( CNN ) -- Here 's the short , tragic story of a little car in China that nobody wanted . Some time back in 2012 , a blue van was innocently parked along Peace Road in the village of Huayang in Sichuan Province . And it just sat there . Abandoned . The owner nowhere to be found . We still do n't know what happened to him . Or her . But we 'll just have to assume this person died or is in the middle of a really good `` Law & Order '' marathon . Do n't laugh . It 's how I lost most of my 20s . Just me and Detective Briscoe . And a bowl of gravy . Eventually , over the course of a year , Mother Nature did her thing and the van became consumed by vines . Amazingly , the foliage almost completely engulfed every part of the vehicle . And when people on the Internet started sharing pictures of this crazy car-bush , it sort of became a celebrity . Not in the George Clooney kind of way . But in the drunk-and-naked-at-a-Bar-Mitzvah YouTube kind of way . `` Hey , who wants to see my shofar ? '' `` Go home , Rabbi . '' So , people online started paying attention to this ever-growing mound of foliage with a funny name -- in China , vehicles that are unloved and abandoned are referred to as `` jiangshiche '' or `` zombie cars . '' Eventually , police managed to contact the original owner of the `` zombie car , '' Wang Ping , who explained that he had sold his blue van over three years ago but could n't recall the buyer 's name . So , authorities finally decided to just get rid of the damn thing . However , when they came to take it away , police were unable to dig the van out from beneath all the vines . It had simply become too thick and thorny . So , they just towed it off , foliage and all , hauling what appeared to be a giant bush slowly and hilariously down the highway . Photos were taken , and , thus , this week , China 's famous `` zombie car '' emerged once again to bask in the warm glow of the Internet 's spotlight . So , that 's the short , tragic ( and completely pointless ) story of a car that nobody wanted , and the Internet who loved it . To be honest , seeing this thing all alone kind of made me sad . I care about my car like a big , stupid child . And I only recently realized this . You see , the other day I was at the auto shop waiting on a minor repair -- as one does when you have no technical skills beyond heating things in the microwave . So , to pass time at the shop , I started thumbing through some of those hot rod magazines filled with pictures of shiny cars draped by scantily clad women . They had several different ones on the shelf -- Lugs and Jugs , Groin and Driver , The Economist -- I do n't remember the exact titles , but you get the point . And as I turned my attention away from those glossy pages of beautiful , perfect steel and skin , and peered through the shop 's window into the garage , my gray Saturn suddenly seemed incredibly ... unsexy . You know , because it 's a Saturn . Really , there 's nothing `` suddenly '' about it . However , almost immediately , this fact did n't matter because , hey , it was mine . Sure , it 's big , and stupid , and gray . But it gets me to Kroger . And Kroger has Lean Pockets and Klondike Bars . And , for that , I think it 's worthy of a sexy photo shoot . `` There ya go , Tina , get nice and close to those side-impact air bags . Work that cup holder . Wooooooo ! '' Anyway , my Saturn is awesome , and you should check it out in next month 's issue of Groin and Driver . Follow Jarrett Bellini on Twitter .
In 2012 a car was abandoned in China . Trees grew all over the car , completely covering it with branches . It was a rather absurd sight , and the ` ` zombie car '' gained fame on the internet . Recently , the car was finally taken away .