Walking around Vern Tardel's parts yard, you start to wonder why everyone doesn't build a hotrod. It's all there. Every component needed to build a hundred little old school jalopies crammed into a Northern California acre. There was a pile of flathead ford intake manifolds 6'x6' and pallet bins full of backing plates. A '40 Ford sedan full of air cleaners, pedal assemblies, water pumps and hubcaps. Frame rails, cowls, doors, axles, wishbones, windshield frames and headlights. If being surrounded by 40,000 pounds of hot rod material doesn't give you the itch to build a flathead powered, buggy sprung Ford, then nothing will. With out further ado...
Damn, that's enough raw material there to keep the hobby going for quite a while. Amazing to see it all gathered in one place, by someone with the vision to see finished hotrods in a pile of parts.
I bought a few odds & ends and two complete '54 Ford car grilles for a custom project. Posted using the Full Custom H.A.M.B. App!
I got lucky. I'm in Michigan but my parents live 10 mins from his shop. I was on the phone with them all day guiding them at what to pick up. They were sending me drool worthy pics of all the piles and piles of great parts. Through them I was able to pick up a complete 40 Ford front end and a set of wire wheels. As happy as I am I still would have loved to have been there. My dad called it a hot rod Disneyland Posted using the Full Custom H.A.M.B. App!
Vern is a great guy!! All those pictures just scratch the surface. I have one if his motors in my 49 F1 with a t5. It's a bummer he is retiring. I would love to have some of his knowledge. Posted using the Full Custom H.A.M.B. App!
Most everything in those pics is still there as of 4:30 this afternoon! Had a great conversation with Vern. What a true gentleman! The prices are riduculous! He's got a crate full of 30's/40's pedal assemblies............$5 each! Complete front suspensions axle/spring/spindles/bones..........$100 or so! Doors..................$10-$50! Bare axles.............$10! Here's a couple more I snapped. $400 jalopy. Not sure what it is.......but I like it! Doors................ Hoods................. Nice cruiser for $450. The yellow 5-window sold for $1k. The Model A tudor is complete and he's asking $3500! Stash........................ He let me wander around the shop too! I left pretty much speechless! 2 more Saturdays of garage sale. After that he's already got a contract with the local scrapper to come in and clean it out. $250 ton!
I see a lot of model A rear ends, front ends and a lot of mechanical brakes in those pics.....lots of parts nobody has interest in......stock flathead heads, etc.... How many 32 wishbones, 32 axles, 32 frame rails, 32 firewalls, etc.. did you see being sold???
Damn is wish I was closer !!! We dont have anything here in Southeast Texas Hopefully someone steps up and buys everything left so the scrapper dosent get it all. Got to keep hot rodding alive ! Posted using the Full Custom H.A.M.B. App!
Just so yawl know, that there is poison oak growing around them steering columns. LOL Damn nice stuff. Its my understanding that Vern owned a wrecking yard in the North Bay years ago.
The Jalopy Journal
