Cat unharmed after 230-mile ride from Brooklyn to Upstate NY under car hood

A cat from Brooklyn just spared one of its nine lives following a daring journey upstate.

After smelling something odd inside her Honda minivan for several days, Dana Esses popped the hood on Monday following a 230-mile trek from Manhattan Beach in Brooklyn to a resort upstate and made a hairy discovery.

A tabby cat had tagged along on her family’s three-and-a-half-hour road trip by nestling in next to the van’s engine block.

“It was a shock, to say the least,” Esses told the New York Daily News on Friday. “It wasn’t wedged or anything. It sort of peeked its little head out when my husband came over and then retreated back. … It didn’t look injured at all.”

The family notified the hotel staff, which alerted the SPCA of Warren County.

“He was really tucked in there,” said SPCA Director Jim Fitzgerald, who came out to remove the cat from the car. “It looked like he’d been there a few days. There was hair everywhere. He was lethargic, but he fought me for a little bit. I could tell he wasn’t an Adirondack feral cat.”

Turns out the tabby wasn’t even a Brooklyn feral cat, either.

After the SPCA’s Facebook post about the feline went viral, the cat was identified as the missing pet of Manhattan Beach resident Raven Huang. Gumbo had escaped his carrier during avet visit on Jan. 14.

“I’m really shocked and astonished that he’s all right,” said Huang, who was reunited with Gumbo on Friday. “He became a celebrity!”

Despite his fame, Gumbo will now wear a leash when he goes to the doctor after his not-so-little trip, Huang said.