs 10's in the 1/4 mile!"
"why don't you just pull that olds motor and put in a 350 chevy?"
"you should have bought a caprice, you can get more hop-up parts for it" (in reality, my car has the exact same underpinnings of a caprice...everything interchanges)
"Why don't you sell your car and buy a cutlass?"

And the ever popular "I swapped in a chevy motor because I couldn't find parts to build the Olds motor the way I wanted it."

*sigh*

A while back there was some story about a Mattel HOT WHEELS designer who found a surf bus prototype in a desk drawer that Mattel bought back for $60K!!

Wish my old erasers would sell for that!

I know a true story. It is about a, I believe, 37 Chevy sedan owned by one of our stovebolters. I saw the car myself.

It is a 37 4 door Chevy sedan with 500 original miles on it. It was originally owned by a doctor who had to have his foot amputated. He was no longer able to drive a stick shift but never parted with the car. When Lou bought it it had 250 miles on it and he says he put about that much on it since he got it.

My Uncle Hollis told that one, only it was '57 Chevies and he found it himself in the '60s. He said that they were on a railroad siding to an old defunct sawmill in the Missouri bayou country where he used to hunt and fish. (He grew up there.) He said the insurance company claimed the cars and he couldn't even buy one of them, but it was no big deal because at that time they were just a few years old.

You mean he was lying? I always believed him:
a.) Because I was young and impressionable.
b.) Because he had the coolest '58 Apache pickup I had ever seen (in the '70s... I had a '47 3100 at the time).
c.) Because he home canned the meanest pepper sauce I had ever tasted.
d.) Because he had a story for any occasion.
e.) Because you just had to love my uncle Hollis.

Considering the stories I have heard over the years about the dishonesty of a few railroad employees, I wonder if multiple versions of the rail car story might have been true. Somebody diverted it, got cold feet and left it there, and never came back for the cars.

During the oil crisis in the 70's, there was a guy in Hutchinson, Kansas with a 4WD Blazer with a 350. He had wrapped the fuel line around the upper radiator hose and was getting over 100 mpg due to the pre-heated fuel. The story was all over the news. He also started selling a coiled tube that was inside the hose, claiming that with better heat transfer that the milage was even better. For some reason, he wouldn't let anyone test his Blazer's milage.

A local in my home community a gentlemen claims that he has a 1983 Corvette.

Now I haven't gotten close enough yet to see the VIN, BUT.....

Most sources claim there were very few 1983 Corvettes made and only one made it out of the factory and it is presently in a museum.

If I had a car that rare I wouldn't be driven around town in it!

Another is the 1957 Chevy dies that were sold overseas and later showed up in Turkey, where brand new 1957 Chevies can be had for near nothing! Imagine that! Now, I have actually BEEN to Turkey several times from 1989 to 1999 and, though there are old American cars there, nothing like the "new" Chevies exist, of course!

However, there are several 1948 Chryslers and DeSotos, as well as several early-'50's Chevrolet sedan still being used as taxis in Istanbul and Ankara, but these were actually BUILT in 1948, etc.

Yet another is the story of the Soviet-era ZIL sedans and limousines, supposedly built from Packard dies that the company sold the Soviets in 1958...Uh-huh. Although they DO indeed resemble 1955 Packards, there are NO parts on these cars that interchange with Packards. Even if "Packard" had sold the dies to the USSR, the company was bought the year prior by Studebaker...and they'd been in tons of trouble for dealing with a Communist government!!!

In 1994 I saw a '32 Plymouth business coupe that had less than 10k on the odometer. A Metro bus driver friend of my brother had it. When he retired we helped him move the crap out of his garage to his "cabin" (better than my house)
He bought the car in 1960 from the Great Northern ticket office supervisor. This guy, who was the original owner, drove it 4 miles a day. Two miles to work, and two miles back home. The car was in wonderful condition, other than the tires were rotten, and it was caked with a layer of dust an inch thick. This was 5 years ago an I have lost track of the guy.

Several years ago I was looking thru the paper and noticed a corvette for sale. 63 for $5,000.
What the heck. I tried to call but the line was always busy. Turned out to be a practical joke.
This guy had the vette but it wasn't for sale. A friend of his put the ad in the paper and his phone started ringing at 6 am. never stopped for over a week after the ad was cancelled.

Hey Matt McD,
I got an Olds story for ya. Around about summer '86, I pulled up to a stoplight in my '70 Dodge Charger with 383. There just happened to be a CHERRY! 442 to my left at the light. The guy gave it a couple a revs and I knew it was on. The light turned green and we both just sat there looking at each other. As soon as he stopped looking at me and turned his head, I knew he'd floor it and so did I. After a couple seconds I could no longer see the stripe around his cowl. After 10 seconds or so, he looked like an ant in my rear view and was wishing he'd bought a big block Mopar! And that ain't no lie!

And to go along with the barn stories and such... Here at the San Diego Automotive Museum they have a WW1 era motorcycle that was discovered in a San Diego home by renovators. It tells the whole story and even shows photos of the discovery. Apparently the guy bought it and either got drafted or enlisted, can't remember which. He knew he was going away and stored/preserved the bike in a sort of secretive place in the house. He didn't come home. His mother sold the house many years later and while the house was under construction in the, I think it was 70's-80's, some workers found it. Perfectly preserved and now in the museum. It does happen.

I know where a brand new 1957 Plymouth is buried.

Cletis, is the owner still in it?

ok here we go. cletis the road to your house onthe north side of the road is where the old jones driven-in theater was. the road that runs norh in front of the drive-in is old garner road. go down that road for about a mile and a half and on the right is an old farm house that sits about a hundred and fifty feet off the road with an old garage on he nothwest side of the house. inside the garage is a 1950 2 door chevy coupe with less than 24,000 miles on it with the original tires and if the guy hasn't sold it there is a 1946 chevy pick-up on the same place that everybody in parker county and north texas has been trying to buy for the last 20 years. the owner is my son in laws uncle.

tony'n weatherford

This is also a true story. In the mid '50's, a guy bought a brand new John Deere tractor. Shortly thereafter, he got into a dispute with the dealer over something about the tractor, and parked it in a garage. It remained there until the late '80's or early '90's, when someone was able to buy it. At that time, there were articles in the John Deere magazines, and it was being displayed at some shows, in "as found" condition. The shipping tags were still on it, what was left of the original stickers were still on the tires, etc. I saw it at a John Deere Expo in either 1990 or 1992. I have no idea if he still has it, or if he ever tried to get it running.

I fell for the almost new, Corvette at the used car lot lie, years ago. The story went like, someone had died in the car and now the car was perfect, but it smelled inside. The car lot couldn't sell it because of the smell, so they were asking $200 to get rid of it. The car was only a few years old, but was in a town 60 miles from me. A school friend swore to the story, since he was from that town and had seen it, driving by on the street. Well, you know how this one ended. Some buddies and I went there with money in hand and surprise, the car lot had never heard of such Bull. I have always remembered that one for the last 40 years.

Here's a link on the 83 vette
http://www.corvettemagazine.com/2000/january/83/83p1.asp

in 1977 or 1978 a man by the name of tom ogle(search "star-telegram") from west texas, came out with some kind of invention to increase the milage on cars. supposely goverment officals were there for this 150?mile test. the invention was sold to a scientific lab in washington or oregon. tom ogle died in the late '80s or early '90s(search "the parade")

tony'n weatherford :confused:

The new 1957 Plymouth is part of a time capsule buried in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It will be opened in the Summer of 2007. The car was donated by the local Plymouth dealer. It's a Fury 2-door hardtop, loaded, and with a FULL tank of 1957 gas(!) so that it can be started and driven off when it's uncovered! Other things with it include much Tulsa-specific things, plus a radio, phonograph with records, a 1957 map of Tulsa and Oklahoma, plus other things.

I want to be there when the car is removed from the time capsule!

Wow, I didnt know that those superbirds/daytonas actually had that huge wing on the back of them, I thought that was some stupid aftermarket thing, since the first one I had ever seen was that one on JoeDirt.

My Uncle told me a "myth" one time about how a bunch of indians used to steel corvettes and other fast cars back in the day, and they would park them all out in the desert over here in Central Oregon. But, I can say that I have seen some amazing classics and 4x4 cadillacs along the way through the desert, lol.

- Shane

In Hemmings a few years back was an ad for a flat fender Willys Jeep with only a few hundred miles on it,mint condition.According the the owner,the Jeep was bought new to plow a very long driveway, no room to turn around, so it was driven in reverse,the odometer ran in reverse too, taking off the miles.

This Corvette story is true, I worked with the guy and actually worked on the car. My co-worker, back in the mid 70's, was looking for a second family car for his wife to drive. In the local paper was advertised a '62 Chevy for $350.00. He thought it would be a 4 door Impala or something like that, which was just what he was looking for. He went to look at it and an older woman answered the door and claimed she knew little about the car. She wanted it out of her garage so she could park her own car in it. When she opened the garage it was a silver '62 'vette that her son parked there before going off to Viet-Nam. He was alittle taken back by what he saw and the lady asked if the $350 was too much to ask. He said no and bought it. It came with the original set of tires and a set of aluminum slots with tires. Also, it came with a soft and a hard top. The lady wanted all of that "junk" out of her garage, and my buddy was happy to oblige.
Since then, he pulled the engine, built it to drag race, put it in a '55 Chevy and raced it for years. After the 'vette sat in his garage with-out an engine in it for the better part of 20 years, he bought another engine for it and then sold it to a collector car company "Duffy's" for $15,000.00. Man, I wish that kind of luck would come my way sometimes.
Scott

Mugsy wrote the biggest lie:

Hey Matt McD,
I got an Olds story for ya. Around about summer '86, I pulled up to a stoplight in my '70 Dodge Charger with 383. There just happened to be a CHERRY! 442 to my left at the light. After a couple seconds I could no longer see the stripe around his cowl. After 10 seconds or so, he looked like an ant in my rear view and was wishing he'd bought a big block Mopar! And that ain't no lie!

There is no way in hecktarations that a 383 is going to "blow the doors off" an Olds 400.... (we are assuming they are both stock, correct). I raced several 383's with my 68 Cutlass when it was running the 310 hp 350... the only mod was headers and an HEI.... those 383's wouldnt even come close to my rear bumper.... and after I put in a mild 455, i was eating 440's like they were slant 6's.

Used to call 442's and GTO's track oilers,their motors would throw a rod,spill oil all over trying to catch my 69 Dodge 440 6 pack.

No Man! It wasn't a stock 383. Of course I'm not gonna mention that in a sitiation like this!
But he revved. Me, no rev. You gonna rev at a stoplight, you better have something to back it up. On that day, Mopar backed my [censored] up! Anyways, it was built nicely but, it wasn't like I had a drag car. A stock 383 MAGNUM put out 335hp and 425ft.tq. That's pretty respectable. Was it a Polara with a grocery getter 383 2 bbl you were racing?

As for the time capsule Plymouth, I saw that on Discovery channel or something awhile back. They showed footage of them lowering it into it's coffin like time capsule. What an awesome idea. I can't wait 'til they unearth that thing. I think the winner is the person who guesses closest to what the population of Tulsa will be in 2007. They guessed back in '57.

Speaking of Jeeps (or Jeep-like vehicles) -- A friend named Jim Irwin gave me one once. I haven't gotten the opportunity to go get it yet, though (it's not exactly close by). It's about a '70 model and has less than 20 miles on it (for real). It had a steering problem, apparently, and it was parked (in a low-humidity environment) on August 2, 1971.

I'm pretty sure it's still there and all it needs is a new battery.

John

bah! I never find stuff like that... go get it John!

This has been a very entertaining thread... thanks for all the posts.

heh.

oh well, at least my truck is back running with lights again!

yay!

-W

I still hear all the secret 100mpg carb stories. geez. There's nothing that'll make me stop listening to somebody quicker than a story like this - except maybe for the story of the guy who bought the 200mph Dodge cop car.
Henry smokey Yunick back about '82 DID devise a nice setup using turbo and coolant/exhaust heat transfer to homogenize the fuel mixture and allow for better suspension in the runners, and he DID claim twice the power AND mileage - about 35 MPG on a 151 powered Fiero, but these arent "crazy" numbers. I suspect the rad hose thingy was someones attempt to try to re create this system (which was a LOT more complicated) Anyone with high school should be able to do the math: A gallon of gasoline has about 17,500 BTU of energy available. A USABLE internal combustion engine, ie. one that will pull a vehicle isn't going near 100mpg in real world driving. Hybrids are already approaching the milage limits by using the engine as a constant load device so that the engine is always in theory operating in the center of its inherent efficiency curve.

If there's one thing in all this that's a shame though, it's that there ARE certain "magic" (well, not really magic...) devices that do work (sacrificial anode rad caps come to mind) that may get shunned by some as just another scam because of all the stories.
Jim.

I like your tag line!

I also love the stories of the 60's muscle cars that went 160 mph,the highest documented top speed I ever saw was about 140 mph for a Hemi Roadrunner with automatic and 3.23's.With 3.70 gears for acceleration,most muscle cars were limited to 120 or so.I used to drag race bikes, watched the stock muscle cars on the track between rounds.90 percent of then barely broke in the 14's in the 1/4 mile.

Tony,,, was that 160 in the 1/4?
I know for certain I went over 120 (not in the 1/4) in my 64 Impala(stupid kid :rolleyes: )