I read in today's Telegraph that a man has just recovered his X reg. Focus after parking it in a Milton Keynes housing estate and then forgetting where he left it - last February! It was finally reported as abandoned by a resident (two neighbours had assumed that the Ford parked outside their homes belonged to the other).
This amused me, but then I recalled, many years ago, driving up to London to submit a painting to an exhibition. Not wanting to drive through central London, I left my frog-eye Sprite at Merton station, and carried on by train. At the end of the evening I caught a train from Waterloo to Salisbury, and only after frantically searching for my car at the station car park, did I remember it was at Merton. Off to Waterloo by the next train, and out to Merton to collect the car...
Any other stories of 'lost' cars out there?
P.
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yep done it myself.
Back in '84 0r '85. Bruce Springsteen was at Wembley stadium on 4th July and Dire Straits at The Arena, with Chas and Di going, so security and parking even more difficult than usual. Parked a few miles away and walked, saw the most fantastic gig, 2hrs with a further 1hr encore,well it was 4th July, then took over 2 hours to find where I'd parked my car, the only good point all the other traffic had dispersed so no sitting in traffic
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long time ago and never thought i'd admit it again............ parked in a car park in Plymouth... for those that don't know the place, was bombed to hell in the war and the re-build left it all looking a bit samey...
came back to car park and car not there......... ended up being in the 3rd car park along rather than the 2nd... was in a right panic...... and felt exremely foolish
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I went to a rugby match a couple of years ago and met some friends there. It was an away match and half way through the first half one of my friends remembered he had left his mobile in the car. He went to get it and came back saying his car had been stolen. It was a new Mercedes E class and he'd had it two days. After much panic him and another friend went to look and found it where it had been left. The first friend had gone to the wrong street!
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I managed to drop off the keys to a hire car at the desk and did not park it in the correct place like the dope I am.
2 weeks later the car hire comapny called me to ask where I left the car.
I had no idea.
Not sure if they ever got it back.
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A lady in Nottingham once told me that she had parked in the Victoria centre carpark and couldn't find her car. That is one Ginormous underground maze. She caught a bus home and went back with her husband. After a period of hours with the help of an attendant they found it.
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I mislaid a car in a gynormous multi-storey park at Frankfurt airport - a huge 12 storey silo with about 400 cars per floor. Mine was a hire car and I couldn't even remember the colour. I had an Avis tag with the reg number and that was it! Long time looking!
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There was always the story about the Celtic fan who travelled to Lisbon to watch them win the European Cup in 1967. After a few drinks of celebration he, along with thousands of others, got on their buses and headed home.
It was only when he got back to Glasgow he remembered that he had driven to the game in his car............
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"There was always the story about the Celtic fan who travelled to Lisbon to watch them win the European Cup in 1967"
I hear that 5000 celtic fans never actualy made it home at all.
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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I was there for that match. One guy impressed the locals by his green Celtic suit. They didn't know he was a Glasgow bus conductor who had gone straight to the airport from work without changing out of his green uniform!
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The most frequent park n forget must surely be at the Disney sites. So much so that they have vehicles assigned to take punters around until they spot the missing car.
A friends elderly mum used to drive the short distance to the supermarket to do her shopping.
She would then walk home with the shopping only to find the car was no longer there.
Naturally she reported this to the BiB.
It happened far too often so they recognised her and her "loss". They were always very helpful.
Eventually my friend talked to her GP and somehow it was arranged that she stopped driving, thank goodness.
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God haven't we all (done that I mean)
The best argument for not drinking and driving I can think of.
If drink isn't yr excuse, you'd better think of another one pronto. We don't want 'confused' people 'verging on middle age' driving the wrong way up motorways at busy times, do we.
Amusing though it might be in the event provided no one died.
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When I was a lorry driver I was given instructions to go and collect a load of grain from Green Farm, in such-and-such a village. I found the place, loaded up and then delivered the grain to its destination. Then I got a panicky message from the boss saying that the people at Green Farm were still waiting for me.
It turned out that there were two places called Green Farm in the same village and both had consignments of grain waiting to be collected. I'd picked the wrong one!
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> Naturally she reported this to the BiB.
The missus used to work in the Police Stolen Vehicles dept. They were always getting people reporting their cars as stolen and then ringing up again about half an hour later to say that it hadn't been stolen. They had forgotten where they had put it. Very common problem.
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Had to try a few different floors to find my Mundano at the Heathrow Terminal 3 short stay multi-storey back in May.
Caused by parking up not paying any attention to which level I was on!
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Was Charles {P} but someone c o p i e d my name with spaces.
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Was at the NEC Birmingham when i parked my car at the big car park there. A few hours later when Dad & I walked back we realised that we couldn't find my car, after about half an hour & asisstance from an attendant we found it, we did somehow managed to get to the wrong car park as the lettering were similar. But it is so confusing if you're not quite with it!!! I couldn't imagine my dad finding his car on his own at that place!!
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Its not what you drive, its how you drive it! :-)
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After a long day of meetings with my boss I took him to Manchester airport for his domestic flight back to Heathrow. I was so full of myself that I left my coat and jacket in the back of my company Montego, walked him to his departure gate and realised I had no idea where my car was parked. I was absolutely perished when I found it nearly 2 hours later.
Wangled a pair of hospitality tickets to watch Damon Hill in Saturday qualifying at Silverstone with my son, then aged 7. Had a glorious time and then completely forgot which field my Citroen XM was parked in after the event. As fatigue set in quickly with the young 'un I realised the only thing to do was to break out the doggy bag and wait for the fields to empty. Visibility of the XM wasn't helped because it had sunk on its suspension to about waist height. For daring to get itself lost I caned the car mercilessly for the 200 miles back to Yorkshire, arriving home in less than 3 hours.
Hawkeye
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Stranger in a strange land
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All I can say that on Thursday I went to the Office car park to collect one of the two Hondas we have (both silver) and spent a fruitless few seconds trying to unlock the wrong one with the other's remote....fule.
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Bloke where I used to work came in in his car, then went home on the bus. Next day he came in in his wife's Volvo. Yep you guessed it, he went home on the bus again. Rumour had it from one of my ex colleagues on the same bus was that half way through the bus journey home (the 2nd time) he stood up and announced his mistakes.
Scientists, who'd have'em.
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Many years ago my parents had a white Mk2 Ford Escort estate. My mother came home one day from shopping rather flustered and explained that, with hands full of shopping and in a hurry, she had unlocked and loaded the boot of the first white Escort estate she had seen in the car park, unlocked and opened the drivers door and was sitting in the drivers seat cursing the ignition lock which refused to turn. Eventually it dawned on her that the dashboard had sprouted a radio in her absence so she had clearly managed to gain access to the wrong car. Fortunately, cars these days have better security as well as remote controlled locking which makes them much easier to find.
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It's been a fair while since I lost a car, but I managed to do something nearly as good last christmas.
Mym mum was waiting outside the shops in her green Polo, and the boot was unlocked. I got my bag from the irst shop, and went out and put in the boot of the car, before going back to the next shop. Came back to the car, but looked in the window to say hello ... but no mum, and no familiar clobber.
Her car was three stops further along, so I climbed in there ... but was so flummoxed that I forgot to retrieve the bag from the other car. So somebody else opened their boot and found a free bottle of wiskey, and we had to go to the pub and pay an extortionate price for a replacement bottle of whiskey, which we had intended as her neighbour's present.
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Many years ago .......Mk2 Ford Escort......she had unlocked ...the first white Escort estate she had seen in the car park and opened the drivers door and was sitting in the drivers seat cursing the ignition lock which refused to turn. Eventually it dawned on her that the dashboard had sprouted a radio in her absence so she had clearly managed to gain access to the wrong car. Fortunately, cars these days have better security as well as remote controlled locking which makes them much easier to find.
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Not a strange event. Many years ago, I too had a very very similar experience with two brand new red Escorts.
A couple of friends and us together collected almost identical red hire cars.
The number plates were sequencial but one car had red seats and the other brown.
The next morning, outside our hotel , I was discovered by friends sitting in their car cursing the thing for not starting but of course the main difference was the seat colour and that was not too obvious under my bum.
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an ex-girlfriend had an Escort that you could open the boot with a ten pence piece....(Mk1 1300E in purple)
i spent over £200 having a new wing fitted & some welding and then the cow sold it
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i lost my doom blue passat estate on the parking fields at santa pod (had to leave early). Took 45 minutes to find it again!
my brothers honda obligingly opens all doors with central locking by putting ANY key in the drivers door
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Reading about the incident with the white Escort suddenly reminded me of something my dad did many years ago.
Was in Sainsbury's car park when we walked back to his Austin Princess, he got his keys out to open the boot after a few minutes of trying to get the key into the lock he took a big long sigh...... then he realised that this Princess was blue as his was brown & was a bit further along the row of parking spaces!!!
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Its not what you drive, its how you drive it! :-)
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A few months ago I came out of a shop wondering where I could buy something (I forget what) I couldn't find in there. Whilst still pondering, I went to unlock the Fiesta with the key, only to realise I wasn't getting anywhere with it. Turned round to look (!) at it and realised it was a Focus estate and mine was parked a few doors down. At least they were both silver!
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Mike Farrow
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Didn't Bill Gates once park a new Ferrari in Seattle(?) and then forget where?
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I remember Zoe Ball saying she'd won a classic Aston Martin in a poker game and had left it somewhere in London, but had no idea where.
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From another angle:
Many years ago went for an interview in Warrington. Came out and some lowlife had mercilessly blocked me in to the agency's carpark. I opened his door (using a method best left unmentioned but that did no damage). Off with the handbrake and rolled it a couple of hundred yards down the (fortunately dead straight) road and left it it there.
I often wonder what the owner thought when he came back.
V
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