1 - At 9000 feet at the top of Mammoth Mountain in California. Apparently my car didn’t appreciate the thin air. I had stopped to look at the view, and when I went to start the car, it wouldn’t start. Fortunately I was facing downwards so I just put the car in drive, released the brake and just let it coast, repeatedly trying to start it till it caught.
2 - About 1974, I was stationed at Ramstein Air Base in southwestern Germany. I had bought a car through the base exchange, and the car was at the docks in Bremerhaven in northwest Germany, so I had to take a train to go and get it. As was standard, the car only had enough gas to make it off the docks and to the first gas station. So I took it to the station and filled up and, lo and behold, the fuel gauge wasn’t working, so it wasn’t registering that there was any gas. I drove it back to Ramstein, filling up every so many miles because I had no idea how much gas it used. I then went the next day to get it fixed, and they had to order a part from the United States, so I had to wait.
In the meantime, I was living in the barracks, and I got a phone call late Sunday night from two friends who had just flown in to Frankfurt Airport, asking me to come pick them up. I was the only person with a car living in the barracks at the time. I told them I had no idea how much gas I had, but I would do what I could. So I went to the squadron’s computer center, which was open 24 hours a day, and asked if anybody had some gas I could use. One of my friends had a 5 liter container full of gas in her car, so I took it and took off.
About halfway to Frankfurt, all of a sudden, my entire car just shut down, no lights, no power, no dash lights, nothing. I was JUST approaching an exit for Wilhelmshaven/Mannheim, so I coasted onto the exit, about 12:30 in the morning. I used the 5 liter container to fill up the car, and drove into Mannheim looking for a gas station. I drove around for quite a while, but couldn’t find an open gas station. So I parked on the side of the road, flagged down a taxi, and asked him to take me to an open gas station. He did, I filled up the 5 liter container, drove back to the car, emptied the container into the car, then drove back to the gas station and filled up. And so then I made to Frankfurt airport to pick up my friends.