Anyone Here Ever Won A Car?

[TAKerry]

Jeff responded in the gas station give aways regarding his uncle winning a car at through a gas station give away. Anyone here win a car?

 

Around 1973sh my uncle won a brand new Chevy of his choice by hitting a hole in one during a golf tournament. He chose a top of the line Impala. He could have taken a vette but he said he new his son (my cousin) would have ended up wrecking it. He along with most of the rest in my family were scratch golfers. 

[TerryB]

My father in law won a new full size Buick on a raffle ticket back in the mid-1970s.  When I started dating my future wife in the mid 1980s he still owned the car.

[JamesR]

Yes, I won a car this summer...seriously. Well, maybe not seriously, but at least it's literally a car...sort of. 😄 And a BRAND NEW one, at that!

 

On Father's Day this year, we went to a car show at the Strategic Air Command & Aerospace Museum in Ashland, Nebraska. My wife and I went with our kids, who were home from college over the summer. The show was sponsored, in part, by Speedway Motors, the famous hot rod parts supplier here in Lincoln. Speedway sells these pedal cars new, and they have an incredible exhibit of old pedal cars in their own museum. We got to the show a little late, and right after we walked in, someone on a loudspeaker said, "Last chance to enter your name for the drawing!" So my wife ran and did that. Low and behold, she found out a few days later that SHE WON!

 

Generous person that she is, she gave her new pedal car to me on my birthday, which was a month later. I didn't know she'd won, so my gift  was a real surprise. I always knew I'd end up with another Chevy, somehow. 😄 As for my wife she bought herself a new 2023 Subaru Outback a few weeks ago, so in my opinion, her generosity was justly rewarded.

[Bhigdog]

When i was 16 our neighbor won a brand new 56 chrysler. 

Tourquise and white it was the most beautiful car i had ever seen.

67 years later when l was trying to decide what i wanted to restore next it hit me. ......

A 1956 new yorker st, regis.  A more or less barn find.

So i can,t say i won a car but the car can fairly say IT won me.....bob

 

[Bryan G]

I knew a real roughshod farmer who won a new GMC pickup at a carnival raffle around '76. By the nineties that thing was a big, rattling pile of Swiss cheese...one summer he was able to park it in the cow pasture, because he won a new Dakota in another raffle.

[Xander Wildeisen]

I dated a gal that won a 56 Chevrolet two door post car. She won it before we met, car was driver quality. I never saw it run. She had no place to keep it when she won it. Put it in storage, people stole parts off the dash and emblems. Then it sat in the garage. Gas went skunky, and it needed work from years of sitting. She would not sell it, because she won it. And I had my Hudson’s to work on. A bitter love triangle, poor Chevrolet. This was about 22 years ago. I bet that Chevy is a barn find by now.

[Scott Bonesteel]

Indirectly my family benefitted from one, which was a brand new 1968 Thunderbird won by a friend of my father.  As a result that family didn't need their 'old' 1965 Dodge Dart GT, which they sold cheaply to my father. Gold with a light tan interior, 225 slant six, that was perhaps the best car my family ever owned and I learned to drive in it.

[B Jake Moran]

A neighbor friend who was 2 years younger than me in 1974 won a new Plymouth Duster. Because he was 10 at the time, his parents won the car - took the car.  They kept it and drove it. 

[SMB]

Not yet. |But I expect to today as the Studebaker Museum is having their drawing today and I have five chances.  Just looked at my tickets - the drawing is tomorrow.  Trying to be patient!

Edited December 7, 2022 by SMB (see edit history)

[58L-Y8]

My step-grandfather won a 1950 Ford six-cylinder four door sedan at the Fillmore, NY fireman's field days/carnival.  Generally, a "Sheevvy" man, he drove the 1950 until it was traded for a black and white 1956 Ford Customline two door hardtop, also a six-cylinder with stick shift.

[Alex D.]

I hope to win. Bought some tickets on Dream Giveaway for a Boss 302 and a Cadillac Blackwing. You all wish me luck now!

[Peter J.Heizmann]

In 1967 my deceased brother Bo bought a brand new Hodaka off road motorcycle from a girl who won it at a high school dance raffle. The girl told Bo that her doctor father went ballistic and insisted she get rid of it immediately.  Bo told her he would take it for $50.  Without batting an eye she agreed.  What a deal!

[28 Chrysler]

 

Back in 1974 a co worker, Joe Marty got a beat up  $50 1967 Chevelle. 

He replaced the left front fender with a less beat up one from behind the body shop. Next was the aluminum paint with "Silver Fox" on the sides.

At the local bar he sold raffle tickets for $5 and anyone could look at the car in the parking lot. He parked it next to a block wall and his buddy parked 1/2 foot away.

The winner wanted to sell the car back to Joe for $10 and Joe would not buy it back for $5.

[STEVE POLLARD]

No, but my next door neighbor did.....she was on the game show Jeopardy !, this had to be the late 1960's, Art Fleming was the host... she ended up winning a Plymouth Valiant ( white 4 door ) I don't know why I remember this, but we were watching her on TV when she won.

 

Steve

[JFranklin]

My father-in-law won a new mid 50's Ford woodie with the second of two raffle tickets he bought.

[Rusty_OToole]

Didn't happen to me but to a neighbor of an old friend. This neighbor won a new Chevrolet sedan in a raffle in 1936. She didn't know how to drive a car. So she sold it and bought a farm or traded it for a farm, not sure which. Even in the depression you didn't get much of a farm for $600 which was what a new Chevy was worth at the time. The land was nothing but gravel. She ended up selling the gravel to a local gravel pit. She was smart enough not to sell the property but to sell the gravel at so much a ton or so much a truck load. They worked that pit until the 1990s and I believe her descendants still own the property which is now about 40 feet lower. And they got a living out of the place for 50 years. Not bad for a 25 cent investment.

[bryankazmer]

A friend won a vintage car in the early 1990's - a series III Jaguar E-type.  He hung up the first couple of calls because he thought it was a prank.  The only issue was that the company running the giveaway overstated the value, which was the basis for their write-off but also for his tax bill.  Still good fortune to win a V12 E-type.

[DrData]

No car...best I ever did was a set of Goodyear Eagle tires, I forget the designation but they were the grade above the Eagle GT.  Put them on my Pontiac Sunbird. The little car held the road like it was glued to it.

[Oldsmobile 83]

My grandmother won a new 1970 or 1971 Chevrolet Nova through a drawing at a local grocery store.  It was a promotion of an anniversary for the store.  For several months leading up to the drawing, one name was placed in the drawing each week.  Then the day of the drawing, they drew out all the names with each person winning various prizes but, the last one left at the end of the drawing was the winner of the car and that person was my grandmother.  I remember the drawing very well and how excited we were as the names remaining were narrowing down to the final one.

Tim

[TAKerry]

I have won a couple of door prizes at car shows, one thing was a multimeter, another time was a faux Yeti drinking cup. I think I have played lottery tickets about a dozen times. One of the very first ones I ever bought was a $25 winner, with an additional scratch box that doubled the prize, so it came out to be $50. I think thats all the luck I have had with that kind of stuff. Every now and then there will be an ad in Old Cars for a vintage car giveaway for some kind of school, charity etc. I have sent in $15 here and there just because. Maybe one day it will pay off.

[JACK M]

I won a child's sized bicycle in a raffle a couple of years ago.

I gave it to the fire department "toy and Joy" program.

I have similar stories as TAK as I usually buy the wingspan at the car shows.

 

I forgot; I won a chain saw at one car show. Ironically, I had recently purchased the exact saw. So there is a NIB saw in my stash.

Edited December 8, 2022 by JACK M (see edit history)

[Buick35]

I won a radio flyer red wagon once.

[brasscarguy]

My late wife won a Vespa on a punch board. The pull tabs were 50 cents, she bot 1 with the change she had on the table from a drink she had purchased. Pulled it open and the number was 3000 winner winner chicken dinner. She won a new Vespa motor scooter. 

 

brasscarguy

[marcapra]

Back in the late 80s, I met a man in my auto shop class who I made friends with.  He said he was buying a new car for his daughter and wanted to know if I wanted her 1973 Dodge Dart 4 door sedan.  I didn't really win it but almost. I said sure because I was driving a beat up 72 Gremlin at the time.  So he said just come over with a new battery and it's yours.  I loved this car as I had never had front wheel disc brakes before and it was the first year for Darts to have electronic ignition.  And compared to my Gremlin, it handled very well and was smooth.  

[Flivverking]

Not me, but friend won a 64 Chevy convertible from a hot rod club in Connecticut,It was in the late 80s.

 It was a piece of  shxt...

 A front clip brazed to a rear clip with a clakky 283 motor.

 

 

[EmTee]