So this morning I'm outside my house, just about to go inside when I see a woman whose car has seemingly died. I go over and she thinks she's run out of petrol because the fuel gauge has dropped to 0. So we push it over to a nearby bay (and almost rear-end a taxi in the process as it was on a downhill slope ), she gets in and tries turning the engine, and it starts fine - the fuel gage goes back up and everything. Weird, but I think nothing of it and continue about my day.

A couple hours later the exact same thing happens to my Polo 86c. I'm doing a steady 40 when I suddenly lose the ability to accellerate and the fuel gauge drops to 0, but the engine's still running so I haven't stalled. I pull over to the side, switch off and on again, and everything goes back to normal and I then drive home without any problems.

The hell is going on here?

Electrickery, work of the devil.