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Two posters (myself one of them) came up with spontaneous human combustion as a possibility but no spontaneous vehicular combustion, you're the first.

It was just a coincidence that one of the Arabs had a tour badge from the WTC on 9-5 and left NYC on 9-11 and sold this woman the car (providing him with access to a duplicate key).

When this is over we'll learn that it was a delayed part of a suicide pact with the scientist to fell/didn't "jump" from the bridge in Tennessee.

How common is it for the interior only to burn completely in a car accident? Could a dropped cigarette do the job that completely? Doesn't seem like an engine fire and the gas tank did not ignite.

The car fires I've driven by in my life did not appear to be fatalities (generally a single vehicle pulled over to the shoulder), some of these starting with the engine on fire.

It sure is a strange story, but now that the FBI is on the case, we'll get to the bottom of it. Right? :-(

Could a dropped cigarette do the job that completely?

auto interior upholstery & carpets are typically nylon, olefins, or polyester fibers.

a lit cigarette would melt the fibers and then go out rather than ignite in flames.

How common is it for the interior only to burn completely in a car accident? Could a dropped cigarette do the job that completely? Doesn't seem like an engine fire and the gas tank did not ignite.
The car fires I've driven by in my life did not appear to be fatalities (generally a single vehicle pulled over to the shoulder), some of these starting with the engine on fire.

It's common enough for a cigarette dropped when occupants exit a vehicle to ignite carpet or upholstery that totally burns out the interior of a vehicle after smouldering for a while, often several hours. If that vehicle is parked inside a garage that's a part of a residence, it can total the structure and all occupants within it, of course. That's far different from such an incident happening while an awake and aware person is inside the auto however.

Now think about one of those fairly common situations you've seen, only in which the driver strikes another vehicle [often headon] or an object in their panic, and is knocked unconscious or otherwise dazed in the carsh. In two to five minutes, it'll all be over.

I'm certainly not suggesting that what happened to Katherine Smith here in Memphis was an accident; and murders of every sort here have been covered up and had details rearranged, from Martin Luther King's on down, some with police assistance or complicity and others without. But I am observing that it's surer and easier to have the fire to cause the accident rather than vice-versa.