Way back in the early 1980s, my Dad started making big money–we’re talking a new Toyota Celica, plus enough disposable income for a “fun car.” The first fun car was an MG Midget that barely contained all the parts it needed to run, so there were no previous-owner surprises in its glove compartment or trunk–er, boot. After getting the MG into tip-top shape and selling it, Dad procured fun car number two: a very nice 1977 Datsun 280Z. And here it is, complete with Dad, plus the MG:
The Z arrived much better sorted than the MG had, and only needed a few non-essentials repaired. It also arrived with a few extras in the spare-tire compartment: a twee little pipe that appeared to kid-me like something that might be used by a Leprechaun (this was incorrect, it turns out); a moldering Playboy of which I only saw the cover; and single 10mm wrench, which I still have (the wrench, not the Playboy or pipe).
Other used cars came and went as my sister and I grew into driving age, but the surprises within were few and far between. (Unless expected things like spent cans of starter fluid and dry-gas empties count, which they do not). I did score a very nice Trapjaw action figure (lackey of Skeletor, enemy of He-Man) that was jammed under under the rear seatback of a Dodge Omni, and my sister bought a Corolla with a nice hand mirror and a sandwich-bagged five-dollar stashed in the glovebox. What a win!
How about you? What have you discovered tucked into cars you’ve owned yourself, or in friends’ rides (you little snooper you), or in heaps at the pick-n’-pull? Tell us all about it!
Hundreds of rounds of 9mm Luger ammunition, in the spare tire well of a Volvo previously owned by a Swedish diplomat in Ottawa
I found what I assume is some kind of bumper bracket for a car that is not a 1966 Thunderbird, in my 1966 Thunderbird. I was freaking out for the longest time trying to figure out where it goes and what part of my car isn’t being adequately supported, but I’ve never found anywhere it fits. I searched the part number on the bracket and nothing showed up. I have no idea where it came from or what it’s for, just that it sure as heck isn’t part of my car.
Less weird but still neat was a box of parts in the trunk, including NOS wheel bearings and a distributor rebuild kit, which is nice and will come in handy later (my wheel bearings may or may not be showing their age). I also found a cracked license plate frame from a defunct used car dealership in Georgia, which is a nice bit of insight into where my car has been in the past. Also a penny from 1975, which is certainly a penny from 1975.
My old Audi Coupe had this weird clunk in the door when I took a corner too fast. When the window regulator eventually died (as they all did) I found an old hammer inside the door. Curved handle, and sort of a chisel point on the back side of the head. There was no way to tell if it was original to the car, but I had my suspicions.
Many moons ago I bought a derelict 1958 Oldsmobile Super 88, it was rough. I mean ROUGH. I had eyes to restore it but not the skills or the money. I had been parked for at least 20 years, probably more, with a stuck engine and a trunk that would not open.
One day we decided to get into the trunk, which we did. Found some hub caps, newspapers, spare tire, jack, all the usual items. HOWEVER…
TUCKED DEEP IN THE BACK OF THE TRUNK .. where the trunk hinges – was a Playboy magazine in terrible shape, and I kid you not – a bottle of hand lotion. I am not making this up. I’m guessing this was some kid’s stash hiding his porno in the abandoned car in the barn.
The Playboy was the issue with Elizabeth Taylor, which was from January 1963.
My first car when I got my license in 1998 was a 1986 Mercury Cougar. About 8-9 months after I bought I hit a pothole and blew a tire. When I pulled up the trunk carpeting where the spare tire should be there was sadly no spare tire. Instead I found a few wrapped Christmas presents. They included a Game Boy, 3 SNES games and a few GI Joe’s. Some little boy must have had a very disappointing Christmas back in the early 90s after their dad forgot where he hid the presents, and I’m guessing that kid’s mom still hasn’t let the dad forget about it to this day.
I bought a 2008 Mazda3 S Touring hatchback in August 2009. It was a brief service loaner for a Mazda dealer in Georgia and had a mere 11,000 miles. Still wore its factory (and horrible) Goodyear RS-A tires.
In the center console was a brown clip-on ponytail hair extension.
The half-loaded (and slightly rusty) .22 pistol magazine under the back seat of my buddy’s ’86 Monte Carlo was definitely a surprise to us.
This sounds appropriate of most 1980’s Monte Carlos.
My first car — a ’79 Plymouth Horizon purchased from a friend — came with $17.38 in change in the ashtray.
When I got Sandy The Indestructible Acura back from my Dad after his 15 years of impeccable stewardship, it came with an Aretha Franklin Christmas CD in the head unit. Dad always had good taste in music.
Maybe not the weirdest, but a very fitting find:
A bootlegged Johnny cash CD and a 40 of Olde English in the trunk of a 1972 Cadillac Eldorado. This was a $700 car that the 20-year old PO was using as a daily driver. Absolute shitpile, and an absolute burnout machine.
A mysterious portal to another dimension, actually bringing 10mm sockets and spanners BACK from the neitherworld/duat/multiverse/thing..
I bought an 02 Suzuki XL7 last year from the family of man who passed away. It hadn’t been cleared out when I got it and the stuff inside ranged from a craftsman socket set to one of those OBDII fuel mileage scam things to half a joint in the ashtray. I immediately found a hidden spare key in a magnetic case stuck to the steel spare wheel mounted on the tailgate. Later, I found another original spare key in another magnetic under the car randomly stuck to a frame rail and a third just recently on the other side. So that’s 3 so far and I wonder if there are more that I haven’t found
I bought an NC MX-5 a few years ago privately. Taking it for a wash and interior clean out before going on a fun drive a few days after I got it I found in the glovebox a whole heap of condoms (in their packets), a little figurine and in the cubby behind the seats the sellers Chinese drivers license. I dropped him back his licence and chucked the other stuff out after I’d told him I’d found a few personal belongings in his car. It was a bit of an awkward phone call as when I’d paid him for the car a few days earlier we’d sat in his lounge with him and his wife doing the registration transfer paperwork we each needed to fill out…
25-30 clear glass marbles under the carpet. That was pretty unusual.
Handwritten notes of an eulogy… a woman had lost her boyfriend (or fiancé)…
ooof
Have responded with this before, but it was a human tooth with silver amalgam filling when I pulled the dash in my e30. I’ll never forget the text I sent my wife “found a tooth in my car 🙁 “
I bought a 1990 Honda CRX HF. Road tripped it from Chautauqua, NY to Key West. On the return, somewhere on I79 in West Virginia, flashing lights appeared in my rearview, and I pulled over. Following a brief, cordial chat, the officer said his department was in the process of acclimating a dog into their canine unit. She asked if I was willing to wait for their new pup to arrive and sniff my car. I had nothing to hide, nothing to defend, and I said yes. The canine unit arrived, and the pup was quite animated, leading to a thorough search of my new-to-me car. It was weird. Nothing was found, no ticket issued, and I was on my way.
A month or two later, I went on a solo camping trip. To inflate a small air mattress, I pulled the cigarette lighter from the 12v socket and plugged in my small red power adapter. Oddly, the lighter was missing its heater coils. Upon further inspection, it wasn’t a cigarette lighter, but it could be lit… It was, in fact, a one-hitter pipe built as an exact replica of a 12v cigarette lighter. I still feel a little bad for the dog…
As an aside, I’m not a lawyer, and I didn’t even sleep at a Holiday Inn last night, but this sounds like a terrible, terrible choice.
Cops don’t have probable cause, so “Hey, we just need to train our dog. You don’t hate dogs, do you?”
I guarantee if they HAD found something, you would have been charged, they would argue that it was 100% admissible, and that you had definitely given your permission to search the car. There is no exception for “They said it was just training.”, and Cops are allowed to lie to you.
I appreciate and respect what police do, they need to be well funded in order to be sufficiently staffed with well-trained officers to preserve order in society. But they are not your friends. Don’t talk to them. Their motivations are to catch people, or to think they’ve caught people (and let the lawyers sort it out.). They have NO incentive to be your friend, nor to help you personally.
I used to run demo derby, and those cars usually netted some interesting finds. Nude pics of an ugly woman, a rusty .32ACP pistol, half a pint of Fireball, a dildo, a single size 14 shoe…
A rubber banded pack of sandwich baggies, the size used for a certain green, leafy substance, buried deep with the rear trim around cargo area of my 91 Camaro. It made the previous owners 3 aggressive pitbulls in his yard make more sense.
My wife. I thought I left her at the last rest area.
Father bought a brand new Rover 3500 and picked out 750g (we weighed them) of random nuts bolts and washers the first time he cleaned the interior. Cue British quality jokes – although to be fair nothing actually ever fell off that car…
The most interesting one I ever heard about happened next door when I was a little kid, in 1977. My teenage neighbor bought himself a used 1975 Camaro Rally Sport, and the day he brought it home, he and his dad were detailing it. When they opened the trunk and pulled the spare out to vacuum, there was a pound bag of weed under it. He didn’t get to keep it. Dad called the cops.
I’ve never found anything particularly interesting in a used car, but once in a rental car back in the 90s, a previous customer helpfully left me a cassette tape of Tom Petty And the Heartbreakers’ album “The Waiting” in the console.
I’ve bought a 2001 Miata off a guy on Craigslist who was selling it because the Navy was moving him to a different location. Over time, I have found in this car (1) a ceremonial Navy cap, (2) a Navy communication handbook (classified, nonetheless), (3) a couple of bullet casings under the seat and (4) a spent smoke grenade in the spare tire well.
Travel johns, way too many travel johns.
And here I was thinking I had an original contribution…
My brother’s first car was a mid-80s Audi 5000cs. It was the first foreign car in our family, which explains how my mom bricked it one day: She went to move it and, when it didn’t turn over, kept twisting the key toward “start” until it produced a conclusive crunch. The idea of cycling it back to off was unknown to her and she didn’t share that detail until we tore through the car looking for the problem. In the trunk were:
-a white umbrella
-several white candles, and…
-a handful of .357 mag rounds
At the time we were picturing some sort of homicidal Mary Poppins cult, but other responses here confirm that used cars in America are basically rolling ammo dumps.
Way more exciting than the BMW I picked up in L.A., which had a CD changer full of Eastern European techno and an uncapped syringe under a floor mat. Typical.
Not me but my cousin. She bought a ~5 year old extended cab Ranger in the late 90s and had it a couple years before an inevitable flat tire happened. While getting into the jack compartment there was a plastic bag inside containing a genuine Rolex watch. She still rocks that watch to this day.