Defrosted Lake Erie 'Ice Car'

Defrosted Lake Erie 'Ice Car' - A car that got trapped in a thick coating of ice while parked on the shores of Lake Erie made it through the ordeal unscathed. Justin Yelen's 2010 Mitsubishi Lancer became trapped in the ice when he parked it on the shore of Lake Erie in Hamburg, near Buffalo, on Sunday night. A combination of high winds, freezing temperatures and spray from the lake turned it into an ice sculpture. The car was encased for more than two days before a towing crew freed it using bags of calcium flakes. It left behind a massive standing shell of ice.

The Buffalo News reported that the car was left under a heat lamp overnight, and still had ice on it the next morning. But it turned over and ran fine when a worker at the collision shop put the key in on Thursday.

"The amount of ice on the vehicle weighed it right down to the ground," Nick Ortwein, collision estimator at West-Herr Collision in Hamburg, told The Buffalo News. "The suspensions on the cars are only meant to handle a certain amount of weight as far as any springs and the ride height of the vehicle."

The car didn't appear to have any real damage, however. "I never had a doubt," Yelen told the Buffalo News. Yelen was planning on paying to have the car towed out of the ice, but contacted his insurance company at his family's insistence. The company paid for the vehicle's retrieval.

"We just brought it inside and put it under the heat overnight," Ortwein told the Buffalo News. "I was surprised because I figured the ice would be gone in the morning. But even though it was under heat all night – a good 75 degrees – the car still had a good chunk of ice on the windshield up past the roof. Even the sides of the car had five or six inches of ice. But it runs and drives. We've even pulled it out and had it detailed."