The 10 Greatest Pranks in Automotive History

[Heel n Toe]

(according to Jalopnik)

Reminiscing about the 1961 CalTech Rose Bowl prank over in the 2016 College Football thread inspired this thread.

The Ten Greatest Pranks In Automotive History

Please share any automotive pranks you've pulled.

My bud Dennis and I (when in our 20's) used to pull some pretty mild and easy stuff on coworkers. One girl in the art department had a big, pale metallic green, mid '70s 4 DR Ford like this (with no vinyl top)...



She was about 5'2" and even though she was very attractive, once she got in that thing, she looked like a little granny and we'd laugh at her and ask her when she was gonna get something better. A lot of her friends were making some decent money and were driving Turbo Saabs and stuff, and she talked about how much she hated that Ford, but it was paid for.

So one day on break we snuck out to the parking lot and spelled out TURBO in 3" tall, white vinyl letters on the front fender on the passenger side in hopes that she wouldn't see it for a coupla days. I think she found it pretty fast... maybe that day. She laughed so hard she was choking. She was very good natured.

We played another one on this really tightly-wound stump of a guy down on another floor. He wasn't much taller than the girl and had a bushy 'stache. Single guy in his mid-to-late 30s and had sort of a Wilford Brimley vibe about him. Word around the building was that he was always asking different women out and got turned down a lot. He was making pretty good money.

I forget what kind of car he had but it was pretty new, and it was probably something like a dark blue or green Chevy Monza fastback and he thought he was hot stuff.



I made a 2.5' X 1.5' white 3 in this typeface...



...and we put it on his passenger door. He didn't find it until he got home after driving about 10 miles... through town, up I-26, then suburban streets to his house. He visited the art department the next day and was not happy, but he didn't try to get at us through our supervisor. She was about 6' tall and always backed us up... I'm sure he didn't want her laughing at him, too.

[yetibone]

I wired a guy's horn to his right turn signal.

I wired another guy's horn to his fog lights. Took him a month to figure it out.

[LEAKYSEALS951]

I can't recall any pranks I have played on others-
Two come to mind where I have been pranked.

The first was when I was a teenager wiring the stereo in my 912 out in the driveway. I was alone. There was no interior in it at the time. I went into the garage to get something, only to come out to the car which was terrifyingly engulfed in SMOKE! It billowed out of the windows and doors. I freaked and went for the fire extinguisher, only to hear the howling laughter of my next store neighbor, who had snuck over and placed a smokebomb on the front floorboards.

The second was also p-car related. I stopped in a local 7-11 in a shady part of town. Went inside, and came back out to find a dude in my driver seat bent over stealing the stereo.
On pure adrenaline I ran up and kicked the hell out of the door, and was about to reach in and kill the dude, only to find it was another "friend" who had pulled up into the parking lot at the same time and jumped into my car to act like a car thief.

With friends like that, who needs enemies?

[fastfredracing]

I was a pretty new mechanic. I had just assembled a 350 in a full sized Blazer. When I was getting ready to start it for the first time, the older mechanic that worked in the bay next to me hid behind the truck , and every time I would start it, he would bang on the tail pipe with a wrench . It sounded like it was going to blow, and I remember feeling very stressed, and embarrassed that I was going to have a massive failure at my first bigger jog at this dealership .
After about the 4th start, I could hear him laughing from behind the vehicle and finally figured out what was going on .
I've got lots of them

[dad911]

In HS we moved a guys VW across the parking lot. When he came out from work, 6 of us were standing where his car used to be parked.

I noticed while helping a friend bleed brakes, his key was like mine, but with one extra notch, so I filed a key until it fit his car. He never figured out how I got a key to his car.

Used to play 'hide and seek' on the back country roads, so I rigged a switch to turn off all my tail lights, make it hard to follow me at night.

[billybek]

A company I worked for had a fleet of Astro and Safari service vans in the early 90s and my new Astro's key was apparently a master key for almost every GM door but not the ignition.
I would regularly change radio stations, turn on wipers, turn up the volume on the radio on co workers vans.

[Robert Coats]

Working for Honda, I would sometimes get lucky and win a chance to buy a slightly used bike, often one that had done show duty or photos shoots. A few scuffs here and there, but most had less that 100 miles total.

Our shop guys got my newest toy unloaded (a sport-touring ST1100) and I spent my lunch hour getting it out of the shipping crate and going over it with a fine tooth comb. It looked amazing, and I was going to try and ride it home the next day.

In the morning, I immediately went back to look at the bike again, and something caught my eye...there was a small manilla card wired onto the #4 spark plug wire under the engine cover. I pulled it out, and my heart sank; the card had the hand-written words, "Low compression #4 - M/C Service Engineering." I stood there in shock for a solid minute before I stared to hear some gentle snickering behind me, and when I spun around, it had erupted into full-bore laughter as our 3-man shop team was all pointing at me and laughing like idiots.

Ah yes, the old 'tag his new bike with a fake and terrible engine note' ruse.

[Nickshu]

Originally Posted by fastfredracing

I was a pretty new mechanic. I had just assembled a 350 in a full sized Blazer. When I was getting ready to start it for the first time, the older mechanic that worked in the bay next to me hid behind the truck , and every time I would start it, he would bang on the tail pipe with a wrench . It sounded like it was going to blow, and I remember feeling very stressed, and embarrassed that I was going to have a massive failure at my first bigger jog at this dealership .
After about the 4th start, I could hear him laughing from behind the vehicle and finally figured out what was going on .
I've got lots of them

That's hilarious! I would have shat a brick in your shoes.

[LakeCleElum]

1) We worked night shift and commute home in morning rush hour. A guy at work backed his pickup in when he parked. I duct-taped a huge Playboy centerfold pic. to his tail gate. Said he was getting a lot of honking and thumbs up going home that morning.

2) A friendsis on a 5 day motorcycle ride with us and can't quit bragging about his new Harley. Someone (?) puts a quart of 2-storke oil in the gas tank one night. The next day, we point out how it's smoking and probably needs a rebuild......

[Jolly Amaranto]

At the reception after my cousin's wedding, he and his new bride unwrapped all the wedding presents that were piled up on a table at the end of the reception hall. One very beautifully wrapped gift box contained the carburetor for his car that was parked outside waiting to drive off for the honeymoon. He somehow obtained the keys to his dad's car and left him with the carburetor and the keys to his car. My uncle got a ride home and came back the next day to put his son's car back together.

[tabs]

A couple of novel ideas
1. A potatoe up the tail pipe, creates back pressure so the car will not start.
2. In a parking lot nails under the back side of the tires so that when the car backs out the tires get punctured

Or my favorite is a guy I worked with who liked to fool around with locks opens a fellow employees car puts a 50 lb bag of dog food in the back as a warning not to work in that facility, because the next time there would be a call to security to go along with the merchandise in the back of the car.

[1990C4S]

A long time ago a co-worker bought a Diesel VW. The guy went on and on about the great mileage, and eventually everyone got sick of his story.

As payback for the aggravation some guys in the office started adding diesel to his car and the stories went from 50 MPG to 70 and 80 MPG!

Then they started siphoning fuel out each day....

[fastfredracing]

At the pizza shop where I worked as a teen, no delivery driver was immune to the "dough dick" Huge lifelike penis's were made from pizza dough, then draped off the rear bumper of the delivery drivers cars .

[sammyg2]

I'm not one for practical jokes as they always seem to get out of hand, but there have been a few times:

A few small rocks in the hubcaps of a work truck make an interesting noise.
As does 3/8" wide zip ties on the drive shaft between the mufflers.

A co-worker who pulled a practical joke on me drove an el camino and was parked in a gravel lot. "Someone" jacked up his car with a forklift and placed wood blocks under the axle so that the tires were barely touching the ground but had almost no weight. It looked normal too.
That was funny.

But you shoulda seen the look in another guy's eyes when he started his really clean lowered silverado step-side and saw all that talcum powder I put in his fan shroud blow everywhere, just like it was smoke.



Those of you who have worked with prussian blue know that it can be really messy.

Imagine how much fun it was to get pay-back by coating the outside of his gas cap with prussian blue, and have him find out when he got the restaurant after filling up on the way there.
He had that stuff EVERYWHERE!

[BReif61]

I was a victim of the ole "squirt of diesel fuel up the muffler" trick back in high school. Thought my precious Integra had blown its engine.

[johnco]

one time we wired a friends horn to his headlight switch.. unfortunately for us he got home before dark and joke failed.. even more unfortunate for his wife, she decided to sneak off at 2am to go screw her boyfriend, turned on the lights and woke up her husband and half the neighborhood as she was too stupid to turn the lights back off until everyone was outside raising hell about the noise

[fastfredracing]

Some cruel stuff used to happen in our shop also . Like screwing a grease nipple into the drawers of a guys locked tool box, and filling a few of his drawers with bearing grease from our 35 gallon air operated grease gun.
I watched them turn a guys pants inside out, and painting the inside of them with grease, then hanging them back up neatly in his locker .
We had a dead bird that used to get passed around, it would always end up in someones uniform pockets, or in their lunch in the breakroom fridge .

[Amail]

Years ago I was an EMT. The ambulances had dual batteries with a battery switch on the side of the drivers seat platform. When you parked at the station, you had to switch off all batteries. The fun prank was to turn on the lights and siren on another crew's rig so when they hopped in and turned on the batteries it was quite a shock - especially at 3:00 am!

[carreradpt]

Years ago a "friend" at work put a license plate frame "i'm gay wanna play, honk" on the rear plate of my car. That weekend wife and I were washing the car when she shrieked first and then started laughing. Found out it had been on for the entire work week. Cute

Another; friend had a horn connected to his brake lights in his truck and he couldn't find it immediately and remove it and had to drive across town for a meeting. He said it was most embarrassing.

[Jolly Amaranto]

10:30 PM
1969 in a small town in Texas.
Three HS buddies and I were crammed into the seat of old Dodge pickup truck, cruising around looking for mischief. The old malt shop had closed at 10:00 but there was still a car parked in front of it. We all recognized that it was Charlotte's old Plymouth. She was a kind of androgynous creature, sort of stocky with a short hair cut. Her car was unlocked. Hmm, what to do?
We collected a couple of orange crates from behind the grocery store, you know the old style wood slats woven together with twisted wire. Next stop was a chicken coop on the corner across from the school. Easy access from the side street where we liberated about eight hens and loaded them into the orange crates. It just so happened that this was the house of one of the deputy sheriffs. It was back to the malt shop were the old Plymouth was still parked. We figured she was out drinking with her buddies. After loading the car up with the chickens, they made themselves at home roosting on the shift lever, steering wheel, bench seat and floor. We loaded up and drove around the block a few times. Shortly thereafter, a car load of girls drove up and Charolette stumbled out. As the car drove off she staggered over to her car, opened the door and fell in. There was silence for a few seconds and then a terrific scream. We stopped and poured out of the truck laughing ourselves sick. Another car full of guys drove up and upon learning the details joined into the disturbing of the peace. Suddenly the parking lot was blocked of by three sheriff's car and one state police, lights flashing, spot lights on but no sirens. Up against the wall everybody. So there we were, hands above our heads, against the side of the malt shop, Charolette throwing up. The law enforcement officers went into action with their long flashlights inspecting all the vehicles. Deputy Billy was heading over to Charolette's car. We hoped he did not recognizes his chickens. However he was too busy performing a "professional" investigation to note anything familiar about the hens. "Alright you clowns, I want these chickens removed, the chicken sh** cleaned up and someone to take Charolette to her house. She is in no condition to drive." So, after finding some rags in the back of the truck and the hose behind the malt shop, we recaptured the birds and cleaned up all the chicken guano. "Charolotte, where are your car keys?" Oh crap, she had passed out. I never would have guessed that I would have spent Saturday night groping around in the pockets of a drunk person of questionable gender, trying to find a car key. Found it and after loading Charolotte into the back seat I drove the old Plymouth to her parents house with the truck and the chickens following. The door was open so we just laid her down in the entry way, left the key, closed the door and drove off. After repatriating the hens to their coop we called it a night. I often wonder if Deputy Billy ever figured out that they were his chickens.