Urban Legend explained: JATO rocket car

[Saltire]

I tried to think of a way to justify tossing this into GQ, but I really don't have a question for it.

It is a story, supposedly true, of a guy who actually attached a JATO bottle to a car. He is fully aware of the Urban Legend, and feels that his adventure is probably the source of it. He and his friends embedded a Chevy Impala body in the side of a mountain in 1978.

His story seems plausible, since it is extremely detailed and lacks some of the lurid points. For instance, it was done on rail tracks, and was unmanned.

Anyway, if you have the time, this link is a good read. It is long for the web, but worth it.

http://www.cardhouse.com/rocketcar/ROCKIT.HTML

[Hamadryad]

I went to this about 3-4 months ago. I thought it was actually pretty fascinating. Even if it's not true, it oughtta' be. In my travels I haven't seen anyone debunking it, so who knows?

Unless I have been remiss in my hunting at Snopes...hrm.

[obfusciatrist]

I read it the last time it was posted here. I came away thinking that it was a really clever convoluted joke.

I have nothing specific I can point to for thinking that, but it has my sense of it.

[Billdo]

This is covered on a resource every doper should have at his or her fingertips, the Urban Legends Reference Pages, more commonly known as Snopes.

According to http://www.snopes2.com/autos/dream/jato.htm the JATO assisted Impala story is false.

[Saltire]

Bildo, please read my post again, and maybe you could even look at the linked pages (both my link and yours). Just because Snopes mentions something similar doesn't mean it applies to this thread.

The point is that this is not the legend from Snopes or the Darwin Awards. The guy that describes what he and his friends did thinks his actions may have inspired it.

I realize that the legend may have been around before 1978, but I wasn't posting it as hard evidence. I thought it was a fun story, told in an amusing way. If you want to discuss whether this is for real, feel free. But your Snopes link doesn't say anything that really relates.

[Saltire]

By the way, I did pass this link on to the Snopes folks. At the least, they can add a summary to their site as another interesting version of this story. Maybe they'll be able to confirm it (not too likely, the author intentionally left out location info).

[El_Kabong]

BTW, the referenced story was published verbatim in Wired issue 8.08.

It's pretty well written, and the technical details seem mostly plausible, but the author stumbles a bit when he starts talking about the railway:

...the Mojave is covered with abandoned railroad track, most of it the old-fashioned narrow-gauge kind used for mining trains near the turn of the century.

There is no extensive network of abandoned rail lines in the Mojave, narrow gauge or otherwise, and in any event, there is no particular reason for a narrow gauge mine railway (built to move materials within the confined spaces of the mine) to run several miles from the mine entrance, as described in the text. The type of line discussed would have ended at a loadout or smelter just outside the mine mouth. Finally, the historical interest attached to any intact stretch of narrow-gauge line (abandoned or not) would almost certainly have resulted in its mention in a railfan publication, and in some thirty years of following the railfan press, I have never seen mention of an intact mining railway in the region.

[zuma]

btw, snopes has devolved into a sad joke.
they'd "debunk" the sun rising in the east in an instant, given the chance.

anyway... the story itself sounds believable.. but it sounds a bit more like an internet geek fucking with the UL crowd.

if it was real, the guy would have given specific loctions and such... interesting story, but i don't buy it.

[Saltire]

Rocket88, thanks for the info. The track they used was only 1.9 miles long, though.

I'm getting more and more doubtful about it, the more I think about it.

After passing on this link through the Snopes comment form, I just got a form e-mail from them. I'm a bit mystified by it. Here is the entire text of it.

Thank you for your submission.

Please be advised that messages containing the string
http://www.cardhouse.com/rocketcar/ROCKIT.HTML
are automatically discarded.

Why do you suppose that is?

[Diceman]

I read the story in Wired a few issues ago, and I find it pretty plausable. There are mines all over the Southwest, so it's not at all implausable that there'd be one with some track sticking out. While most mines didn't have alot of track outside the mine, remember that this one is fairly close to the author's town (if I remember the Wired article correctly), so it's possible that the track led into town at one point.

Snopes is a cynic, so you can't accept her opinion on the falsehood of something without reading the article to see if she actually based her decision on any evidence. Half of the time, it's just her opinion.

[OpalCat]

a few points.

If you were trying to prove the story true, you'd mention the exact location.

If you were setting off to DO such a stunt, you'd bring a camera.

My conclusion: it's a lie.

[Homer]

Originally posted by OpalCat
If you were setting off to DO such a stunt, you'd bring a camera

But, they were kids, didn't want to be found out, and it was long enough ago a kid might not have had easy access to a camera.

--Tim

[dubs]

Wow! The kid had easier access to a JATO bottle than he did a camera??

[Diceman]

Originally posted by OpalCat
a few points.

If you were trying to prove the story true, you'd mention the exact location.

You've forgotten one very important point: the kids were in posession of the JATO unit illegally. Although the Air Force screwed up by putting the JATO into a pile of surplus, the sales contract made it clear that the guy and his dad were legally obligated to return anything in the way of weapons or live ordinance that they found among their surplus.

There is the very real possibility of legal trouble if those people's location and real names came out.

If you were setting off to DO such a stunt, you'd bring a camera.

Why? This took place years before "America's Funniest Home Videos" was conceived of.

[MannyL]

Too bad they didn't tape it, It would be perfect for Jackass