Famous Cursed & Haunted Cars | Most Famous Spooky Cars

Posted on 2019-10-24

We've all heard tales of haunted houses and curses placed on unlucky individuals. Though spooky mansions often get the most attention, there are numerous haunted cars that terrify their owners. Some of these famous cursed cars have even caused their owners' deaths, leaving a wake of destruction and pain behind them.

The owners of the most famous haunted cars range from movie stars to everyday drivers. Get ready for some notable tales of famous cursed cars and learn what happened to their hapless owners.

Table of Contents

Famous Cursed Cars
Volo's Connection to the Cursed James Dean Car
Famous Spooky Cars
Where to See Haunted Cars?

Famous Cursed Cars

Often, the most famous spooky cars have a life of their own, with a tendency to cause harm. What have these possessed cars done? One may have single-handedly caused World War I, while another was so infamous that a local church group stole the vehicle and chopped it up to pieces.

1. The Most Evil Car in America

A 1964 Dodge 330 came to be known as "the most evil car in America" after it allegedly killed more than a dozen people. The villainous car was first purchased by a police unit. During the car's career as a police vehicle, three officers drove it. Each officer would commit a murder-suicide, where they first murdered their families, then killed themselves. The eery similarities made people wonder if the car was possessing its drivers.

The car's next owner, Wendy Allen, had a similarly spooky experience with the vehicle. When Wendy drove on the highway, the car would open its doors without anyone touching them and jam its steering wheel, placing passengers in harm's way.

When members of a local church heard about the car's reputation, they went out and vandalized the car in an attempt to stop it from being used. The story goes that many of those who vandalized the car ended up decapitated by an 18-wheeler truck, with one member struck by lightning.

In 2007, a child who supposedly touched the car went on to kill his entire family much in the same way as the three police officers. After this tragedy, local church members stole the car and chopped it up into small pieces, sending the pieces to multiple junkyards to ensure it was never reassembled. As far as we know, the car has yet to come back.

2. Archduke Franz Ferdinand's Graf & Stift Death Limo

The Graf & Stift Death Limo might claim the largest kill count. Due to its role in Archduke Franz Ferdinand's death, it's often blamed for the beginning of World War I. Discounting the car's role at the start of WWI, it still has a number of deaths and injuries associated with it.

It all started on a day when the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand had just avoided an attempt on his life. Riding in the Graf and Stift limo, the archduke and his wife were on their way to comfort those in the hospital who were injured in the incident. While they were on the way, the open-air limo stalled in the street.

Unfortunately, they stalled in front of a cafe, where one of the failed assassins had stopped to get a drink. As the Bosnian anarchist walked out of the cafe, he saw the archduke sitting there, giving him a second chance to complete the job. The assassin took advantage of the stalled car to shoot the Archduke and his wife, leaving them to die and tipping tensions in Europe over the edge to begin WWI.

Without the car stalling, the assassination would have never happened, and history might have been different. Of course, the car's stalling could be attributed to a case of bad luck. Yet, the assassination wouldn't be the last death to happen in the car.

The next person who owned the car was an Austrian general who went insane as he rode in the car through Vienna. After the general gave up the car, the governor of Yugoslavia took ownership of it. It would take four car accidents and the loss of his arm to convince the governor to sell the car.

A surgeon friend of the governor bought the car and got in a crash six months later that killed him. The tale goes that the next owner was a German captain who died driving while trying to avoid two pedestrians. All in all, the car would go on to claim 13 lives and would be owned by 15 different people before it retired to a museum where it now rests.

3. The 1968 Volkswagen Van

Years ago, a medical professional named Dr. Jack Kevorkian owned a 1968 Volkswagen van that he used to serve his patients. Kevorkian was unlike others in the medical field in that he publicly supported physician-assisted suicides for terminally ill patients.

During his career, it is believed Dr. Kevorkian assisted nearly 130 patients in taking their own lives — often inside his 1968 Volkswagen bus. Dr. Kevorkian passed away in 2011, leaving his VW vehicle behind.

Those who have accessed the 1968 VW van say there are ghosts who visit the cabin space frequently. The vehicle was sold in 2015 and it is currently in use for paranormal research, making it one of the creepiest and most haunted cars on this list.

4. James Dean's Porsche 550 Spyder

While driving to a race in Salinas, CA, iconic actor James Dean lost control of his Porsche 550 Spyder. The car took Dean and his passenger off the road and flipped into a gully. Dean was killed and his passenger was seriously injured. Whether or not the curse was present that day, it certainly came to life after the wreck.

A leading car customizer and Dean's friend, George Barris, gained control of the wrecked Spyder and began to sell parts of the vehicle to other drivers. Instead of being happy to have a second chance at life, the car was furious. After Barris sold the engine and drivetrain to two doctors, they outfitted each of them into two of their vehicles and entered a race in Ponoma, CA. While racing, both of the doctors crashed the cars. One of the doctors died.

After a while, Barris started to put some stock into the curse and promptly donated the car to California Highway Patrol (CHP). The police were happy to take the famous car, as they had plans to use it as a warning to reckless drivers. Again, the car showed that it was not pleased.

The first place the CHP stored the car was in a garage that promptly burned down, with only the wreckage of the old car left standing. Chalking this up to bad luck, the CHP continued to use the car, taking it to high schools as a visual aid for the dangers of reckless driving. En route to one school, the car broke loose from the truck hauling it and crashed into another vehicle, causing a fatal accident.

Undeterred by these bad omens, the CHP took the car to another school, where the car fell on a student, breaking their hip. In total, the Spyder fell off of the trailer that carried it three times, crushing a truck driver once. Not only did the car give law enforcement trouble, but it also made life difficult for criminals. Two thieves tried to steal the bloodstained seats and steering wheel from the wreck. Instead of getting some memorabilia out of it, all they got were injuries.

Where is the James Dean Porsche today? During the car's journey back to California in 1960, the Porsche mysteriously disappeared during the trip and it has not been seen since.

Volo's Connection to the Cursed James Dean Car

In 2015, Shawn Reilly, a 47-year-old man, provided a lead on the Dean's old car. Reilly said that his father, a carpenter, had taken him to a job as a child where the client wanted a wrecked sports car to be hidden behind a wall. Father and son worked to hide the car. As the two worked, the wrecked car gave Reilly a scar on his thumb that he carries to this day.

Reilly also claims that one of the men who wanted to hide the car was George Barris. The presence of Barris, combined with the mysterious sports car, fueled speculation that Reilly had helped to hide James Dean's car.

The Volo Auto Museum had Reilly take a lie detector test to verify his claims. Reilly passed the test. Reilly's story was the first real lead to the vehicle, even though Volo has had a million-dollar bounty out on the Porsche since 2005.

Famous Spooky Cars

Along with cars that are cursed, there are a variety of famous cars that are spooky. These cars might not try to harm their new owners, but they still carry with them apparitions of the past. Some of the most famous creepy cars are:

1. The Case of England's Ghost Crash

On a cold December night in 2002, police in Surrey, England continued to get calls from drivers seeing headlights swerving off the road along the A3 highway. After the police rushed to the scene, they were unable to find a crash.

Instead of concluding they had been the victims of prank calls, the police searched the area more thoroughly, finding a maroon Vauxhall Astra wrecked in a ditch. Inside the nose-down car, the police found a body decomposing.

What puzzled the police was that it was obvious the crash had occurred long before that night. Due to the state of the body and the undergrowth around the car, the police set the crash as happening five months earlier, meaning that the people calling in hadn't seen the Vauxhall Astra veering off the road — or had they?

The legend goes that the ghost of the motorist found in the car was trying to call attention to the crash. He used the ghostly headlights to get the attention of motorists and draw them to his corpse. Instead of remaining trapped in a wrecked car forever, he could finally be laid to rest.

2. John F. Kennedy's Lincoln SS-X-100

John F. Kennedy's assassination rocked the nation when it happened. Like Franz Ferdinand's Graf and Stiff, the car that Kennedy was assassinated in had a legend around it.

The secret service gave the navy blue 1961 Lincoln 74A Convertible the codename "SS-X-100." They added over 200 modifications to the vehicle, but strangely, they didn't add any bulletproof protection to it.

As the president rode in his convertible, with the top open and First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy beside him, three shots were fired, ending the President's life. The president's assassination wasn't the end of the car's service life. The government used it for eight more years.

Officials outfitted the vehicle with bullet-resistant glass, a bullet-proof roof and titanium armor plating to make it safer for the next president, Lyndon Johnson. Johnson also had the vehicle repainted black, as he worried the navy blue paint would be associated with the assassination. By 1967, the presidential limo was replaced by a new one, and it was used for less important duties until it was retired in the Henry Ford Museum in 1978.

It was at this museum that the rumors started that the car is haunted. One common sighting was a person dressed in gray standing next to the car. The apparition is often seen in late November, and the rumors of the haunted car with the gray apparition persist today.

3. Jumping Car of Capetown

In 2004 in Cape Town, South Africa, a Renault Megane came to life on its own, scaring the witnesses and convincing them that the car was inhabited by a ghost. Without anyone starting the car, it "jumped" backward twice up a hill. Representatives from Renault showed skepticism. They reasoned that cars don't just move uphill on their own without the engine being turned on. In their minds, the witnesses had to be mistaken.

The car's owners insisted that there was no key in the ignition and that the parking brake was active. While Renault would later go on to say that the car had jumped backward due to a rusty starter cable, few have accepted the explanation.

Even if the rusty cable explains why the car started on its own, it still doesn't explain the revving engine. For this reason, many still believe this to be a case of a ghost inhabiting a car, making it do its bidding. Unlike the other cars on this list, this haunted car seems to be the most playful, as it just gave some people a scare without injuring anyone.

4. Bonnie and Clyde V8 Ford "Death Car"

When it comes to haunted cars, the Bonnie and Clyde car is essential on the list. In the early 1900s, two individuals found one another and created one of the most infamous couples of all time. Bonnie and Clyde were two notorious gangsters during the Great Depression era, robbing banks and leaving a trail of blood in their wake. Their misadventures became glamorized throughout this period, offering a form of chaotic and violent entertainment that appealed to many people.

Their crimes and especially the murders of several police officers made Bonnie and Clyde sought-after criminals. They gained followers and created a gang, but these members would ultimately lead to the duo's downfall. When they were killed, it was believed they'd committed 13 murders, various robberies and countless burglaries.

The FBI tracked down Bonnie and Clyde in Louisiana in 1934. As the couple drove up in their Ford V8, agents opened fire. Bullets rained down on the vehicle, killing Bonnie and Clyde. Curious onlookers ran to the scene, looking to get a piece of history. It's said these people tried to take locks of hair, fragments of clothes, broken glass, shell casings and anything they could get their hands on. According to some stories, one man even tried to cut off Clyde's ear and trigger finger.

The bloody scene in the vehicle may have inspired the famous name — the Bonnie and Clyde "death car." Pistols, machine guns and rounds of ammunition were found in the backseat. To prove the couple was really dead, Bonnie and Clyde's bodies were put out on display, attracting tens of thousands of visitors.

The stolen car was reportedly returned to the original owner, who promptly sold it. From there, it went on a winding journey, touring carnivals, fairs, race tracks and more, cementing its place in the long lore of spooky cars. Throughout its journey, many have stared at its bullet-ridden, bloodstained appearance and felt an uneasy feeling just being in its presence. Today, the car resides at a museum in Nevada.

The car was the scene of a gory, violent ending for one of the nation's most villainous couples, and it remains one of the most famous spooky cars of all time.

5. The Number 7 London Bus

While the next vehicle on this list isn't exactly a car, the story behind the Number 7 London Bus is too freaky to leave out. As far back as 1934, English drivers have reported seeing a red “Phantom Bus” driving long after public transportation service hours. This Number 7 London Bus drives down the center of the road in the early hours of the morning, resulting in drivers running off the road.

In the 1930s, a man swerved to avoid the Phantom Bus and died when his car burst into flames. Local police assumed this incident was a case of reckless driving until witnesses reported seeing the spooky vehicle firsthand. In the decades since, several London drivers have encountered the Phantom Bus, just missing the side of the vehicle when it comes darting down the street within Cambridge Gardens in the early morning hours.

In all witness reports, the Phantom Bus blows by drivers on the road and disappears into the darkness — not to be seen until the next incident.

6. The Black Volga

One spooky car that has not been seen since the 1970s is the one and only Black Volga. Some believe this limousine was once driven by Satan himself. This terrifying vehicle allegedly featured horns instead of side mirrors. The spookiest part of the Black Volga lore is the notion there was always a disappearance or fatality anytime the limousine made an appearance in Poland, Russia, Greece, Mongolia and surrounding areas.

Some feel the Black Volga is just an urban legend. Others strongly believe it's the reason for numerous tragedies, including children disappearing and witnesses dropping dead within 24 hours of seeing the vehicle.

During the 1960s, a man living in Ukraine explained that he saw the vehicle approach two young girls, and they were sucked inside the cabin. The man ran to help them. When he opened the front door, there was no one driving the Black Volga. He tried to take control of the situation, but he saw a blinding white light, passed out and woke up the following day with an intense migraine.

It's been some time since the Black Volga has been seen, but this is certainly one spooky car you want to run away from at all costs.

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Where to See Haunted Cars?

Whether you want to see famous creepy cars or check out some classic cars from the past, you can find them at the Volo Auto Museum. When you visit the museum you can see spooky cars like the 1964 Ford from The Munsters, the 1959 Cadillac Miller-Meteor from Ghostbusters, the 1934 Ford that once toured around America as the vehicle, bullet holes and all, that Bonnie and Clyde died in and the 1979 Nostromo Survey Buggy from Alien, among other storied, creepy cars.

Along with spooky cars, you can find classic cars made famous by movies along with vehicles that only a car enthusiast can truly appreciate. Anyone in the family can find something to do at the Volo Auto Museum. Start planning your visit today, and come see us soon.

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