back to article Spanish cops discover illegally parked flying car

Cops on the island of Gran Canaria have sensationally discovered evidence of super-advanced hot hatch technology in the form of a flying Daewoo Matiz. Las Palmas police were called in to investigate the illegally parked vehicle on Monday, and reported: "This is what they call 'high-class parking'." A fireman scales a ladder …

  1. m0rt

    So this is what you get when you upgrade from the beer scooter.

    The beer car that delivers you to your bedroom.

    1. Roland6 Silver badge

      Re: So this is what you get when you upgrade from the beer scooter.

      and tick the box for Amazon drone delivery...

  2. Blipvert

    WHAM!!!

    George Michael on oliday again?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: WHAM!!!

      Well don't forget to zip him up before you go-go.

  3. Unep Eurobats
    Big Brother

    Ah, but have they

    declared SORN?

    (Statutory on-roof notification.)

  4. Richard Jones 1
    Joke

    Rag Week?

    Is there a University nearby?

    1. JetSetJim
      Pint

      Re: Rag Week?

      Doubt it, but there's loads of drunk Brits, usually.

      1. Boothy

        Re: Rag Week?

        Reminds me of the time some of my rugby playing mates popped into the local supermarket to pick something up, and when they got back to the cars, someone in a mini [1] had double park in front of one of their cars, blocking them in.

        [1] This was the 80's, so a proper mini, i.e. it was actually a small car, rather than the bulbous large things they brand mini's now.

        They were in a rush, so rather than waiting, they simply picked up the car and carried it out of the way.

        After driving their car out of the space, and being the nice guys they are, they duly picked up the mini again and put it into the space that they had just vacated.

        Okay, they weren't that nice, they did put the car in sideways!

        1. Jimmy2Cows Silver badge
          Thumb Up

          Re: Rag Week?

          Did a similar thing to an acquaintance's old Corsa... He could be a big headed twat, so we thought it'd be a laugh to pick up his car by the rear arches and turn it sideways in his dad's drive, sandwiched between a fence and the house wall.

          His reaction was a confused mix of apoplectic and WTF just happened, switching between the two every few seconds.

          Needed about a 300 point turn to get out :D

          Good times...

        2. TeeCee Gold badge
          Coat

          Re: Rag Week?

          You should try it with a Hillman Imp, it only takes a couple of lads to pick one of those up (I had the lighter front end).

        3. Rosie Davies

          Re: Rag Week?

          I've lost count of the number if times I've heard either this story or one very, very like it. I wonder whether it's one of those urban legend things or whether people have a supernatural ability to detect a car carrying rugby players and know they should double park there to ensure the story's survival.

          And if the latter wouldn't that make the story some kind of parasite preying off the suggestibility of the puny humans?

          Rosie.

          1. JoshOvki

            Re: Rag Week?

            Perhaps they are in Wales. We seem to her a disportionate number of both rugby players and people who abandon their cars in stupid places.

          2. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Rag Week?

            "I wonder whether it's one of those urban legend things"

            A lot of Rugby players, a lot of idiot parkers, the Venn diagram must intersect fairly often.

            When I was at U a Morris Minor got placed on the flat roof of a building over a weekend. But it was actually done by dismantling it (removing wheels, engine and gearbox) before lifting, and then replacing them in situ, which made it a lot more practical. Or so I am told.

            The Dean indicated that there would be no repercussions if it returned the way it had come, because he was a philosopher with a sense of humour.

          3. Alan Brown Silver badge

            Re: Rag Week?

            It's not an urban legend. The point is with small light cars that sooner or later someone you know will try it and the sports team is likely strong enough to suceed.

            Fiat 500s were a favourite for being carried up several flights of steps in my high school (usually deposited on the landing outside the teacher in question's classroom) and at one point a mini managed to make an appearance on the roof of a 12-floor building at my local polytechnic (not as difficult as it sounds - the freight elevator went to the top floor and it was a quick carry from there to the roof. The sods responsible for that one lifted it on top of some ventilation kit so it was more visible and damaged both the car and building services in the process.)

            The nasty one was where drunken rugby players at the university sports bar picked up a bunch of small cars parked outside and set them all sideways on the building's services driveway down the side - which had a 2 foot deep ditch on either side of the driveway. Much hilarity and they all went home. Sometime later the netball players who owned the cars couldn't get out and one dropped both wheels in the ditch trying to get out. From that day forwards the services driveway gate was firmly chained shut at all times (which only led to people parking in front of it, then getting towed for blocking a fire lane.)

            1. Graham Marsden
              Happy

              Urban legend? - Re: Rag Week?

              It's not as far as I'm concerned.

              When I was (much) younger, the road outside our house was due to be resurfaced, so there were big No Parking signs and cones all along one side, but this didn't stop some idiot from parking their car in the way.

              I watched the workmen "bounce" the car across the road, do their resurfacing and then, later on, bounce it back, but they turned it so it was facing the opposite direction!

              The confusion on the driver's face when he came back was most amusing...

              1. Alan Brown Silver badge

                Re: Urban legend? - Rag Week?

                "I watched the workmen "bounce" the car across the road"

                They're within their rights to phone up the council and have it lifted/impounded.

                The confusion on the driver's face would be even more amusing.

          4. John Tserkezis

            Re: Rag Week?

            "I've lost count of the number if times I've heard either this story or one very, very like it."

            Oh, it's real all right. With us, a small car (not a mini, but still small enough) had blocked everyone in the company car park. After paging a number of times, we (about half a dozen of us) moved it out of the way, with everyone subsequently leaving easily after that.

            About an hour and a half later, said driver (apparently oblivious to the pages) eventually turns up, and quite cross, told us "we couldn't do that".

            Well, going on recent evidence, it appears we could. :-)

          5. Mike VandeVelde
        4. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Rag Week?

          Reminds me of the time some of my rugby playing mates popped

          We popped the PE teacher ZAZ http://www.vehiclepassion.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Blonde-tests-car1.jpg (sans blonde) on top of 4 steel garbage bins.

          That is nothing to what some of our compatriots in a school in one of the country side towns did.

          All old schools in Bulgaria used to be built to more or less the same plan featuring a gigantic (5m or thereabouts wide) staircase. So while the teacher's council was in session, they took the deputy head Skoda (again - the old variety which weighted around 500kg), got it up the staircase to the first floor and parked in front of the meeting room.

          1. x 7

            Re: Rag Week?

            "We popped the PE teacher ZAZ http://www.vehiclepassion.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Blonde-tests-car1.jpg (sans blonde)............"

            So the blonde isn't a typical Bulgarian PE teacher?

          2. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Rag Week?

            > We popped the PE teacher ZAZ

            We did something similar, except it was the PE teacher himself and, rather than on bins it was in a sack in the middle of the school playing fields.

            As an indication of his unpopularity with both pupils and staff, the Head came past fairly soon afterwards and enquired as to who was the wriggling & cursing person in the sack..

            On being informed who it was he just said "oh. Carry on then" and wandered off.

            (Anon for obvious reasons - it's highly unlikely that he is still alive but people consisting of mostly bile and venom might hang on just to spite everyone.)

          3. Alan Brown Silver badge

            Re: Rag Week?

            "We popped the PE teacher ZAZ http://www.vehiclepassion.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Blonde-tests-car1.jpg (sans blonde) on top of 4 steel garbage bins."

            Minis (the old ones) were popular targets for sticking cinderblocks under the suspension.

            This is invisible from casual inspection and _just_ lists the tyres clear of the road surface.

            Teacher jumps in car, starts up and goes nowhere fast.

            1. Alien8n

              Re: Rag Week?

              Same thing happened at my old school as an end of year prank. One of the students had a mini and it was "transported" bit by bit onto the music hall roof by some of the upper 6th form. A few years after that someone broke into the art block and bricked up the doorway to the art teacher's office. Best bit was even the teachers knew who did it but the art teacher was so disliked by everyone that no one would tell him who the culprit was :)

      2. Darryl

        Re: there's loads of drunk Brits, usually

        Isn't that pretty much a universal constant?

  5. Cynical Observer
    Coat

    Real Estate Agents!

    The things they will do just to prove that there's Off Road Parking.....

  6. x 7

    reminds me of the mini that was winched by hand onto the roof of the engineering building at Lancaster Uni back in the 1970's

    easy with the correct block and tackle

    1. Anonymous Custard
      Trollface

      It's even easier with 2CVs (or certainly was back in the mid-90's) - with a little gentle persuasion they dismantle so easily and are quite simple to carry up corridors, stairs and through skylights.

      Not that we ever did it to the beloved pride and joy of the annoying git in our halls of residence, oh no officer...

    2. Darryl

      Back in the 80's the engineering students disassembled a car and reassembled it inside a bus shelter on the U of Alberta campus

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Reassembled car inside a bus shelter?

        Are you sure they didn't reassemble the bus shelter around the car? If they did it like you say, they all deserve an F for lacking critical thinking skills!

        1. Darryl

          Re: Reassembled car inside a bus shelter?

          I'm sure they considered it, but they're not your usual bus shelters. They're concrete and steel buildings about the size of a single car garage.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Mini on a second floor flat roof

      Yep! Did that at Moulton Agricultural College in the mid 80's

      Caving rope, a couple of scaffold pole (and clamp) and a pulley, liberally aided by 'large' agricultural students.

      Anonymous as the lecturer whose car it was, never did work out who had done it.

      A week later we filled the top floor corridor of the accommodation block with straw bales so that everyone had to climb out of their windows.

      Ah! to be young and carefree again :-)

      1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
        Windows

        Re: Mini on a second floor flat roof

        I have been in corporate IT so long that I cannot fathom how this spontaneous collaboration could happen, that anyone would know how to disassemble a car (and reassemble it afterwards) or why anyone would even see his interest in participating in such an action kindled....

      2. Blue Pumpkin

        Re: Mini on a second floor flat roof

        Yep - ours was lifted from the car park sideways into the goods lift at the back of the Computer Science building to reappear later in one of the lecture halls ... happy days indeed :-)

  7. A Non e-mouse Silver badge

    Been there, done that..

    Something similar done by Cambridge students back in 1958:

    www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2210696/Cambridge-Universitys-1958-car-on-roof-prank-secrets-revealed.html

    I believe it took the students one night to put it up there, and the authorities a week to take it down.

  8. Stevie

    Bah!

    A clear case of misidentification. This is quite obviously not a garaged Flying Car, but more likely a Spectrum Pursuit Vehicle in which the proper garaging instructions have been misread by the building minder.

    1. Anonymous Custard
      Trollface

      Re: Bah!

      If it is then forget the flying car, I want that invisible garage...

    2. Chozo

      Re: Bah!

      +1 for the SPV reference, awesome vehicle :)

      1. x 7

        Re: Bah!

        "+1 for the SPV reference, awesome vehicle :)"

        damned hard to drive sitting backwards though. I often wondered which of the two drive cabs was best to ride in. What do you think? Front A cab or the rear B cab?

    3. DropBear
      Trollface

      Re: Bah!

      They should have checked for a flux capacitor - it's entirely possible that in a few thousand years _that_ will be the ground level...

  9. Dave 32
    Happy

    On this side (left) of the pond, MIT is famous for various pranks:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacks_at_the_Massachusetts_Institute_of_Technology

    Dave

    1. This post has been deleted by its author

  10. Mark 85

    Not a rooftop...

    While in high school, a group in the neighborhood decided to have fun with one grumpy old guy who loved his beer a bit too much. He bought a new VW Beetle and then the fun...

    1) They picked up the car late one night and placed on his front porch.

    2) They tested it's alleged watertight capabilities by putting it in his swimming pool.

    3) The last one before they wandered off to greener pastures or maybe got bored was stand it up and lean against the tree in his front yard.

    I was hoping to find out who did it just to congratulate them.. never did find out though.

  11. Richard Scratcher
    Alien

    Police force

    I imagine a Daewoo Matiz is lighter than an X-Wing fighter.

    Yoda should they seek.

  12. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

    My dad did something like that once. He was the project manager at a big building site at that time, so he had the proper equipment at his disposal. They were building a new administrative block for a bank. One particular VW beetle was repeatedly blocking the loading area for the lorries. Then on some day it was gone. When the owner was asking around whether anyone had seen his car, my dad had the pleasure of pointing to a roof terrace five storeys above street level...

    But that was in the late 1970ies, when people didn't sue that much.

  13. Haku

    This is one of my favourite harmless pranks I've seen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jC_SxQ55r7o

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Illegally parked?

    Drivers fault. Everyone in Spain knows the correct way to legally park a car is to turn on your hazard warning lights.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Illegally parked?

      Indeed. In the UK, to park on a single yellow line you need to turn on the appropriate indicator, to park on a double yellow line you turn on the hazard lights.

      1. Graham Marsden
        Mushroom

        Re: Illegally parked?

        Of course if you're just stopping for a couple of minutes, the correct technique is to approximately park your car in a space, but about two feet out from the kerb and then put on your hazard warning lights so it looks to everyone else as if you're trying to pull out...

    2. Trigonoceps occipitalis

      Re: Illegally parked?

      And remember that, in the UK, the yellow zigzag lines outside schools mean SUV parking only. Concurrent hazard warning lights mean it is safe to pass at high speed.

  15. Mike 16

    Lobbying Jerry Brown

    Nothing says "Finish this freaking road" like a full-sized American sedan 30 meters up on a "Freeway to nowhere"

    http://www.mercurynews.com/scott-herhold/ci_24322997/herhold-story-behind-joe-collas-famous-1976-highway

    My own experience of this sort of thing involved a VW Beetle, a not-yet-open bridge as a shortcut, and the sudden realization that the dirt ramps did not go across the whole width of the exit side.

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    At my school there was a teacher who was particularly 'popular' and people took great delight in once a year removing his hubcaps for him and placing them on the top of one of the toilet buildings. The plan was in their last 6th form year on the last day of term they were going to leave the hubcaps where they were on the tarmac and take the car up there instead. The dad of the ringleader ran a building firm and was doing work at the school on the gym and thus had a reason to have equipment on site. His dad confirmed that the roof would take the weight and "then some" no problems at all (he was actively encouraging this). The plan was (IIRC) to bring over a flat bed van, planks and tools and create a ramp which they could use a pulley to pull the car up onto the flat roof.

    Day of the hoist arrives everybody is demob happy what with the summer holidays just hours away, van is on standby and they just need the teacher (and his car) to appear. Who does come to school but "decided to walk as it's such a lovely day."

  17. thx1138v2

    There are some people you just don't want to piss off

    In my much younger days I worked as an assistant superintendent for a construction company that built apartment complexes in the U.S. These were relatively large complexes, 400 to 600 units and 20 to 40 buildings.

    One job I worked on had only one subcontractor that did just the framing. They would go through 3 or 4 for 40' semi truck's of lumber a day. They bought nails for their nail guns by the truck load also so they had storage areas to keep their supplies over night.

    Most of the buildings on this project were three stories so they used a forklifts called Dyna Lift's to move materials. They were four wheel drive, four wheel steerable, and had booms that would reach the top of the third floor to lift trusses up for the crews to handle. No cranes needed.

    The electrical contractor couldn't quite keep up with the pace so occasionally would park his truck in front of the gate to the framer's storage area to be cute.

    Nooooo, problem for the framers. He got warned twice before his truck ended up on the third floor of a building that had been floor decked but had not had the walls stood up yet. The funny part was that the electrical guy reported his truck stolen when he came back and it wasn't there. The cops found it and almost died laughing.

    So I'd be looking for a Dyna Lift rather than a crane.

    Don't EVER piss off a crew with a Dyna Lift.

    1. Shadow Systems

      Re: There are some people you just don't want to piss off

      I can attest to the usefulness of those lifts for mischievious purposes.

      I was working at a contractor supply distributor & got to watch as a disgruntled employee used one of the lifts to hoist some twit's car up to an interior roof where he promptly *welded* the car in place. Once he was sure the car would stay put, he lowered the lift & drove it away, leaving the car happily hugging the ceiling.

      The guy whom owned the car nearly shat his knickers when he found his car, the employee had a good laugh, & the boss nearly fired them both.

      Don't piss off people with power tools. You may find your property in places never imagined.

  18. wsm

    Something like this happens...

    ...every time my friend's teenage son borrows the car.

    Explanations vary considerably.

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Highschool pranks

    When I was in High School (in the 70's) it was common place for teachers' cars to appear in strange places:

    The Honda Zot that appeared on the 3rd floor walkway of the Home Ec building (only stair access).

    The Mini that appeared in the walkway outside the science labs (second floor).

    The Mini (a different teacher's) that appeared to be "nesting" in a tree.

    The most fun was watching the teachers try to get them back down.

    Anon because some of the people from school may be reading this...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Highschool pranks

      Some 15 of us lifted a teacher's fiat 500 onto the schoolyard over the concrete barrier surrounding it.

      With Fiat 500s you do not need powertools.

  20. harmjschoonhoven
    Mushroom

    Operation Ogro

    Prime minister Admiral Don Luis Carrero Blanco was executed in Madrid by ETA in 1973 using 50 kg TNT hidden in a tunnel under the tarmac. His armoured limousine was blow over the rooftop of the adjacent apartments and landed in one of the backyards.

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The latest Mobile Platform is a bit of a dud.

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