Car Guys

by A. L. Scheuer

February 2048

Over its seven-year history (2023 to 2030), the US Government’s Car Guys Sightings Project reported on the phenomena that came to be known as Car Guys. This is my personal recounting of some of that work, as well as research I conducted after the project closed. I am sharing here new findings and a hypothesis about the phenomenon in hopes that it will bring meaning to people everywhere.

In the early 2020s, it had come to be understood that “car guys” from the future had broken through time and were cruising around the country in mint-condition classic cars, dispensing loud advice. As far as the authorities were able to discern at the time, the first sightings started during the COVID-19 pandemic, in mid-September 2020. It took about a year before it was apparent that they were growing in frequency, another six months before they were tracked, and another year before it was determined that they were, in fact, people from the future.

That conclusion resulted from three separate incidents occurring hundreds of miles apart in which police officers reported pulling over “guys” in classic cars who were acting “erratically.” In all instances, when the officer reached the driver’s door, the car and driver simply vanished. Gone. No flash of light, no noise. One of these disappearances was witnessed by a gentleman from his living room window. A classic car buff, the man reported the car to be a very rare 1936 Mercedes-Benz 540K Special Roadster in pearl white.

Another incident included a short conversation with the driver.

“Do you know why I’m pulling you over?”

“You’re a cop.” The driver turned to look the officer square in the eye and said, “We’re from the future. Listen up.” Then he and his sea green 1964 Cadillac Eldorado convertible simply vanished. Disappeared, as they say, into thin air.

Once the public at large picked up on the sightings, the U.S. Government Car Guys website was established to chronicle the time and location of sightings as well as the list of cars. This is where I came in.

I was appointed head of a research team whose mission was to verify the sightings and collect information that could possibly lead to an understanding of their cause and effect. It didn’t take long before my team found that, besides the Mercedes and Eldorado, the list of 12 vintage cars involved included a:

1936 Hooper-bodied, fixed-head Rolls-Royce Phantom Coupe
1949 Buick 70 Roadmaster
1950 Pontiac Chieftain Silver Streak Convertible
1958 Porsche 356A Carrera Speedster
1960 Jaguar XK150 Roadster
1968 Dodge Charger
1955 Chevrolet Bel Air Nomad
1955 Cadillac Fleetwood 60
1960 Lincoln Continental Mark 5
1965 Lamborghini 350 GT.

Astrophysicists were asked for explanations, and that community of scientists coalesced around two theories. One, that a closed timelike curve (CTS) or a space-time geometry “bubble” or TARDIS that travels faster than the speed of light had formed and made the visits possible. These entities would be like a car that travels forwards and then backwards in time along a circular path through spacetime.

The second theory purported that “the many microscopic time loops in spacetime joined to accommodate extremely large man- and car-sized travelers.”

But why cars? Why classic cars? And why crazy guys yelling out their car windows? What were they saying?

“Get married! Have children! Fall in love! In that order!”

“Go back to school! Do the math!”

“We don’t get COVID!”

“Easy does it, pardner, easy does it.”

“Try it upside down.”

At first blush, superficial. Further, it eventually became clear that if more than one person heard a car guy yelling, they completely disagreed about what was said. One person heard “Watch out, they’re coming!” Another heard “Tell them you’re not going to change your mind!” Still another, “You’re super! Write it all down!”

It was madness, and many people worn out or distracted by the many never-before-seen political and societal events that were occurring at that time — often deemed to be hoaxes — didn’t pay much attention. Thankfully, our research suggested that car guys were not hurting anyone.

Our media outreach included requests for people anywhere and everywhere to notify us of any sightings, which we found occurred, on average, every six days. We wanted to know the witness’s identity and background, location of sighting, car description, driver description — they were all guys in their 60s and 70s — and any messages provided. We investigated, correlated, and posted these reports on the Car Guys website, and, of course, to various government agencies.

Our witness interviews probed for meaning. Did you see the car coming, or did it just appear as if by magic? Both occurred. Did the car guy talk directly to you or to someone else? Both occurred. Sometimes the guy simply shouted from the open window as he drove along so that many people heard him. Did the message mean anything to you personally? In a very few cases, yes but, mostly, the messages seemed totally irrelevant.

We asked the public to report incidents in which the message made sense to them. These three excerpts are representative:

1) Tim Masterson and other students were milling around in front of their high school before the first bell. A hush fell over the group when they saw a dazzling cherry-red 1950 Pontiac Chieftain convertible moving down the street toward them. As the car passed, the driver waved and yelled, “Take the hard course!”

From Masterson’s testimony: “I knew the message was for me and so did a lot of people there. They turned and stared at me because I had just been talking about college courses and the physics class my dad wanted me to take. I took what the car guy said as just an opinion. Maybe I should have taken the physics course, but I didn’t. My heart wasn’t in it. When I see those people now, they always ask me what I think could’ve happened if I’d taken that course.”

2) Beth Conrad was walking home from work when a car guy in a pristine 1936 Rolls Royce Phantom slowed to yell, “Beth! Go with George!”

“I was the only one around, he called me by name, and I knew the George he meant,” Ms. Conrad reported, “but it was too far-fetched. I couldn’t take it seriously.”

3) Kerry Vanderlars was biking on a city street when a car guy driving a very sporty, bright red 1960 Jaguar Roadster pulled alongside to say, “Take the shot!”

“At the time, I didn’t know what it meant,” reported Vanderlars, “but I was on my way to meet my dad for a father-son golf tournament. We flipped a coin to see which side would tee off first, and we won the toss. At that moment, the car guy came to mind, but Dad was ready with his driver and everything, so I just let him take the shot. We lost the game, and the Sooners went on to win the tourney, but so what?”

The project also needed incidents where the person actually acted on the advice. And, in those cases — for we strongly suspected there were some — what was the result? By June 2024, we had found no such incidents. Then, in September 2025, the visits diminished, and by November 2025, they stopped altogether. One week, 10 sightings; the next week, two; then none at all. That was it. They were done and gone.

For myself and the team, this was incredibly hard to accept. For seven years, we had worked painstakingly to research and collect all possible data from what we believed were a total of exactly 350 sightings, and we had pretty much nothing to show for it. The number itself, 350, was frustrating. Such a tidy, even sum, as if careful planning had been at work, as if they were collecting data on us and had reached statistical significance. The Project was closed in 2027.

Years passed, but I never stopped thinking about the car guys. Why did they come? What did it mean? Nothing? But then I had a brainstorm. I read an article on William McDowell and his amazing invention of the carbon vacuum, which as we all know, eliminated the excess carbon in the atmosphere and saved the Earth, the human race, and many other species from catastrophe.

I wondered who his influencers were, and how was it that he was where he was, doing what he did, at exactly the most crucial time? I started looking into his family, friends, and associates, and surprisingly found that his mother, his mentor, and his principal colleague had all been visited by car guys, and all took the advice offered! Here is a recounting of their car guy encounters:

* * *

1) On October 2, 2020, Jennifer Price was walking home from school, hoping she was pregnant so she could get her boyfriend, Tom, to marry her. She hated school, and she loved Tom. She was lost in a daydream of their lovemaking when a sequoia cream 1949 Buick Roadmaster pulled up beside her.

“It was like a perfectly toasted marshmallow, all rounded and creamy. Whitewall tires, carmel-colored interior. The grillwork shone like sterling. It was a car you couldn’t take your eyes off of. Then the driver turned to me. He was furious.

“‘You’re being stupid! Wake up! You could be great!’ he shouted. Then he drove off, and I saw the car fade away with the driver still seated in the driving position. A second later, the driver disappeared too.

“I was stupefied, maybe in shock. I kept turning his words over in my head and realized that marriage and children at age 18 was not the right choice.”

Jennifer eventually broke up with her boyfriend, Tom, and two years later, met Robert McDowell through an astronomy course that met via Zoom. Jennifer had come to find that continuing education courses were far more interesting than those offered in her high school. She and Robert had a whirlwind romance and married. Shortly thereafter, their first child, William, was born, and Jennifer devoted her time and energy to raising him and his younger siblings.

“William was an extremely curious child,” she said. “He loved nothing more than disassembling and reassembling perfectly good stuff like cameras, radios, vacuum cleaners, drones. Drove me crazy. We spent a good bit of time looking through space telescopes, too, and reading science fiction. I suppose that helped him develop an imagination for the seemingly impossible.

“Also, my husband Robert was a chemist and engendered his passion for science in all the children. From a very young age, though William’s room was a disaster area, he was fastidious in his approach to chemistry and experimentation. Isn’t it funny how it all paid off?”

2) On October 4, 2020, two days after Jennifer Price’s Buick sighting, Hugo Donavan was sitting at a bus stop, mulling over his plans for robbing a tire store. Breaking and entering would be a whole new thing for him, but he would bag thousands, the biggest heist he’d ever made, ever considered. Dangerous as it was, he believed he had to do it. He needed a car, money for rent, and the luxuries of daily life. A bus pulled up, but it wasn’t his. Then the strong aroma of cigar smoke filled the air, and the bus was replaced by a classic Lamborghini.

“It was a really sleek, sporty model,” Mr. Donovan told me. “Smoky gray. Clean lines. Sort of boxy, but I remember that looking at it made me feel lighter, more energetic, like I could run a marathon. Then the car guy points at me and yells, ‘Just stop!’ That was it. That’s all he said. Then he rounded the corner and the car evaporated.

“Instead of waiting for the bus, I walked home, smelling cigar smoke almost all the way, like the car guy was making stops nearby. I realized he was right. It was crazy, this robbery plan I had. I didn’t want jail, a record. So, I decided to instead apply for a job I had seen posted there at the tire shop.”

Mr. Donovan got the tire installer position, and just 16 months later, became a manager. To his surprise, he started climbing the corporate ladder and making a name for himself as a talented executive, someone who could identify and develop human potential.

One day during a store visit, he encountered an obviously unhappy young man, William, and drew him into conversation. William was 17 and having a hard time in school, specifically with his chemistry teacher, who he claimed had been unfair to him. Donavan saw something special in William. He coached him on how to approach the teacher and, in the years that followed, he mentored him, helped him through high school, college, grad school, and a job search.

And finally, I discovered how these two incidents and the following car-guy encounter were connected:

3) On October 11, 2020, a week after Hugo Donavan’s Lamborghini sighting, and nine days after Jennifer Price’s Buick encounter, John Townsend, father of four and devastated by the breakup of his marriage, was miserably reliving how he had lost out on a promotion at work.

“I was standing at a crosswalk, feeling sorry for myself and worrying about the future when I saw this classic turquoise Chevy wagon coming down the street. This car was beautiful. A family car. Clean and bright. I think I was so in awe of the idea of it, this work of art built for family adventures, that I don’t think I even registered that a car guy was at the wheel until I saw the car vanish. He had slowed down to look me in the eye and say, ‘Push yourself.’ ”

Mr. Townsend went on to explain that almost immediately, he started to feel better. He realized he had to stop wallowing and get on with making things better for himself and his family. Some years later, as the director of science for Earth First industries, he hired and partnered with William McDowell in inventing the carbon vacuum.

* * *

So you see, if car guys hadn’t intervened, Jennifer Price may not have changed her life, married Robert McDowell, or brought William into the world to love and raise. If a car guy had not advised Hugo Donovan, he might not have dumped his life of crime and been in a position to mentor William. And if a car guy had not spoken to John Townsend, it’s likely that he and William would never have met and produced their invention.

You might wonder why the Project hadn’t come across these three incidents. Each of the three people told me that the experience of being visited by a car guy dropped completely from their memory until I came calling.

Was this the car guys’ attempt to cover their tracks? I believe that is exactly what it was. Car guys wanted a clean getaway. Out of sight, out of mind. If you’ve never heard of them, I believe that proves my point. But why? Why come to Earth, try to straighten some of us out in minor ways, all of us out in major ways, and then leave?

I am by most accounts the world’s foremost authority on car guy sightings, and I have only this hypothesis: Car guys were trying to set an example and, importantly, impart their methods of persuasion to us. Let’s examine what they did:

First, they got the recipient’s attention. Second, they kept their message short. Third, they left, with no repetitious blather, no pontificating, arguing, or filibustering. And, yes, they obviously did have a bit of divine guidance or conventional wisdom, or whatever you want to call it, but so do a lot of ordinary people, those who aren’t from the future.

You have to make up your own mind about car guys, just as you have to assess advice you give and receive. I believe car guys just wanted us to be civil, respectful, thoughtful, and keep an open mind. In my imagination, it’s as if they were saying:

“Hey! We’ve read the history books — yes, we still have books! It was clear you ancestors needed straightening out! Just listen to what the other side is saying, would ya! COLLABORATE! Imagine what the human race could accomplish if you did that.”