Great motoring myths - what's your favourite?

Can you believe it?

Most certainly not. No matter what you’ve heard, it’s just as likely an exaggeration, a fabrication, an outright porker or a beat-up. A boy-in-a-balloon.

Salesmen deal in all of the above. We all know that. Buyers tell lies too – they all know that.

Manufacturers don’t do it quite so often as the stakes are higher. They usually just avoid the areas of concern completely.

So when you turn to the brochure page that says, ‘‘Everything you need to know about the new model’’, you can be damn sure it means, ‘‘Everything we want you to know about the new model’’.

Remember the notorious Holden brochure that highlighted the VY Commodore’s remarkably light weight but neglected to explain that the savings had come from changing to ‘‘dry weight’’ rather than ‘‘kerb weight’’? Rather than by, say, cutting kilos.

People in the street sprout forth with gusto on subjects about which they know two-thirds of next-to-nothing. We’ve all heard, for example, those sworn-as-true stories that happened to a friend’s brother, or a workmate’s relative.

You know the one where the woman sells the Ferrari for $5000 (it’s her husband’s and he’s off dirty weekending with his secretary)? Or where the man suffers an attack of paralysis while amorously engaged in a sports car, requiring the roof to be cut off by rescue teams (what is the woman concerned going to tell the owner of the car – to whom she happens to be married?).

There’s the home-engineered jet car found buried halfway up a cliff after producing rather more power than the driver bargained on. And, of course, all those fuel savers that have been suppressed ...

BMW has a tradition of telling deliberate whoppers in advertisements each April 1. They are mainly about new gadgets, such as optional wipers for each BMW badge, or ‘‘Foodration’’ technology that syncs your sat nav and kitchen appliances to ensure dinner is ready when you arrive home.

However, there was once a ‘‘warning’’ about counterfeit BMWs that could be identified only by the fact the rip-off merchants had accidentally reversed the blue and white parts of the famous propeller logo.

Which brings us to a story recorded in The People’s Almanac, a respected-ish, decidedly non-fiction, publication edited by David Wallechinsky and Irving Wallace.

In 1975 it reported that a group of rogue Chevrolet employees – incensed at GM’s decision to discontinue the much-loved ’57 model – continued to build it covertly in a small factory for another 10 years.

How did they dispose of these repro versions? By slipping them into used car yards with the complicity of dealers, who could sell as many as they could get. According to the book, about 200,000 were produced in those 10 years.

The story is filled with numbers, names, dates and locations but there are a few problems. How could GM not discontinue the ’57 model in favour of the ’58? American consumers would stand for nothing less than change, change, change.

And wasn’t it only many years later that it was recognised as a classic? Odd that a group of employees could pick the trend ahead of time, raise the capital immediately and build that many while escaping GM’s legal team.

The story is comprehensively debunked at the wonderful snopes.com (Urban Legend Reference Pages) but it doesn’t stop people retelling it as fact. Many other tall tales are cut to size at the same locale, though the snopes people insist at least one popular automotive yarn has legs.

It’s the one about the American who received a photo of his car speeding, along with a fine for same. He sent back a photo of the required money. The response from the police department came by return post: a snapshot of a set of handcuffs.

Hmmm. You’d still need to be sceptical. And that’s the truth.

What are your favourite urban myths about cars? Or, if you're a believer, what are some of the best "strange but true" tales you've heard?