Auto related pranks you have played on people.

[Shop Rat]

Several years ago a friend of ours was the target of a well planned prank.

Prior to our Region's local show the masterminds of this prank painted a pair of jack stand flat black for the occasion. He waited for our mutual friend to take a long walk around the showfield.

The jackstands were placed back far enough under the truck to not be spotted and only had the T model truck lifted just enough so that the tires cleared the pavement but looked like they were still on the ground.

You should have see the "prankee" getting in and out of his truck trying to figure out why his truck wouldn't move when he put it in gear.

[ex98thdrill]

My father did that to a Sheriff's Deputy while he was sitting in his patrol car.

Speaking of patrol cars, one of the retired Sergeants at the Sheriff's Department used to stop at Dunkin Donuts on a daily basis. We put one of those <span style="font-style: italic">DARE</span> bumper stickers on his patrol car. Instead of putting the bumper sticker that said "DARE to keep kids off of drugs" we put the sticker that said "DARE to keep cops off of donuts." He drove around for two days before he noticed the sticker on his patrol car.

A coworker played a joke on another one of my coworkers, he placed ammonia capsules under one of the toilet seats at work. While another coworker went in to do his business, the weight of sitting down on the seat broke the capsules, but the vapors didn't reach his nose until he was in the middle of his business. By then it was too late, and the victim had to finish his business and suffer. In retaliation, the victim went out and stuck a tampon on every headlight and taillight of his car. The initial prankster had no knowledge of anything but did get strange looks driving down the street, and then got really strange looks and questions while he was at the gas station putting gas in his car. I honestly didn't participate with this prank but had knowledge of both ends of both pranks.

On the victim side, back when my wife and I were dating, she left one of those "girlfriend cards" in my truck. When I opened it up, I had found out that she had filled the card with glitter. The glitter went all over the inside of my truck. For months later, that stuff would still be blowing out of my defroster when I turned it on. She got a good laugh out of it, I could've killed her, but now she's married to me, so in a way, I got my revenge.

One of the things that I've been known to do is with the ambulance. When they shut down the ambulance at the hospital, I've been known from time to time to turn on the radio loud, the windshield wipers, turn signals, SIREN, etc. Of course when the poor victim walks out of the hospital to get back in the ambulance, you hear the siren going off out in the parking lot knowing that 'I got another one.'

When I worked in the lumberyard, I was famous for putting the box in gear, so when the next driver got in the lumber truck to move it, the box would start going up as they were pulling away. The only thing is that I never did that when the truck was loaded.

As I've progressed in age, my pranks are reduced to turning the radio onto the local bible station and turning the volume up, so when the next person gets in the vehicle (at work) they get scripture in a bold way.

For the most part, I was never one to mess with an individual's personal vehicle. When it involved a harmless prank on someone involving a vehicle that wasn't their personal vehicle, then the story changes.

[JFranklin]

Anybody remember the "Auto-bomb" practical joke you placed under the car and ran a wire up to a spark plug. When the poor guy went to start the car it went off with SMOKE, SCREAMER, and ended with a BANG like a 2" cracker. I used to get them from a hardware store in the California desert.

[Bhigdog]

When the Mustang first came out one of the guys at work bought one and went on endlessly boasting about his "Horsey Car". When we couldn't stand it anymore I brought a bushel of horse s**t to work and spread it all around his Mustang. Of course by the end of the day everyone but him knew about it and was waiting when he came out. He wouldn't talk to me for months. It was worth it.......Bob

[Guest Moepar]

My hubby tells a tale that when he worked at this one small engine shop in Virginia, his buddies had a bumper sticker that they dared him to put on a cop car (this cop was a frequent visitor & friend of the owner of the business). The sticker said "Dial 911, make a cop come". Needless to say he got all sorts of honks, thumbs up, etc all day. Didn't notice till a buddy at work told him to get it off the car before the boss saw it. The next day the cop walks into the small engine shop trying to find out just which reprobate stuck him with the sticker.

[The Old Guy]

Some years ago , A good friend ,who was getting married, hid his Corvette. We ,of course found it and "doctored " it.When he went to retrieve it for his honeymoon trip, he found it completely filled with inflated ballons, and all the windows soaped. He took care of this and jumped in only to find that the rear wheels were not touching the ground. He removed the stanchions , moved the car and heard a terrible rattling underneath. After getting the tin cans out of the suspension, he assumed he was all done.

They were going down the interstate and on opening the vents found out that the rice poured into the vent tubes came out like BBs. He was not too congenial for a loooong time.

[Steve Braverman]

I worked at a boatyard during college. One of the guys was leaving and moving out of state in the middle of winter. The day he was leaving, another coworker placed a frozen fish up in the seat springs of his pickup. Must have smelled great with the heat blowing on it.

[Peter Gariepy]

Myself and a 7 team members from my junior college football team lifted an assistant coach's VW Bug over a water fountain's 2 foot retaining wall and left it sitting in the water up to the bottom of the doors.

Funny thing was we never got caught, he never said a word, and the car was out the next day, but without the help of any football players.

As I recall it was pretty easy do with 8 guys.

Peter

[Guest edalfa]

My dad used to tell about swapping the gas and radiator caps on Model A Fords. Apparently the lack of a vent in the rad cap could cause the fuel tank to collapse.

Ed

[MCHinson]

I was not involved, but a few years ago, the "Caprice Classic" logos were shipped loose (in the glove compartment) of our 1993-1995 Chevrolet Patrol Cars. Somebody decided to put one on a car and do some creative rearranging of some letters. One of my fellow Lieutenants drove around for a few weeks until one day I walked up and asked him why the trunk of his car was labeled "Crap A@#"?

[Shop Rat]

Your story reminded me of another one.

A guy that I dated in college had one of those "cars" that came as a kit and you had to assemble it. The year before I met him the guys in the freshman dorm where he was an R.A. found the directions for the car. By reversing the order they disassembled the car and then reassembled it in his dorm room after first removing all the furniture from his room.

He returned from class and found that they had opened the window and left the car running.

[Ron Green]

Years ago we had a electrician that was getting a little to boastful (and cocky) about how great a job someone did on rebuilding his trucks engine. Since we were at work and in the process of threading pipe it didn't take much to come up with the idea of pouring some cutting oil underneath his vehicle. Then we proceeded to asked him what that fluid was coming out of his truck. He jumped in the truck and went right to the engine builders garage.

Putting a large black ty-rap on someone's drive shaft will also make for an interesting conversation when then try and diagnose the noise.

[Matt Harwood]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Peter Gariepy</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Myself and a 7 team members from my junior college football team lifted an assistant coach's VW Bug over a water fountain's 2 foot retaining wall and left it sitting in the water up to the bottom of the doors.

Funny thing was we never got caught, he never said a word, and the car was out the next day, but without the help of any football players.

As I recall it was pretty easy do with 8 guys.

Peter

</div></div>

We used to go around and hang the rear bumpers of VW Rabbits on fireplugs. Like you said, it took a bunch of guys to put it on there, but it also took a bunch to get it off. Hard to scare up a crowd to un-do a prank.

[Dandy Dave]

A fish story, Or, Sumptin smells mighty fishy....

A bunch of pranks went on at a constuction job sight that a buddy of mine was on. About three days before the job was to end he bought a piece of fish and left it in the sun for several days so it was smelling pretty good. He then set it on top of the catalytic converter of the other pranksters truck and tied it with some wire.

I bet that was a Smelly ride home!

I bet after it burned on, it didn't just come off either.

Imagine the looks of people following. Dave!

[RVAnderson]

My cousin was married in January in NY during the worst blizzard of the year, preventing her groom's entire family from attending (they lived in MI). His only attendee was the best man. We were wondering how in the world to gain access to his little Toyota pickup. During the reception, held in the church basement, the truck had to be moved for a snowplow. He tossed me the keys and asked me to take care of it. We removed the truck's heater duct hoses from the vents and placed open containers of limburger in them before putting the ducts back. They stayed there for the whole honeymoon.

Welcome to the family.

[ex98thdrill]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">I was not involved, but a few years ago, the "Caprice Classic" logos were shipped loose (in the glove compartment) of our 1993-1995 Chevrolet Patrol Cars. Somebody decided to put one on a car and do some creative rearranging of some letters. One of my fellow Lieutenants drove around for a few weeks until one day I walked up and asked him why the trunk of his car was labeled "Crap A@#"? </div></div>I gotta laugh at that Matt. We haven't had Caprice police cars since 1989. We've had Crown Vics since 1990 and our cars had the blue oval so that was never an option. Why is it that usually the cop cars that take the brunt of the pranks is usually the boss' car?? The same holds true in my workplace..

I live near the High School. A couple of years ago one of the school kids took the liberty of parking his pickup in my driveway and went on to school. This boy never asked permission, he just took the liberties all on his own. Needless to say, being that I work nights I came home and found this strange truck in my driveway. I called and had the registration run, found out who the owner was, and said nothing. Afterwards I went out in the shop, grabbed the floor jack and some wooden blocks, put the boys truck up on blocks and went to bed. The next day when my nephew went to school, he said that the word was all over the school about don't park in my driveway unless you want to find your car on blocks. Needless to say, it never happened again.

Speaking of cops and high school kids. There is a State Trooper that lives and works in my area. Back when he was a teenager, him and a few of his friends took the liberty of screwing around with his dad's car in the laneway next to the house where we lived at the time (which was my dad's property). After messing around, he got his dad's car stuck (a brand new Chevy Vega), and while we was going to get help, my dad went over with a pair of pliers and pulled out all four valve stems out of the tires. Needless to say when the guy came back to get his dad's car out of the mud, he not only was stuck, but he also had four flat tires. The kid and the whole basketball team knew who was behind it, and word quickly spread around school about what happens when you mess with my dad. Years later after this same person becomes a State Trooper, I see him from a distance and I yell out "<span style="font-weight: bold">make sure you keep the valve stems in the tires of that patrol car!</span>" This guy stops dead in his tracks, and in an angry voice turns around and says "<span style="font-weight: bold">who said that</span>!" When I admitted to it, he looks at me and said "<span style="font-weight: bold">I should've known it was you, my tires will by fine as long as your old man isn't around</span>." Years later, now we all laugh about it. When he got back in school I do remember how he told my sister that my dad was crazy.

[Restorer32]

Brother bought a new MGB and was bragging about his miles per gallon. Little did he know that I would pour a few gallons into his tank while he was sleeping (gas was cheaper then). He never did figure out how he got over 50 mpg on the first tank but only 24 or so on subsequent fill ups.

[Ron Green]

Quote: “placed open containers of limburger in them”

I know somebody that rubbed limburger into a heater core which essentially ruined the vehicle. Unsure which was worse this or the dead squirrel in a field office trailer filing cabinet over a hot humid weekend. Trailer was sold.

[Matt Harwood]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Restorer32</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Brother bought a new MGB and was bragging about his miles per gallon. Little did he know that I would pour a few gallons into his tank while he was sleeping (gas was cheaper then). He never did figure out how he got over 50 mpg on the first tank but only 24 or so on subsequent fill ups. </div></div>

<span style="font-style: italic">That's</span> funny. I'm going to use that one.

[RVAnderson]

When one of my uncles on the other side of the family got married, his youngest brother, a teenager then, smeared limburger on the exhaust manifolds of his 8 cyl Chrysler. He and his wife never did get rid of the smell, even after steamcleaning the engine. They finally sold the car. Now, that's not a prank; that's vandalism; so, bearing that in mind, we wanted something that could be easily put right afterwards.

Anyway, it beat Plan A which was to purchase a piglet and some straw and bed the critter down in back of the capped pickup bed. Since the back was already loaded with luggage, etc., it most likely wouldn't have been discovered until they were NOT in a position to have done anything about it. My animal-loving cousin would not have just tossed it away; her meat-shop owner husband would want to make dinner out of it, and we pictured a sort of lively discussion taking place. I think somebody vetoed the idea for fear that some luggage might have been made pungent by the porker's potty needs...

[Clipper47]

When I was attending forest ranger school in the 1960's a bunch of the boys carried an instructors VW and placed it onto a floating dock one night. They then cut the cables holding the dock to shore and pushed the dock and car out onto the lake. The car and dock were located the next day about a mile down the lake where they had drifted ashore.

Another time one of the students who was a bit of a prankster wrapped a roll of toilet paper around the air filter of another students car just before he was heading home for the weekend.When he returned on Sunday night he was complaining about the terrible gas mileage he was getting.

[Guest palosfv3]

This was posted on the HAMB by one of the guys.

A bunch of guys at a local body shop had been playing practical jokes on one another over time. One day one of the guys came to work in a new rental car. We are all pretty aware of the old shop trick of putting a little acetylene gas under a coffee cup and the lit cigarette trick. Well they decided to go it one step further. During the day someone slipped out to the car and filled the new aero style headlamps with acetylene gas through the little rubber drain which they then plugged with some golf tees. It was a good thing that the car was parked facing a wall because once he started the car and the day lite driving lamps kicked in , it blew entire grille and headlamp assemblied out of the car. While this crosses the line as a practical joke . The look on everybody's face must of been priceless.

[Guest AntarcticDave]

When I was in school, a friend and I decided to pull a prank on the math teacher, who was also the track coach. We went out and put crepe paper streamers and a Just Married sign on his Maverick, but tucked them up under the car so they were not visible and would unfurl when he drove off. Little did we know that he and the football coach had a coach's meeting across town that night after school. He said people were honking and waving until they caught up and saw who was in the car. :-)

[Jim Bollman]

Here are a couple I know about first hand or was involved in.

Not exactly a prank but a get even. My Ex brother inlaw is about the size of NFL lineman to set the picture. At the time he was farming and 4 city slicker hunters stopped by his house and asked if they could hunt in his woods. He said no, he had cattle in the woods. He watched as they went down the road a little ways parked and hiked back into his woods anyway. He went down and unthreaded all 4 valve steam (the little center part) and put the valve cap back on. A few hours later they had the nerve/guts to stop back at the house wanting to use the phone, because they had 4 flats. Now remember his size, he fills the door way. He told them no they could not use his phone just like they could not use his woods and handed them the valve steams and closed the door.

The next one goes back to my Senior year of High School. We had a teacher that made subscribing and reading Time magazine a requirement for the course. I spread the word early in the year to save the Time magazines and we would figure out something to do with them the last day of school. Unfortunately he got wind we were up to something and he parked his VW at another teachers house (whose son was a year behind us and told us. One the fellows had a pickup and we nearly filled the back of the pickup with Time magazines and took them over to were the VW was parked. We had hoped to fill the inside but it was locked. Several of the bigger guys lifted the front off the ground so we could make a big pile under it so when it was let down the wheels were off the ground or nearly so. We then crumpled up and filled his hubcaps and stuff more in around the bumpers and piled the rest on top. As I recall he was a good sport and only made a passing remark about the magazines when we saw him at graduation.

The last one for now happened at work a few years after I started. A fellow with a new car insisted on parking close to the building and straddle 2 spots so no one would ding his doors. When I go to work one morning I was fed up with his actions and squeezed my old beat up VW in as close as I could get on the drivers side, I was nearly inside the lines so there was room for someone to park next to me. In talking to a friend during the day he told me he had put his equally old and beat up Rambler wagon on the other side as close as he could get. He had to crawl out the tailgate because he squeezed in between 2 cars. We purposely worked a little late and walked out together. The guy was yelling at the guard at the door to do something, that he was completely blocked in. We walked right on by got in our cars and drove away. We talked to the guard the next day and he said he saw us pull away but didn't say anything and just let him rant and yell a bit longer and then offered to go see if he could figure anything out. Walked outside and there his car set all by itself. He never parked close to the building again.

Having driven Crosleys and Metropolitans in High School and college I probably had more pulled on me than I pulled.

Ok one more, that was suppose to be a prank on me. I was about to pull my Metro out of the wash bay at the local garage/hangout and a couple of big ex-football jocks picked up the back. I didn't say a word I just started the engine and asked them if they want me to put it in reverse. They carefully put it back on the ground.

[Shop Rat]

I have a couple from West's and my friend Bill Davis. That is Bill's LaSalle on the back cover and in the wonderful feature article inside.

Both of these happened at Hershey in different years.

Bill has a pea soup green Rolls. I can't remember the exact year but I think it is a mid-thirties model. Anyway, he was having lunch in the back seat when a guy walked up and asked, "Is this your car?" "Nooo", replies Bill. "Is it yours?" No, it's not mine", the guy says. Then with a perfectly straight face Bill says to him, "It just looked like a nice shady spot to have my lunch. And I figured I'd be gone by the time the owner got back."

Another year a friend of his had her red Rolls there that is a match to his green one. Along strolls a lady and her husband. "Oh, honey look. A red Rolls and a green Rolls. It looks like Christmas", the lady tells her husband. Again with a straight, face Bill tells her, "Oh these are the special Christmas gifts from Neman-Marcus for this year." To which the lady replies in a very serious tone of voice, "They weren't in my catalogue." "That's because we just obtained the red one. You will get a suplimental flyer in the mail about them."

Bill is one of the funniest guys you could ever meet.

[Dandy Dave]

Another Auto prank.... A "Wingnut" sparkless plug, Or, How to make the plug collectors at Hershey crazy.

Names in this story are "not" used to protect the innocent and/or guilty.

Same friend that did the fried fish.

He was digging though a box of junk plugs one day and found one with a broken porcelain. Glancing around the shop he had an old perfumme bottle of sorts with a dancing lady, also made of porcelain, on the top that was just the right size. He epoxied it on the broken plug and glued the top on it and dirtied it up so it looked the part.

When Hershey came around he took it with him and gave it to one of the fellows he knew collected plugs and had a big following. Told him he found it while digging though a box of old plugs and wanted to know what kind it was. He left it there and went in search of stuff. The plug collectors spent hours trying searching though books and chatting with each other trying to figure out what it was. After many hours one of the fellows decided to do a continuity test on the plug and found it was not connected internally and decided that it was indeed a fake.

Dang Him, They outta take a rope and hang him! LOL. Dave!

[Guest imported_tmdltim]

One of my friends who runs a wrecker service had the keys (legally) to one of his coffee drinking friends vehicles, since he would do a little work on the car from time to time. When the wrecker driver would spot the car of his friend on a parking meter downtown, with the owner nowhere around, he would quickly move the vehicle one or two meters away, put in the correct amount of change and leave. He nearly drove the owner crazy until the secret was shared at the coffee table in later years.

[NHcarnut]

I was with my dad at a one-man-repair-shop with a little old lady’s car over the pit. There was a small ‘audience’ as the mechanic went into the pit, trouble light in hand, to investigate the ‘funny noise’ her car was making. After a few sighs and comments, the lady was becoming noticeably more nervous. The mechanic then tossed up random parts onto the shop floor: first an old rusty muffler, then a used oil filter plunked down, rolling across the floor dribbling oil as it rolled toward her feet… I don’t remember the diagnosis or the repair, but we were all busting a gut at her expense.

[Shop Rat]

A friend of ours (Doy Maston) known for his auto related pranks pulled this one on a mutual friend (the late Glenn "Fritz" Howard).

Fritz (some of you may know him from AACA tours) lived in a very nice, older section of Charleston, W. Va. Lovely riverfront lot and home.

One time while Fritz was away Doy decided to turn Fritz's driveway into "Fritz's Quick Oil Change" for a photo prank. He had a sign made up to put in the yard and parked his Model T (known for oil leaks I might add) in the driveway. He then put down a piece of black plastic cut to look like a puddle of filty oil. About a week after Fritz got back he recieved the photo in the mail.

And now the rest of the story as Paul Harvey would say.

About a month later Fritz had changed the oil in his antique Lincoln (an AACA National Award winner) and when he went to back the car down off of the ramps....he ran over the milk jug filled with some of the old oil and he had a REAL puddle of filty oil to deal with.