Goldeneagle, the infernal car

“Christine” is a 1983 novel by Stephen King about a 1958 Plymouth Fury that seems to have a will of its own, so malignant that it causes fatal accidents. Well, it is said that there is a real car considered possessed and evil. It is a 1964 Dodge 330 nicknamed Goldeneagle, which some call “the most evil car in America”.

The Dodge 330

The Dodge 330 was a mid-size sedan built by Dodge between 1962 and 1964 (until 1965 in Canada). In 1963 and 1964 it was the base trim of the lineup, available as a two- or four-door sedan or as a station wagon. It was a sturdy, affordable car and, like many American sedans of those years, it was also used by police forces.

Goldeneagle is said to be a limited edition, in a color somewhere between orange, brown and rust.

Goldeneagle, the infernal car

According to the legend, in 1964 the police force of Old Orchard Beach, a small seaside town in Maine, bought the car to use as a patrol car. The officers soon noticed something was wrong:

it is said that it shifted gears by itself, out of control, that the seat belts came undone on their own and that the doors flew open while the car was moving.

But the worst was yet to come. The story goes that all three officers who drove it died in family tragedies: each of them killed his own family and then took his own life. Frightened, the police sold it to a local elderly man and, eventually, the car ended up with the Allen family.

Curiously, with the Allens Goldeneagle seemed calm: the family used it for decades without anything bad happening to them.

Around the car, however, according to the story, strange things kept happening. Dead small animals, birds and rodents, were found around it almost every day. It is also said that two children, hit by other cars, were thrown right onto Goldeneagle.

The vandals and the curse

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s the car was targeted several times by members of a local religious group, convinced it was possessed by a demon.

The story goes that those who tried to vandalize it died in strange accidents: some struck by lightning, others decapitated in collisions with trucks.

In the end, they say, members of a church stole Goldeneagle, cut it into pieces and scattered them across various junkyards so the demon could never come back. The owner asked for help online to track them down and, by her account, managed to reassemble the car and get it back on the road. According to her, the doors have started flying open on the highway again.

Wendy Allen, the “Sea Witch”

Most of what is known about Goldeneagle comes from one person: Wendy Allen, known online as EelKat. She says she collects only haunted cars, which she takes to car shows and uses as inspiration for her stories. The religious group that allegedly destroyed the car nicknamed her “the Sea Witch of Old Orchard Beach” and claims she uses Goldeneagle to cast death spells.

The car website Jalopnik tried to verify the story, but found no police report or newspaper article confirming the deaths.

For Jalopnik, Goldeneagle is mostly a legend, perhaps born from a few strange episodes and grown with every retelling. The other sites that write about it also warn that the sources are unreliable. Even the death toll changes depending on who tells it: from the three officers’ families up to fourteen deaths.

Conclusions

Mere coincidence, imagination, or is Goldeneagle really possessed? There is no proof, but the legend has gone around the world and today Goldeneagle appears in almost every list of cursed cars, next to James Dean’s Porsche.

Who knows, maybe one day you’ll look at your own car and wonder whether it has a will of its own…

Sources

• Jalopnik – Meet The Golden Eagle, The Car Claimed To Have Killed At Least Fourteen People
• DMV.org – Think Stephen King’s Christine Is Scary? You Haven’t Met the Golden Eagle
• Dread Central – Meet the Real Life Christine
• Dodge 330 – Wikipedia
• Haunted vehicles – Wikipedia