Coincidences good bad or ?

kirban 2 cents worth

With such a wide age of readers of this forum I thought I would throw this question out there and see what interesting responses it can generate. Some of you or perhaps many of you depending on your age, can surely relate to good, strange, or bad coincidences that have happened to you whether it be car related or ?

I have experienced several. Here is just one to start the ball rolling. Its the early 1970s, my wife and I had purchased a 1963 Corvette split window coupe. Member early 1970s they were simply a used Corvette. (Paid like $2500 for it) It was a 4 speed 327 with side pipes. Most unusual was it never ever had a radio. The dash was never drilled or cut out for one!

Great car......stored it every winter. One spring took it to the movies big mistake.
Came out, car was gone. No real insurance. Total loss. Disheartening feeling when you search the parking lot in the dark thinking maybe you parked it somewhere else....

Two months pass, cops call you they found the car. Its about 30 miles away in the woods by the railroad. I have my own truck and trailer to fetch it. Car is just a shell. A bare shell 4 us of lift it onto my trailer.....

Heartsick....total loss. I sell it to my cousin who has grand hopes of restoring it.
Another 2-3 months pass he calls me up in his search for a set of doors he says he found a guy that has a set of doors for sale. They happen to be 1963. (I can't member but I think 1963 may be one year by itself). Further explains to me they are even blue in color same color as my Corvette.

I said too much a coincidence. I think for a minute and tell him you know I still have the car keys hanging up. I call my buddy who is a local chief of police and explain the situation to him. He agrees to accompany me and my cousin to check it out. He tells me if the key fits the door lock we walk away with the doors.

We arrange to see the doors. Once arriving there I know the doors are a dead color match. The locks are undisturbed in the key holes......I pull out the Corvette keyfob I had with the 2 keys and walk over to the door and bingo....fits and works like it was yesterday.

Naturally the, seller claims he got them elsewhere once my one buddy identifies himself as a police officer...and we walk away with a pair of doors. We did not see any other parts from my car so we left.

My cousin eventually sold the Corvette and it was restored at some point. I have never seen it since. With never having a radio it would be easy to spot at a Corvette event if it stayed that way.

True story..........

Lets hear your story about strange or unusual good bad coincidences......

denniskirban@yahoo.com

I got a weirder one that Mr AMC Guy will post for me since I have no clue on how to do photos. This other story I got has a photo with it. Unlike this story it falls under the good category.

 

To make a long story short I found a bunch of old plates in a scrap metal dumpster so I took them home to hang up.....I had the mate to one of the plates already hanging up.I had that single plate for years and don,t remember where it even came from.

 

My guess is, you should have played the lottery that day also! What are the chances?

denniskirban@yahoo.com

 

That reminds me of a GTO story that I was told several years ago. The owner of a 1969 GTO in the midwest sold his pride and joy years ago. SInce he retained the original VIN number maybe 5-6 years ago he tracked down the car which was in a neighboring state and was able to buy it back and restore it.

To make his restoration complete he wanted to find a 1969 Indiana license plate to put on his car. (Some states allow this).....

He bought a nice 1969 Indiana license plate.

Brought it home. Was going through some ld photos of his car when he originally owned it only to discover......the plate he purchased was his EXACT plate.....equalivent to finding a needle in a haystack!

I am repeating this story by memory the years may be off, but the connection to the plate and being his original license plate is true!

denniskirban@yahoo.com

 

That reminds me of a GTO story that I was told several years ago. The owner of a 1969 GTO in the midwest sold his pride and joy years ago. SInce he retained the original VIN number maybe 5-6 years ago he tracked down the car which was in a neighboring state and was able to buy it back and restore it.

To make his restoration complete he wanted to find a 1969 Indiana license plate to put on his car. (Some states allow this).....

He bought a nice 1969 Indiana license plate.

Brought it home. Was going through some ld photos of his car when he originally owned it only to discover......the plate he purchased was his EXACT plate.....equalivent to finding a needle in a haystack!

I am repeating this story by memory the years may be off, but the connection to the plate and being his original license plate is true!

denniskirban@yahoo.com

 

You found a guy with your 'vette doors, and took the doors and that's that? He was in posession of stolen property...could've at least been questioned. You didn't go to who he said he got the doors from? There was no further search of his property?

 

Yeah, I would of thought youd of shook him upside down untill the rest of your car fell out of his pockets.

 

Its the early 1970s I have restored a 1947 Studebaker 1/2 ton pick up. All those pick up trucks back then had stake holes in the side of the beds. It was common to mount a wooden sign in each side with a company logo etc in them. The picture above shows the board that I had made up for my company.

Back then I towed for $8 local. Far cry from todays rates! This truck I used for advertising purposes only. Anyhow, around 1973 while at my buddies gas station I threw the boards away as I was changing it out.

Member this was around 1973. Years go by the gas station is torn down a new self serve one is built.

Maybe 2 years ago, my buddy calls me who manages a nearby Midas Muffler shop. Says a friend of his stopped in that empties houses for estate sales and takes contents to auctions. Says he found a wooden sign in this house that was going to an auction and wondered if my friend knew who it was since the towing business was no longer in business. (Meaning my company). I sold out of the towing business back around 1990.

My Midas buddy knew it was mine so he called me and told me to go to the auction which was being held the following Saturday in a nearby town.
I could not believe it, the sign looked as good as when I threw it in my buddies dumpster back in the mid 1970s.

Appearantly this old lady lived in a house behind the gas station and got this out of the trash way back when and for some reason kept it in her house for over 30 years until she died.

I took a photo with me to the auction showing the sign on my Studebaker truck. After talking to the auctioneer he explained it to the crowd prior to auctioning the sign. Naturally, no one bid against me as it had no real value anyhow. I got it for $10.....

It now hangs in my basement.

Never have seen the Studebaker truck that I sold over 30 years ago, but I got one of the original signs that was on it!

True story

lets here yours


denniskirban@yahoo.com

thanks to Mr AMC for posting my photo with my story...

 

I've got a number of these stories but they tend to be on the spooky side.,
But heres a mild one...
When I plated my 59 chevy I was pleased to find that the last 3 numbers out of 6 happened to be my birthday (4-13). I thought of the car making it's way into my possesion as being some kind of a gift, or birthday present.
A few months ago when I started hanging out at the local fire dept, I noticed What is known as a box alarm number on the fire run reports that looked familiar to me for some reason. After a while I realized that this 6 digit number which was the unique number for the part of the neighborhood that I live in (Midway)was an exact match for my license plate number!!!

 

I ran into the son of the original owner of my '37 at a swap meet. It stayed in his family for about 40 years.

 

Kinda weird. My brother bought a 63 corvette roadster , 340 hp 4 spd in Tacoma Wash. It didn't have the hardtop with it only the white soft top. The car was silver-blue, not that it matters, he saw an ad in the paper for a corvette hardtop, we went and looked at it. It was hanging on a basement wall, same color, everything. The guy said his brother bought a 63 vette new and then sold it, the hardtop didn't go with the car for some reason. My brother said, uh, you might want to come outside and look at this car of mine. He glanced at the car and said..That's my brothers car! We put the hardtop on and it fit perfectly. $75 and we drove off with it. What's the chances of a newspaper ad re-uniting a car and top? Lippy

 

Several years ago I was at a Hot Rod Reunion at Bakersfield talking to a foreigner about my A coupe. He says to me "I bet you can't tell where I'm from". I easily guess he is from New Zealand and we talk some more then he blurts out" You're Jean Perry's son!". A few years earlier my mom had worked at a dealership and it turns out he was a mechanic there and knew my mom. She had even had me send a T shirt for the guy and I just happen to bump into him thousands of miles and god knows how many million people away. Kinda creepy.

 

Alright ya'all here's another one.....
While not in the habit of naming cars since I find it difficult to
assign them a sex, I did come up with one for an ol cadillac of mine.
While I plan to paint this burnt up pearlesn't white boat a flat dark
color, one day I realized I could call it "Pearl". (She's a pearl of
a girl.)
Actually, my life tends to be filled with strange happenings and
coincedenses ,and the car may already have an identity. Before I left
to pick up this car on a 1,000 mile journey I walked over to my cd
rack which I never visit anymore and pulled out a cd of a band by a
local older gentleman. I looked at it and set it down on the edge of
the sofa instead of putting it away. Then I left to get my Caddy.
Picking up this car sight unseen, one thing I had staring me in the
face while it was up on the trailor was the front lic plate
insert "White lightning" which led me some info to the cars former
identity. A day later after arriving home,I walked over to the sofa
and spied that cd that I had not put away. The name of the
band?? "White Lightning"!!!!!!!!!!!!! And the reason I had this cd in
the first place? out of two songs, one was a rolling stones cover
tune; "Paint it black"!!!!!!
While I was thinking of painting it a dark flat color like some
sort of blue and not black, you have to admit this experience was all
too strange. For the
longest time during my youth, 99 % of the time that my cars broke
down they waited to do so within a block of home. Seriously, -Al

 

Just remembered something odd....the bank machine I always use at my bank has 1957 as its I.D. number.Check my avatar....

 

At the time we did check the shop and found nothing else related to my car. I no longer owned the car....did not have insurance on it. My cousin was happy to get the doors for free and granted what you say should have been done but at the time he was just glad to get the doors.

Keep in mind back then the cars were not considered collectible cars but more like a used Corvette.

denniskirban@yahoo.com

 

I am currently working on my deceased Grandfather's truck. 1955 big window chevy. He got the truck from an old man who lived in Julian. I never knew much about the truck other than my Dad's Father got it from the old man in trade for hauling much needed medical oxygen to Julian. After my Grandpa passed we moved the truck to my Dad's house when my other Grandfather (my Mom's father) came over to visit. My Dad mentioned how he wished we had more history on the truck, and Gramps said what do you want to know? It turns out when he was a young Ranch hand he used to load hay in it when it was new. He remembered his boss special ordered the truck through the Ramona Chevrolet Dealership that was in town. He argued with the sales guy and said he didn't trust any damn new V-8, so he got the inline six with an over drive transmission. When his boss retired from Ranching he moved to Julian. Same guy, Same truck, Same extended family.

 

Great stories thus far......

Here is another one on the sad side.......

I had an Uncle who I was close to years ago....as he hustled used cars on the side. When he retired he would always look for a reason to meet me for a cup of soup somewhere.

He had been a heavy smoker for a number of years and you can guess the rest it eventually caught up with him so he could hardly walk from one room to the next. Every week I made it a point to send him fresh fruit and the weekly National Enquirier which he loved to read.

As his health continued to decline he went to the hospital.......his daughters called me one morning...and said his time was near and I should get down to see him one last time as he wanted to see me.

My wife and I got in my car and we started to drive to the hospital....I still remember the exact time a few minutes before noon when I was about 20 minutes away from the hospital....a chill came over my body and I glanced at my watch....I looked over at my wife.....and said I think we are too late....

When we got to the hospital his daughters informed us that he passed away a few minutes prior to noon......

denniskirban@yahoo.com

 

This past July when we went on vacation I forgot to lock the garage door. When we returned two weeks later I opened the garage only to find that someone had stolen my 32 Ford pickup and replaced it with an exact duplicate of my truck.

 

I work as an insurance appraiser. When I worked at my first insurance job, I stopped by this one shop to inspect a car (this was around 1990). I kidded with them about washing my 1989 Taurus SHO. They said,'Hey, no problem", grabbed my keys and gave them to the porter.

I was around the back of the shop and cut thru the wash rack on my way back to the office. The porter was washing a Mercury Sable and says, "I'll be done with your car in about two minutes." I stopped and looked and asked if he was doing it after he was done with the Sable. Hey says, "This isn't your car?" Nooooooo. My keys fit the Sable's door and ignition locks. He drove this car back using my keys.

 

Not a Vette, but found a 63 Rambler 440H in a lot full of repaired lawn mowers. Bought it right and it was complete. Friend said I think I know someone who has parts for that. Tracked him down and looked at the parts in his shed. Paint color was the same shade I uncovered under the repaint. Turned out he had previously owned the coupe and stripped out a convertible to build it. Several owners and a couple of states apart. Hmmmmmm.

 

My first car was a chopped Model A pickup with a rolled pan in the back.I traded it in '57 for a '32 3 Window. I lost track of the pickup and the coupe as well. Fast forward to 1969. I am at a car show in L.A. and there she is, my model A. While I was reading the specs about it, I came to the owners nsme and it sounds familiar, same as a guy I work with. Monday morning I go to work and this guy sits about 3 desk away from me. I told him I saw this Model A at the car show over the weekend and it was owned by a guy with the swame name as his. He pulls out a photo and says"You mean this one?" We compared notes and photos and sure enough it was the same truck.

 

I bought a 33 Ford Cabriolet in 1974 from a guy across town who had wanted to restore it but decided to sell the car. It sat on and original chassis, no motor/or transmission, had steel back fenders with 39 Teardrops in them. The door handles were filled on the car and the windshield was chopped. The padded white top was genuine Carson Top Shop top with tag sewn into the headliner.
Several years later a friend bought a chopped 34 5W Coupe project. When I went to look at it I noticed the chassis had drips and drop of an odd blue colored paint/resin on it. I got home that night and discovered the paint/resin matched exactly the stuff on my Cabriolet's firewall which had been used to "fill" the many small screw and boltholes in the firewall.
After checking with the guy I bought the car from it turned out that my friend's chassis had originally come out from under MY car. The old man he bought the Cabriolet from had moved the body onto a stock frame when he told him he planned to restore the car. The Cabriolet's frame was then sold to a hotrodder who later sold my friend the project.
I never finished the car and my friend moved away and we lost touch.

 

I used to have a special connection with my grandmothers sister, "Aunt Dorothy" McBride, from Woodstock, Il. she didnt get her drivers license until she was in her 50's When she bought a beautiful 1955 Pontiac Starchief in 1974. When I was young she shared memories of the car with me, and gave me an old 55 poncho promo model along with her Illinois license plate which read "DOT 74". A couple of years ago I made her a nice wallhanging display which included her plate, an origional 55 poncho ad in the correct autumn bronze and white tu-tone, and a picture of her with her car from the seventies. I gave this to her for her 90th birthday, and she was very pleased with this gift. She carried it to various senior meetings and showed it off until she passed from this earth a few months later.
Previous to her death I had made a commitment to chauffer an old friend to Auburn Indiana, In his 37' Cord, a pilgramage he had been making since the sixties, but was unable to make by himself. Come Friday night, I was wondering about the wake that I was missing, and bought myself a souviner hat from the Auburn Hotel where I was staying at.
The next day after a saturday full of activity I walked the downtown streets feeling a little guilty while thinking about the funeral I was missing back in Illinois. At this time I spied a t-shirt shop that I had noticed the night before and decided to venture into. It turned out not to be a clothing store but an embroidery shop. There were two ladies looking at the large embroidery pattern book that they had on the counter, but I decided to wait and to look at it myself. When they finally left I walked up to the 6" thick book to see of all things....A 55 Pontiac pattern staring me in the face. There were 10's of thousands of patterns in this book so to be confronted by this one was nothing short of a sign from beyond to me.
At that time the hat that I had purchased the night before became one of my most treasured possesions.
Now when I told Aunt Dorothy's Daughter Maureen about this experience. She exclaimed....
"Now what the Hell was my mother doing in Auburn Indiana,
while we were all at her funeral in Woodstock????? HAH!!!!!

 

On the way back or on the way out ?

 

This is not my story, but I read it on another car-related board. Thought you guys would like it.

 

Ten to one the old guy knew it was him.....

 

24 bottles in a case of beer. 24 hours in a day. Coincidence?

 

A beer an hour? Your drinking too slow....although moderation is the key.

 

Here is another unusual coincidence that happened to my wife & I. Unusual set of circumstances that fell into place.

Starts back in 1966-67......I was stationed in Vietnam in 1966-67. Can't complain as I had great duty being the photographer and editor for the 17th Aviation Group stationed in Nha Trang which was just up the coast from Cam Rhan Bay. (Spelling?)

Slept in real barracks most times. My girlfriend was graduating from high school that year 1967. Course I was thousands of miles away. I did have a small wallet size photo of her that I carried with me. In Vietnam I hired a Vietnamese artist that did a real nice canvas painting based of my girlfriend based on the small photo I had. Must have been like 18 inches by 24 inches on a canvas like material.

I hung it above my bunk in the barracks......for all to see....

Tour is up I head home. Got darn lucky pulled great duty to finish out my tour got stationed at the Philadelphia Induction Center playing teacher giving tests etc and instructions to incoming recruits.

Got married that first month back......

Few months pass......I am getting gas at a local gas station one nite....girlfriend who is now my wife is sitting in the car as I go up to the gas station window to pay for the gas. I was driving either a 1950 Ford or my 1949 Olds club coupe. (Can't member which).

Another person getting gas can't take his eyes off my wife....she becomes nervous....he comes over to her side of the car and says excuse me but you look so familar to me. Did your boyfriend serve in Vietnam in Nha Trang?

At this point I am walking back to the car.....The guy turned out to be one of the guys from my barracks who just happened to be driving from the Philadelphia airport to visit a friend in the northern part of Pennsylvania and recognize my now wife from the canvass painting that he saw every morning in the barracks in Vietnam.

True story........

What are the chances...as the guy did not even live in Pennsylvania....

On a related note....that 1950 Ford I had....because we moved so much car had a lot of memories for me but I ended up towing it to a crusher that made it into one of those 3 foot square cubes. Great idea at the time but came time to move again I did not have any method for moving such a heavy piece of iron so it got trashed.

The Olds Club Coupe....got sold years later...was powered by a 371 Olds hooked up to a earlier hydromatic transmission all 12 volt. Blast to drive everyone thought it was a regular run of the mill Chevy.....bad knee action style shocks made every small bump feel like a major crater in the road. (I miss that car).

I am still married to the same woman however......still have the short timers stick which many servicemen in Vietnam would carry when they got down to the last 30-45 days in country.

true story....

denniskirban@yahoo.com

In Vietnam all you could shoot was black and white photos no color as there was no way to get it developed. Not like today! For any of you camera guys I shot with a twin lense Rollei which made 2 1/2 inch square negs.

 

I bought a 69 Fairlane 428 Cobra Jet from my cousin. When he had it, the first to come off was the smog pump and components. Years after I bought the car, I asked him what did he do with the smog pump? He said, it's down the cellar of my mom's house, you better act quick because my brother is cleaning out the junk. I wasted no time, Phil said is this it? It was in a box of junk ready to go out. I still have the car.