News

IN THE SUNDAY TIMES DRIVING SECTION - 12/01/2003

Number of the Beast

Keith Tagliaferro and his spooky Capri
(January 12 2003 The Sunday Times)
(January 12 2003 The Sunday Times)

Even Exorcism has failed to rid a Ford Capri of its devils, writes James Foxall

If you sneer at the supernatural and can always find a rational reason for things going bump in the night, it’s a safe bet that you don’t believe in ghosts. Keith Tagliaferro used to be just so sceptical of the spirit world until six years ago.

Everyone has the odd bit of bad luck, but since then Tagliaferro has suffered enough misfortune for a lifetime of running over black cats, walking under ladders and breaking mirrors.

In January 1997 he bought a 1982 Ford Capri, registration ARK 666Y. Cars that have towed it have broken down, the relationships of people who have worked on it have collapsed, cameramen filming it have dropped their equipment, Keith even claims to have seen shadowy figures in this house and around the car.

“Some of the things that have happened must be coincidence, but there have been an awful lot of them,” says the 46-year-old businessman from Eastbourne, East Sussex.

“The warning signs were there at the beginning. The day I took delivery we had the worst snow storm I’d ever seen in Sussex. Then the mechanic I took it to for an MoT initially refused to work on the car because he said that with ARK from the bible and 666 being the sign of the devil the registration number signified the fight of god against evil.”

After picking the car up, Tagliaferro put it in his garage and turned off the engine. As he shut the garage door he heard the motor running again. “I put the key back in and turned it on and off but I’m sure I’d done that already and it had restarted itself.”

The most chilling experience however, came just after he’d moved into a new house: “I was working late and I suddenly felt uneasy. I looked up and saw the rear view of a head and shoulders disappear straight through a solid wood lounge door. About 10 minutes later I saw the face of a woman staring at me.

“I had taken the battery out of the Capri and it was charging right by the lounge door. I really considered destroying the car them.

“Another time, I had a cameraman in the car doing a piece for German TV when suddenly the temperature dropped by a couple of degrees and the interior mirror fell off. He refused to get back in.” On another occasion, when discussing selling the car with his girlfriend, Tagliaferro was struck by lightening. He was inside the house at the time, but says he was flung into the air by the blast. When a photo of the car was left next to his son’s fish tank, the fish died overnight.

There have been so many eerie occurrences that Tagliaferro called in the priest, television presenter and Ghost Club member Lionel Fanthorpe to perform an exorcism. During the procedure the priest felt his holy water warm up.

“I’ve performed many exorcisms over the years but this is the only one where that happened,” says Fanthorpe.

Earlier this year Tagliaferro took a friend with a spare battery to get the Capri started. As he connected the battery the engine started to turn over. Keith recalls: “I shouted at my mate that I wasn’t ready and I saw him launching himself from the driver’s seat. At the same time, I saw a woman disappearing through a nearby bush. My friend said he hadn’t touched the ignition and he’d jumped out because he smelt perfume and saw a woman sitting in the back.”

The phantasmic Ford has also led to Tagliaferro receiving some strange requests. “I’ve been approached several times by people wanting to hire the car for a couple of hours in order to conceive the devil’s child. And there was a sect in America that wanted to buy the car in order to put their recently departed leader in the rear seat and bury both in a large pit.”

Despite an offer of £10,000 he won’t be selling the Capri just yet. “I want to find out why these things keep happening.”

Nor will he be scrapping it and transferring the registration to another vehicle. The last time he swapped the number plates his then partner’s Toyota Celica blew its exhaust pipe apart within 10 minutes.