{"id":594247,"date":"2026-04-10T06:57:15","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T06:57:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/594247\/"},"modified":"2026-04-10T06:57:15","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T06:57:15","slug":"volkswagen-beetle-stunt-was-illegal-and-potentially-dangerous-not-a-prank-ubc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/594247\/","title":{"rendered":"Volkswagen Beetle stunt was \u2018illegal and potentially dangerous,\u2019 \u2018not a prank\u2019: UBC"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The shell of a Volkswagen Beetle<\/a> has now been removed from a rock face above Highway 99 in Squamish.<\/p>\n

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A helicopter was used on Thursday morning to lower the car after contractors climbed the rock on Thursday to place the car into a large net.<\/p>\n

The prank last week, by UBC engineering students<\/a>, drew a lot of criticism and B.C. Parks said it took extensive administrative work to plan the car\u2019s removal.<\/p>\n

They received many bids from contractors to move it, but officials said they were able to choose one that donated their services to get the job done.<\/p>\n

I think it went pretty smoothly. They were very qualified for the job,\u201d Megan Cobitzsch with B.C. Parks said.<\/p>\n

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\u201cAlthough they don\u2019t take cars off cliff sides too often, I think they did it very safely and they added wheels to the bottom of it so they didn\u2019t scrape the rock. Yeah, it took them all day.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The provincial government has threatened to take legal action. The local First Nation condemned the prank and the RCMP said it has opened an investigation.<\/p>\n

Infrastructure Minister Bowinn Ma, as a UBC engineering alumna, said she was unavailable for an interview on Thursday.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tBacklash over VW Beetle prank on Squamish rock face\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

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UBC Prof. James Olson, Dean, Faculty of Applied Science, was also unavailable for an interview on Thursday, but did send a statement saying that the \u201cfaculty and the Engineering Undergraduate Society are jointly addressing this incident directly with students.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are characterizing this as an illegal and potentially dangerous act \u2014 not a prank \u2014 and one that is incompatible with the ethics that engineering students commit to.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Faculty and EUS have been closely working together to prevent similar incidents, including a clear accountability plan and outreach to the Squamish Nation, BC Parks and the local climbing community. Students with knowledge of the incident are being directed to report it to the RCMP (File: SQ26 2369).\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\t&copy 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Descrease article font size Increase article font size The shell of a Volkswagen Beetle has now been removed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":594248,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[45,49,48,549,62020,89278,225820],"class_list":["post-594247","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-education","tag-squamish","tag-ubc","tag-volkswagen-beetle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/594247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=594247"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/594247\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/594248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=594247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=594247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=594247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}