The Invisible Car — a nostalgic bluegrass car song
© Lannie Dietle 2025
I was born at Fort Knox, where they keep all that gold,
Then we moved down to Texas when I was five weeks old.
We had seven flats along the way, which wasn't all that lucky,
But before that little move, we lived in West Point, Kentucky.
I've lived in many places like Sugar Land and Texarkana,
Even in a pasture field, where I heard my first pie-anna.
Oh, I've lived in lots of strange places, both near and afar,
Like California, Pennsylvania, where I saw my first invisible car.
Sittin' in the moonlight, the prettiest thing I'd ever seen,
And even though invisible, she was painted bright lime green.
Although it was true love at first sight, four years I had to wait,
I just didn't have enough money until nineteen seventy-eight.
The engine sat in the middle, with trunks in front and back,
And in order to get seated, you had ta be an acrobat.
Ya laid down to drive that car, and it was really quite a ride,
It had asymmetric tires, and you just couldn't make 'em slide.
She was a pure-bred Italian car designed by Bertone,
And every time I drove her, I ran 'er right in the danger zone.
There's not a doubt I was reckless, and deserving of reproof,
The only excuse I can think of now is testosterone and youth.
I knew she was invisible when we ran thru a radar trap one day,
That cop looked at his radar gun, and he didn't know what to say.
He stood there a bit and scratched his head, and the truth began to dawn,
and by the time he thought to look back up, well, we were long gone.
She was just five feet wide, and only forty-six inches tall,
And radar bounced right over her like she wasn't there at all.
I guess she wasn't all that hard to see for folks like me or you,
But she sure hid from the radar of our friends who wear the blue.
When I moved back down to Texas, the cops looked a wee bit sour
When I swept through their radar traps at a hundred miles an hour.
She was just five feet wide, and only forty-six inches tall,
And radar bounced right over her like she wasn't there at all.
Now one cop, he got kind-a lucky on the way back from San Antone.
When he stopped us for a goin' eighty-five in a fifty-five-mile zone.
We were passin' a big ole Caddy when we screamed through his radar trap,
but the number on that radar gun was for that big ole Cadillac!
I hope the ghost of that invisible car is still runnin' the roads today,
And if we meet up in heaven someday, we'll be a goin' out to play!
We'll start by running past Fort Knox, and dream of those days of old,
then spirt away those shiny bricks, and make some extra streets of gold.
She was just five feet wide, and only forty-six inches tall,
And radar bounced right over her like she wasn't there at all.
Oh, that radar bounced over like she wasn't even there at all.
The song describes a real mid-engined sports car I purchased new in 1978, and some of the actual adventures I had in it. Because of its size and shape the car was entirely invisible to radar, as proven many times, including a reckless high-speed move from Mercer County, Pennsylvania to Harris County, Texas. The only time that car was ever pulled over for speeding was the Cadillac incident referenced in the song, where the driver (my friend Mark Griffin) received a ticket for the speed of the Cadillac he was whizzing past. That sports car was a phenomenal ride, and truly worthy of its very own nostalgic bluegrass car song!
L. Dietle
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