The Car Switcheroo Prank—this couldn’t be done today!

Marjorie writes in again, with a story told to her by an Aussie friend (in his words). What I love about this story is that it's set in a time and place where people actually left their cars unlocked, with the keys on the front seat, expecting that the cars would still be there when they returned.

I was living in Hobart in 1977 and, driving home, I noticed a friend's car parked outside the corner store at the bottom of my street. I was expecting her to come visit later that afternoon and thought she might be in the store, so I parked behind her. She wasn't in the shop, and I couldn't see her anywhere near. I went to her car, which was unlocked, and found her keys on the seat. I went back to my car and left my keys on the driver's seat, returned to hers, got in and drove home.

An hour or so later she emerged from the friend's house where she had been visiting. She immediately saw that her car was gone and recognised mine. Her companion was shocked to see her car missing and she played along, but when he insisted on going back to his house and calling the police, she stunned him by saying, "No don't worry about it... I'll just take this one!" With that, she got into mine and drove off, leaving him gaping in the middle of the street.

Pranks

Posted on Thu Apr 12, 2012


Comments

Back when we were in high school both Christian and a friend of ours had old Corollas (diff models but both from late 70's/early 80's). We had discovered once that Christian's keys would unlock Bek's car, so one night while we were at basketball and Christian and I were passing Bek's car we decided to see if his key would start her car. It did indeed and so we moved her car to the other side of the parking lot and then pissed ourselves laughing when she came out and thought her car had been nicked. Of course, we were much douchier back then...
Posted by Nettie  on  Sun Apr 15, 2012  at  05:03 PM
Reminds me of the time my Dad bought a new car that was the same model as the previous one, only a different colour. He then transferred the in-car clutter etc. to the new car, and went to collect my Mum from work. When questioned he of course insisted that it was the same car and the colour had always been the same...
Posted by Dave  on  Fri Feb 01, 2013  at  05:20 AM
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