This was a story told to me by a BEA Ground Gripper pilot.
Would love to hear if this was true, and if so, what the correct details are.
One of the regular BEA Argosy cargo runs was to Northern Italy to collect Ferraris, Lamborghinis etc. I understand that this was a 2 crew operation, and the outbound route was over the Alps, but the return route was via the southern French coast and thence up through France. This routing was because the a/c performance was not good enough to climb over the Alps when laden.
En route home from Italy, the autopliot went u/s. No problem, just meant hand flying. Came the time when the skipper wanted a pee, so he went down the stairs from the flight deck to the crew toilet.
When the skipper had not returned after about 10 mins, P2 began to get anxious, after 30 mins he was seriously worried and he decided to divert to an aerodrome in France. He could not leave the flight deck because of the inop autopilot.
After landing and shutdown, P2 went in search of the skipper. He could not be found anywhere. Perplexed, P2 then heard a faint tapping and a muffled voice. Going up the line of cars he at last spotted the skipper at the wheel of one of the cars. Opening the door, it transpired that the skipper had become curious about one of the cars and slipped behind the wheel. Came the time to stop fantasising about owning such a car, he then found to his horror that he was locked in, leading to the events as described.
A good story anyway.....