The Death Car: Urban Legends in Horror

If you want some inspiration in coming up with a death car horror story, look no further than these three urban legends about death cars.

1910 Gräf and Stift Double Phaeton

The Gräf and Stift Double Phaeton carried Archduke Ferdinand to his assassination in 1914.

The urban legend says that the car had a soul and was so traumatized by the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand and his wife in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914, it went insane and decided to murder all future passengers.

The Archduke was the heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian throne and the target of a ragtag group of Serbian, or possibly Yugoslavian, nationalists. On that really unlucky day, Ferdinand had already survived an attempt to blow him up. A bomb was lobbed at his car but bounced off the roof and exploded under a car behind him in his motorcade.

Ferdinand later made an impulsive decision to visit the members of his entourage who were taken to hospital after the earlier bombing. His chauffeur was unfamiliar with the new route and he took a wrong turn. Unluckily for the archduke and his wife, the chauffeur got confused and stopped just six feet from the man who ended up killing them.

In a stroke of even more bad luck for the Archduke, the assassin said he just fired twice without aiming because it was too crowded for him to pull out the bomb he’d intended to use. One bullet hit Ferdinand and the other his wife.

The urban legend about the car (which wasn’t even owned by Ferdinand) seems to have started around 1959 when Frank Edwards published his book, Stranger Than Science.

The legend around the car grew over the years, with reports saying it had fifteen owners over twelve years and was involved in accidents that resulted in the deaths of thirteen people. None of this can be proven, but it makes a great story.

The car is now on display at the Museum of Military History in Vienna.

A depressed serial killer car sounds like a good basis for a horror story, don’t you think?

Porsche 550 Spyder

In 1955, James Dean’s new Porsche 550 Spyder, also known as the “Little Bastard”, crashed head-on into another car and Dean died.

Dean’s passenger was thrown clear and survived, while the other driver suffered relatively minor injuries.

In a story that came out after Dean’s death, fellow actor and friend, Alec Guinness, apparently warned him that the car might kill him, but Dean laughed it off at the time.

James Dean was a car enthusiast and competed in road races. Shortly before his death, he’d recently appeared in a TV ad telling young people not to speed because “the life you save might be mine”. He was ticketed for speeding just two hours before the crash that killed him.

The urban legend talks of a cursed car and cursed car parts.

The Porsche and its pieces have allegedly been involved in a series of accidents on the street and the racetrack and are supposedly responsible for a number of deaths.

The stories about the car following Dean’s death are varied and it’s not really clear what’s true and what’s not.

• Car customizer George Barris claims he bought the car, intending to sell it for parts. When it arrived at Barris’s yard, it supposedly rolled off the truck and broke a mechanic’s legs. It’s not been proven that Barris even owned the car and he’s been accused of publicity stunts such as having the car catch fire in a garage and again in a sealed container and making up stories about the car injuring or killing people.
• A doctor used Dean’s engine to replace the one in his own Porsche. That doctor died in a crash during a car race the first time he drove it.
• Another doctor installed the transmission into his car, and he was seriously injured in a crash during a car race.
• Someone bought two of the tires and he crashed when both tires blew out at the same time.
• The shell of the car was being transported to a road safety exhibition when the truck crashed and the driver was killed.
• The shell of the car then mysteriously disappeared and nobody knows where it ended up.

Another urban legend was also born that day when fans refused to believe Dean was dead. A story circulated saying he was terribly disfigured but still alive. His gravestone has been stolen or damaged several times over the years since his death.

I would read a horror story about cursed car transplants.

Black Gaz Volga

This Eastern European urban legend became popular in the 1960s and 1970s.

The legend says the black Gaz Volga car was used to abduct people, but stories about this luxury car are wild and inconsistent.

• In some versions, the black Gaz Volga circled the streets looking for victims. The car would stop and someone inside would ask a passerby what the time was. As the unsuspecting victim came closer to the car, the door opened, the person was dragged inside, and the car drove off.
• In other versions, the car appeared out of nowhere, grabbed up kids, and drove off.

Whether the car itself was haunted or possessed, or whether someone drove it, the stories of what fates befell the victims vary with the telling.

• Drivers of the car have been said to be sinister priests and nuns, black-robed Satanists, vampires, or even Satan himself. In these cases, the victims would be sacrificed to evil spirits.
• In stories where the car was said to be driven by criminals, the victims would be taken to a facility where their blood was drained, and their organs harvested and sold to rich people.

That sounds like a horror story premise to me.

Joy Ride 2: Dead Ahead (2008)

After their car breaks down in a remote section of desert, a group of young travellers borrows a car they find at a vacant home with plans to return it once they are on their feet again. Unfortunately for them, the owner is a sadistic truck driver.