Kitten survives 38-mile wild ride in car's wheel well

Good thing cats have nine lives. One little kitty can count his blessings after he was rescued from the underside of a car.

“He’s a lucky cat, very lucky,” driver Robert Avery told local station WESH.

On August 27 Avery thought he heard a frog in the garage of his home. Then he got a look under the car.

"My son and I jacked the car up, and about 30 minutes later we finally got it out,” Avery said. Instead of a frog, they found a filthy cat wedged above the tire.

The unsuspecting driver works for the Housing Authority in Daytona Beach but lives 38 miles north in Palm Coast. Avery figured the fearless feline, born wild in a Daytona Beach parking lot, had managed to lodge himself under the car the night before and hitched a ride to his new home.

The adorable fluffy white kitten with blue eyes was covered in grime. "He was filthy, he was nasty, grease-covered, he was a nasty little fellow,” recalled Avery. Dubbed Butch, the tough little guy, once a stowaway, has stolen Avery’s heart.

“I think we got to keep him,” Avery said.

It’s not uncommon to find a cat curled up under the hood of a car, where it’s warm — and drivers can miss the sound of cat cries coming from inside.

In Palo Alto, Calif., police had to rescue a cat stuck under the hood of a car — multiple times — back in June. Connie Urbanski, acting superintendent of Animal Services, told NBC Bay Area that in the summer they get around 20 such calls, with half not having such happy endings.

Avery told WESH he will never drive in his car again without first checking for uninvited passengers.