Tell you what, there aren't many cars on this earth that can stop you mid-stride, but the 1934 Ford V8 that Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow died in is one of them. It's parked at Whiskey Pete's casino in Primm, Nevada, just over the California line on Interstate 15, and it took well over 100 bullets. Some counts run as high as 167. Not replicas. Not a movie prop. The actual car.

If you're heading to Vegas from the west, you've probably blown past Primm a hundred times without giving it a thought. I know I have. Next time, pull off.

The story goes that on the morning of May 23, 1934, a posse of lawmen set up an ambush on a rural road outside Gibsland, Louisiana. Clyde was driving the stolen Ford, swiped a few weeks earlier, with Bonnie riding shotgun. When the car rolled up, the lawmen opened fire and didn't let up. The Ford rolled into a ditch and the two of them never had a chance. It was ugly, and nobody involved pretended otherwise.

What happened to the car afterward is almost as much of a story as the ambush itself. It got towed, gawked at, hauled around to fairs and carnivals as a paid attraction, and fought over in court. For years it was a sideshow, literally. Folks paid good money to peek at the bullet holes. Eventually it ended up in the collection at Whiskey Pete's, where it sits today with the bullet holes still in the sheet metal, neon and slot machines close enough to hear.

The part that gets me is where it ended up. Here's a machine that's been shot to pieces, soaked in one of the most famous crime stories in American history, and it's displayed in a casino instead of some big-city museum. No solemn lighting, no velvet ropes. Just the car, the holes, and the noise of the floor.

You can read the whole history, including how the ownership dispute shook out, over at Backfire News, which covered where the Ford's been and how it landed in Primm.

My usual standard for a vehicle is whether it holds up when it matters. This Ford took well over a hundred rounds and stayed in one piece, which is more than I can say for some modern rigs I've seen after a fender bender in a parking lot. The whole front end folds up like a lawn chair. Old steel was heavy steel.

I've got my Ozarks run coming up this fall, and I might just swing the long way through Nevada to see it. A car that's been shot a hundred-plus times, hauled through county fairs for decades, and still draws a crowd, that's Americana, bullet holes and all.