Kitten takes 500-mile ride behind the grille of a cab: ‘Bless her’

It’s not the way an engine is supposed to purr.

Tom Hutchings, 32, a taxi driver in Wales, was shocked after he found a kitten stuck behind the grille of his car following a 12-hour shift that spanned over 500 miles.

“My partner was driving in front of me and as she went round a corner she looked back and I saw her freak out,” Hutchings recalled of the August 15 incident to South West News Service.

“I thought my car was on fire,” he continued. “I pulled over and went to have a look at what it was.”

Hutchings hardly noticed the cat due to its black back coloring, but his partner caught the creature out of the corner of her eye when its furry white chest turned toward her.

The driver jumped into action. “I got my toolbox out and got my bumper off of my car.”

“The cat was freaking out,” he said, “but I did what I had to do and picked her up out of the grille.”

“I got her into the passenger seat of the car and she fell asleep within seconds,” the cat chauffeur continued. “Completely conked out. She must’ve been exhausted bless her.”

Hutchings, who had driven all over the area from Bristol Airport to Llanelli and Cardiff, took the kitten to the vet to make sure she wasn’t harmed.

The cat’s name is Gizmo, vets discovered via microchip, and had been missing from her owners for a week.

She lived only seven miles away from Hutchings’ home.

Gizmo was later reunited with her family, but Hutchings still isn’t too sure how she got in his grille in the first place.

“My presumption is that she had gotten in there the same day,” he told SWNS. “It had been one of those days where I had been driving for hours on end and done at least 500 miles.”

He explained that he would never have checked there if it wasn’t for his partner noticing the small feline.

Gizmo is now doing well back home and enjoying lots of affection from her owners, who called Hutchings to thank him for keeping her safe.

The ordeal has also changed how Hutchings approaches his work.

“Now every time I pass my car I look behind the grille just in case,” he said.