Can anyone help me find the title and author of this short story? I can only remember bits and pieces:
The main character bought the car from a dealer who described a new technology in vague and mysterious terms and promised that the car would need no gasoline. The driver later discovered a sore on the bottom of his accelerator foot and realized he was feeling very weak. He then picked up a female hitchhiker and offered to let her drive…
This story may have been in Omni magazine-
Bugger.
I’m in the process of moving, so I can’t just reach over and take the book off the shelf – it’s in storage.
It is collected in the anthology Car Sinister, and the title was, IIRC, “Vampire, LTD.” The author slips my mind, but was a Russian, writing during the Soviet era – the story got the OK because it portrays westerners as being cheerfully willing to drive cars that will kill them just to look cool and win races…
Wow, that is quite a memory. Found it on Amazon- thank you so much!