Jamie Victory doesn't just trade in his old cars — he buries them. The 55-year-old St. Clair Shores resident has held three car funerals, complete with eulogies he writes himself and songs he picks out for the occasion, gathering mourners to send each vehicle off properly before it's gone for good.
Victory's current ride, a 2017 Chrysler Pacifica he calls White Lightning, has turned him into something of a local celebrity among minivan fans, according to the Detroit Free Press. The outlet reports that writing eulogies, selecting songs, and gathering mourners has become something of a ritual for Victory whenever one of his cars reaches the end of the road.
Victory and “White Lightning” have drawn attention. The outlet's coverage places him squarely at the center of a quirky but heartfelt subculture of car owners who treat their vehicles less like appliances and more like family members.
A Minivan Having a Moment
Victory's story lands at a curious moment for the Pacifica itself. Sales of the minivan were on the rise when Chrysler unveiled a refreshed 2027 model in early April, according to Automotive News. That upward trajectory comes with some caveats — a separate report from CNBC described Pacifica sales as only slightly higher in 2025, even as Chrysler's chief executive touted a broader minivan “resurgence” around the same time the refreshed model debuted.
A lower-confidence figure circulating in coverage of the segment, cited by Autoblog, put total U.S. Pacifica sales at 110,006 for 2025. Whatever the precise numbers, the minivan clearly still has its believers — and few believe harder than Victory, whose devotion to his Pacifica has made him a stand-in for a segment of drivers who refuse to see their vehicles as disposable.
Car Funerals Aren't Unique to Michigan
Victory's send-offs aren't the only example of owners marking a vehicle's final days with ceremony. In India, a family in Gujarat held an elaborate farewell for their 12-year-old Maruti Suzuki Wagon R in 2024, reportedly spending Rs 4 lakh and inviting 1,500 guests, according to the Times of India. In China, a family reportedly buried a luxury car as an offering earlier this year, a move that drew a government reprimand and a public apology, as reported by the South China Morning Post.
Those overseas ceremonies were far more elaborate affairs than anything documented about Victory's own funerals, but they point to a shared instinct: for some owners, a car earns more than a trade-in appraisal when its time is up. Victory has leaned into that instinct three times over, according to the Free Press, treating each goodbye as an occasion worth writing for.
Victory has held three car funerals, and his current chapter with White Lightning, the Pacifica that's carried his minivan devotion into the spotlight, could one day include a proper send-off of its own.
