I was always under the impression that a bear’s natural habitat was a Studebaker, but I guess since that marque’s been dead for decades, it only makes sense that they’d have migrated to a new brand by now. According to one black bear in Jefferson County, Colorado, the preferred choice is now Subaru.
Well, at least one particular Subaru, 17-year old Annie Bruecker’s 2004 Subaru Legacy Wagon. That sort of seems like a fitting car for a bear.
The bear, who was relatively small and likely a cub, somehow managed to operate the car’s designed-for-humans door handles, get inside, somehow pull the door closed, and then lock all the doors. That’s a pretty good achievement for a bear, especially a cub.
Of course, it also kind of sucks as an achievement for a bear because it means that the bear is stuck in the car. The alarmingly high illiteracy rate among the bear community means that the bear wasn’t able to read the labels on any of the controls to figure out what switch would unlock the doors, so the bear was forced to trash the inside of the car.
The bear tore down the headliner, chewed the steering wheel, ripped seats, and, let’s be honest here, probably soaked everything in copious amounts of piping-hot bear urine.
Jefferson County Sheriffs were called, and after determining that the key fob would not open the doors, a very calm and brave deputy (backed by another deputy with a shotgun) managed to get the car open directly, talking to the bear the whole time.
Luckily, outside of the interior of the Subaru getting bear-trashed, everything turned out okay. No humans or bears were hurt, and the bear cub probably went to the foresst to write a scathing review of the 2004 Subaru Legacy Wagon for Bear-Jalopnik.