I’d never heard of this before, but it’s very cool.
t was probably the most ingenious student prank of all time.
In June 1958, Cambridge awoke to see a car perched at the apex of an inaccessible rooftop, looking as if it were driving across the skyline.
The spectacle made headlines around the world and left police, firefighters and civil defence units battling for nearly a week to hoist the vehicle back down before giving in and taking it to pieces with blowtorches.
The shadowy group of engineering students who executed the stunt were never identified and the mystery of how they did it has baffled successive undergraduates and provided fodder for countless tourist guides.
Now, 50 years on, the group have reunited to disclose their identities and reveal how they winched an Austin Seven to the top of the university’s 70ft-high Senate House.
The photo of the car on the roof is so bizarre, it’s like a Magritte painting. The schematic of how the pranksters got it up there are truly impressive. Check it out, and ask yourself why you never did anything that cool in college. Thanks to Dwight on Twitter for the link.
MIT students were a fun bunch to share a city with. When my commute consisted of strolling across the Massachusetts Avenue bridge over the Charles, I used to enjoy seeing the markings measuring the length of the bridge in smoots.