To the piece of shit who keyed a classic car

Today I was walking through the parking lot of my bank, and I noticed a 1968 Buick LeSabre. I am a vintage car/SUV fan, so any time I see a unique older vehicle it makes my day a little better. But this LeSabre was in especially good condition. It was a dark red color and had a black leather interior. Cosmetically, it looked perfect, inside and out. A+ condition. My first thought was that obviously someone cares a lot about this vehicle to have maintained or restored it to such excellent quality.

Then I noticed that the word “BITCH” was keyed into the front side panel, in HUGE letters. I mean huge. I mean like a foot and a half tall and two feet wide.

I have, in my head, a fantasy that after this keying occured, the owner of the car walked up, caught the shithead in action, smashed his face into the concrete, and then keyed the same word right into his forehead with a rusty pocketknife. But I’m sure that didn’t happen. I’m sure that this shithead did the vandalism and then ran off, like a coward, and the car’s owner came out later and saw the damage and knew that he had to spend good money having it fixed and knowing that whoever did it was safe in his room in his mother’s basement, playing Counter-Strike. Or driving his piece of shit Ford Festiva, or riding away on his motor scooter that he uses because his license got taken away for having too many DUIs.

As someone who cares passionately about cars, and has a lot of respect and admiration for those who have the pride and motivation to restore classic cars, I have to say it really makes me sick to see an act of vandalism like this. I mean, it’s a horrible thing to happen to anyone’s car, but it gets me especially steamed to see it happen to a car that someone (even if it wasn’t the current owner) obviously put their heart and soul into.

I remember, when I was about 8 years old, asking why my dad’s Oldsmobile had a big empty light-colored space on the side, and he said, “someone tore off the emblem.” I asked him why someone would do it, and he just said, “for no reason.” It was a pretty ugly and boxy car, but it still pissed me off even then that someone would deface it for absolutely no reason.

I remember, when I was about 17, walking outside in the morning and seeing my modified 4Runner (slightly lifted, with a brush guard, off-road lights, roof rack, bug shield, rear tire - it was like a dream for a high school kid) which I loved so much and which gave me such pleasure to drive every day and see people’s heads turn, with fucking egg all over all the windows. It was a cold spring morning and the egg had congealed and frozen all over everything, and as I scrubbed it off I just wanted to run those fuckers over and crush them under my tires. It just made me sick.

I don’t know why people vandalize cars. I mean, I don’t know why people vandalize anything. Why the fuck would anyone with any kind of decency do something like it? I can even understand stealing, because you get a reward from it - you get to keep what you stole. You’re still doing something immoral (to this day I have never shoplifted or stolen anything) but I could understand why someone, especially a kid, would steal. But vandalizing a vehicle? What do you get out of it? Does it give you an orgasm or something? Does it make you feel more powerful? Why can’t you take that energy and DO SOMETHING PRODUCTIVE?

If you key a car, you are a piece of shit. That’s all there is to it.

Maybe the owner was a…bitch?
::d&r::
Oh, and one more thing…only in a vintage car could you get a 5-letter-word in 2’ high letters on the front fender! :smiley:

What does this mean?

Oh and where in IN are you? I’m in Bloomington.

It means “duck and run”… as in spouting some smartassy comment and getting the hell outta Dodge!

I’m in Fort Wayne…Good to see another Hoosier on the board!

You have your answer right there.
Vandalism is the work of a sociopathic mind which, for shit a giggles, won´t give a damn about the damage other people will have to clean up or repair on their wake.

The perpetrator is clearly a huge Meredith Brooks fan.

The perpetrator should be thrown into an industrial cooling fan.

No. Pushed. Slowly.

I’m thinking really unpleasant divorce.

How about a really unpleasant marriage.

Witrh no possibility of divorce.

I can see the other side of this arguement now “If I key a car, it’s because the person who owns it is a piece of shit, that’s all there is to it.” A keying is something you do to piss off the OWNER of the vehicle, not the manufacturers, designers, or other afficionados of that make/model. It sends the message “I hate you and want to devalue one of your greatest and most visible assets.” Pretty strong message, and I disagree with that particular method of delivery, but the action doesn’t become more or less heinous based on the quality of the car so vandalized. Keying a 1968 VW Beetle is no different than keying a 1968 Ferrari. Both are cosmetic damage designed to frustrate and really piss off the owner. The Beetle will be cheaper and easier to fix, which is good because it’s owner is not likely to have the cash/insurance for an expensive repair. The Ferrari owner will be pissed mightilly and have to shell out more money, in absolute terms, to have their car repaired, but the proportions of how hard it hits each vehicle owner are likely to be about equal based on the average net worth of Beetle versus Ferrari owners.

So, keying a car means you’re a piece of shit who thinks the owner is a piece of shit. We can agree on that. What I’m not on board with is a new category of shit based on the type of car keyed. I don’t see it as material.

Enjoy,
Steven

As a classic car owner, it annoys me that I have to worry about my car so much. When I take it on road trips, I always like to keep it in plain sight because you never know when someone will decide to vandalize it out of jealousy, or because they think it’s too much of a gas hog to be on the road, or because they see the muscle car culture as too much of a redneck thing. So far, I’ve only encountered positive experiences, but being a member of a car club has given me plenty of stories from other owners that have had terrible things happen.

Just last week, one of our club members had someone break into his garage, throw a cement block through the windshield, and then make several scratches and dents across the hood. All of his DJ equipment was left intact and in place, so the break-in was just to vandalize the car. He has no idea who did it, just adjectives to describe their character.

I think Quiddity means that the word was the result of an unpleasant divorce - maybe she got the car?

It could also be that the driver really did do something to earn the retailliation although it’s surely illegal and stupid, not to mention a waste of a great car.

Ouch

  1. Wouldn’t it also be illegal to drive around on a motor scooter if one no longer has a license?

  2. How much is insurance against vandalism to classic automobiles?

So where was the classic car? Was it next to the Buick? :wink:

  1. No, since they don’t require a license.

My first Yaris got one of the small rear windows broken shortly after I’d bought it. The door wasn’t open, nothing got stolen, no keying. Just the window broken.

The insurance guy classified it as “3am weeknight vandalism” and I found a place to park that doesn’t look deserted even when it is. The street where it had been parked only has houses on one side. According to the insurance guy, sometimes some moron will key (just a looooooooooong thin line) every single car parked there, just stick the keys to the side and get a lot of cars to the painter. Sometimes, they break every window on the no-houses side. Mine was the first report he was getting for that weekend, so he asked me whether I’d noticed broken glass along the sidewalk and yes I had. So I guess I even “got lucky” that something scared the asshole away after only one window!

In that case, at least there would be a suspect. Which is better than you have in most keyings!

Depends on where you live. They [url=http://www.illinoislegalaid.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=home.dsp_content&contentID=3491do require a driver’s license in Illinois (if ridden on public property like streets and sidewalks), for instance.

Man, I suck at coding. Here’s the link.