Actually kind of a sad story... and it was accidental. My first car, I was 16; had it for almost a year. We had just moved into a new neighborhood and I was teaching myself all the shortcuts. I took one that I'd only taken once or twice before through a neighborhood near our new house. There was a dog on the side of the road and I was watching the dog, worried it was going to jump in the street; and forgot there was a 10-mph dip in the road. I hit it going about 30 and by the time I got to the stop sign about 100 ft further ahead, my car had stalled. I was kind of panicked because the car was VERY precious to me-- it was the last thing my father gave me before he passed away a year prior to this incident-- and I didn't know much about cars; so I called my sister's boyfriend at the time to come help me. Well, I guess he didn't know much either b/c we determined that the fuel line snapped when I went through that dip and there was gas all over the engine... for some reason, in my extremely upset state of mind and trusting what I thought was his superior knowledge; a plastic bag, a rag, and duct tape seemed like a good enough fix to get the car home or to a shop.
Well, it wasn't. I tried starting it once-- I knew nothing about spark plugs or distributor coils at the time, btw-- it sputtered, didn't start. Tried starting it once more, then again, and next thing I knew five-foot-flames were shooting out from underneath the hood on either side of me. While I was sitting in the car.
Well, Joe, my sister's soon-to-be-ex, grabbed me out of the car from where I was sitting in shock (only a couple seconds after it started burning) and we found a fire extinguisher; somebody called the fire department, but it wasn't enough. My baby was dead. Had her towed home and sold her for parts; the interior was still fine but the whole engine compartment was toast.
So yeah, that's my long car fire story. Needless to say, I will be driving over bumps and dips veeeeeerrrrry carefully in the Camaro.
Oh, and btw-- I'm a she, actually
(Please no responses about "typical women drivers"-- I am FAR from the "typical woman driver", I assure you.)