When two women pulled into Rob Clarke’s auto repair shop complaining of meows coming from their engine, the mechanic wasn’t all too fussed.

“We get people from time to time with the belts screeching. … They’ll say ‘I’ve got a pterodactyl under there,’” Clarke said with a chuckle. “I figured it was something like that.”

He was wrong.

Instead of a routine mechanical problem, Clarke too was greeted with a “meow” when he popped open the Mercedes Benz’s hood.

It was indeed a kitten — lodged toward the back of the engine near the car’s firewall. Clarke caught a brief glimpse of the black-and-white cat before she darted deeper into the car’s undercarriage.

“We jacked (the car) up and could still hear (the meows),” Clarke said about the scene that played out June 26 in the lot of his Komoka business. “We sprayed water up in it thinking that would bring it out.”

When that didn’t work, Clarke and his team rolled the car to a lift, dissembling parts of the vehicle for a better look.

Eventually, they spotted the kitten near the transmission and cleared her from harm’s way after she made her way back to the engine.

A member of the shop’s staff loaded the kitten — aptly named Mercedes and no more than nine weeks old — into a cardboard box and took her to a nearby pet shop. Clarke, meanwhile, wrote the women’s bill off.

“But I did tell (the owner), ‘If you bring back a second cat, we’re going to have to charge you,’” he said this week.

The pet shop contacted Animalert Pet Adoptions and Mercedes was soon the newest member of the London-based rescue’s pack.

She’s staying in a local foster home where — aside from singed whiskers over her eyes — everything’s looking up.

“She was obviously extremely scared and frightened in the beginning,” said Marney Warder, who oversees cat adoptions for Animalert.

Now, she’s eating well and beginning to socialize with the other kittens in her foster mom’s care, Warder said.

No one’s really sure how long Mercedes was under the car’s hood — or how far she travelled. But, people involved in the rescue effort said, the ride included at least a brief stint at high speeds on Highway 402.

One thing’s for sure, Warder said.

“This little mite was very lucky.”

To learn more

For more information about Animalert Pet Adoptions or to inquire about adopting Mercedes, visit animalert.ca.