I was out riding bikes with my daughter today, and saw the old woman that lives 3 doors down from me pulling her car in the garage. I made a quick glance in the garage, as all car people should do, and saw a pile of boxes, low on the ends and high in the middle. I quickly thought of a reason to stop and talk. Turns out the "pile" was hiding a 57 Desoto sea foam green ! She quickly told me that she inherited it from her father after he died. 6 MONTHS AFTER HE BOUGHT IT ! She said it had a 3** hemi in it and has the greatest sound! Unfortunately, she also told me, her nephew is getting it after he finishes building his house. OH WELL........just goes to show you that the old stuff is still out there and you should always be checking. Any other stories of hidden jewels ?
i had a simailar thing happen,was stopped at a stop sign in my neighborhood an the houeson to the left had the garage door open,and piled high with junk,but i spied a model a head lamp peering out of the mess,backed up and talked to the guy,turns out it was his broters car,he died and left him the car,i stop in every now and agian to see if it is for sale
I had to have the heating unit worked on at my house Saturday (yes! the guy came out on Saturday without an afterhours charge!). Repair guys says, "What you gonna do with that old car?", referring to my 26 T touring banger project. I told him, and he says, "Ya know anybody that works on Model A's?" Turns out he has his dad's Model A Tudor sedan and had gotten interested in it. It was restored in the '60s. He's soaked the cylinders and got it running for a short time. Now he wants to make it a daily driver! That is the way I like to see these storys turn out...the lucky family member that gets the car gets the old car bug and actually gets it going again!
It's not on topic, but I know where there is a 1977 Bandit edition Trans Am here in Austin-with all 27 original miles on the odometer. Fella bought it for his wife, it scared the hell out of her, she parked it, he died shortly after. still has the plastic on the carpet.black car, red guts, locked in a garage and probably hasnt seen daylight in 5 years. probably didn't see any for 20 years before that!
Some years ago on the east side of Houston I saw a mid-fifties DeSoto for sale in a yard near my work. I had no interest so didn't stop. Another car guy in town did stop, and while he was tehre discovered that in the garage was a chopped and channeled 34 Ford coupe which was the old high school car. I believe it had an Olds V8, 3-speed and 55-57 Chevy rearend. He bought both cars for about $500 more than the guy was asking for the DeSoto, took them both home, sold the DeSoto for more than he paid for both cars and had the 34 for free! I have never failed to stop and look at every old car I see in a driveway or yard for sale since...but that lightning only strikes once!! And yes, he did rebuild and update the car and as far as I know it still cruises the streets.
I was thinking about starting a similar thread about "the one that got away" but I'll just add to this one. When I was around 15 (30 yrs. ago) my Dad took me out to a friends house to show me a car he had in his barn. My Dad knew how much I liked old cars and thought I'd like to see it. It turned out to be a full fendered A roadster that was rodded back in the late 50's. It had a flathead V8 installed,it was blue with a red tuck and roll interior,good top and steel wheels. I opened the rumble seat and a HUGE rat jumped out. It looked like it just needed a good cleaning, the paint was good and the interior too except where the rat was living in the rumble seat.I don't know how it was mechanicaly.The friend had bought the house from his sister and the car was her first husbands who had died several years before. I asked him if she would sell it and he told me she would like to but the husband she had now wouldn't let her. I guess it spooked them that someone was asking about it because next time I went out there it was gone, along with the two A 2 door sedan bodies that were out by the fence.
somewhat off topic car, but about 10 years ago, my dad talked to a guy that knew he was into cars and told him about a 60's chevy that had been sitting and need to go. I just blew up my V8 Vega and needed a home for my v8. my dad p***ed the phone # to me and i went to look at it. it was a original 66 Chevy II SS 4 speed car. 40K on the clock, no motor, but the best fish scale paint job ever. as i looked further i noticed the ball joint spacers, radiused wheel wells, pie crust slicks.....I wanted it bad! it sat at the owners childhood home where his sister and bro-in-law currently lived (they showed me the car) and when i called the owner to ask about it i started a family fued. his original 63 vette motor was....WAS in the car when it was parked, motor missing and he was pissed since he still had the vette....never heard back from the guy , but dam i wanted that car
While driving home from a fishing trip with my boys we stopped at a traffic light on the edge of a small village in Ontario, Canada. To the left I notice a black 38 Ford 2 door sedan coming across the field. It stops by the street and an old fellow in bib overalls gets out and puts a for sale sign in the window. When the light changed I drove over to look at the car. The old guy comes over and explains that he needed the room in the barn for his new tractor - so the family 38 had to go. We made a deal and I picked it up the following weekend for $1800 Cdn. The gas tank was history, but it ran good with a jerry can strapped to the front bumper. We played with it for a couple of years and flat towed it all the way to Georgia before letting it go down the road. Shoulda kept it.
Brings back great memories. In the late 70's I had one, black with all the gold striping, black interior, 400. That thing was bas *** and I drove the snot outta it. Man I got in some trouble with that car. I'd love to have another.....wonder if she's sell .....to a gal.
A guy called me a few weeks back and had a couple of old cars in the garage of a house he just bought. one was a 66 Malibu 2dr HT and the other was a 51 Kaiser. I wish they were something cooler, but I still bought them.
Yeah a house by me has a '57 2 door post with a straight axle and a full gl*** flip front end on early magnesium americans up front and some old real deep slots out back radiused rear fenders and slicks.But the 60 year old man won't sell it he says," he'll fix it up someday just hasn't got to it"i keep pestering about selling it to me but he won't budge the cars been there since I can remember and have been asking him to sell since I was 16 I'm 22 now still nothing.
You never know where you'll find one. I work at the same place 13 yrs. and am always looking in the yards and garages when I'm out and about. One day a roofing company shows up about 8 houses from the shop to do a job. I guess the home owner let them plug into the garage for power. The door was wide open and there it is. Nice shiny chrome grill and a big set of beautiful headlights! Couldn't get a good enough look past the boxes and **** for a good I.D. but definately early 30's. Just goes to show that no matter how good you think you know the 'hood, you don't.
I know a guy who went with a friend to look at a car for sale, an El Camino or something, when his friend was done talking to the seller about the El Camino he asked him how much he wanted for the old car in the corner under the car cover..... He bought himself a real nice original '35 Ford Roadster that day. Some people have all the luck.
how about a zepher a an ss camaro? been there for years. belong to a local weathly family. i took the pics with my cell phone last summer. now the old garage and the cars are gone they built a brand new metal building in it's place. my dad says that their son bought the camaro brand new. he died in the early 70's from cancer. it's been sitting in the same place ever since. in the same town there is also a 68 shelby gt500kr convert. i know the guy that owns it. he won't sell. he bought it new. it's in the garage with a bunch of **** piled on it. i was reaching in through broken out windows to take the pics. someone has broken in a stole the rear window and the chrome hood vents of the camaro.
Some people have heard this before but I like to tell about it so listen up: I had moved to Michigan in the winter of 1993 and we were married on New Year's Eve. Shortly after I started looking around for a car.While perusing a local Auto Hunter mag,I came across an ad for a 55 Pontiac Safari. Called the number and the guy said he still had the car and where did I hear about it.I told him and he related that the ad had been placed over two years before and had gotten no responses.He was just getting ready to re-submit the ad when I called. Long story short,I went down to look at it,liked it,and gave him a deposit.He delivered the car 3 weeks later and I have been driving it ever since.I guess I was meant to have it. The story of the 57 is even weirder: My wife and I drove to M***achusetts in the fall of 1995 to attend the Ty-Rods show.I brought my striping kit along as a friend of mine wanted his Deuce phaeton striped. He had never seen the Safari and told me he knew of one similar to it that was for sale.We finally got hold of the guy who owned it and after finally getting the lock to the garage unstuck and moving a bunch of trash and old bicycle frames that the car was buried under,discovered it had belonged to an old friend who had built it as a race car in the early 60's.I had even lettered the dashboard in 1963 and it was still on there! Bought the car for $1000 and dragged it back to Michigan the following spring.Got it running(it ran like ****;hadn't been started in 17 years)and drove it a couple times with the 4.56 posi still in it. Started pulling it apart awhile back and still haven't got it back together.Finally found the DuCoil ignition I've been looking for(thanks to Heathen on here) so I can run my tach.Who knows;it may see daylight again soon!
back in 72' i used to mow lawns with a friend and we used to split up the neighborhood. my friend used to mow this one lawn for three summers for this guy. jump forward to 92' i run into him in the old neighborhood and invites me over to see his mom.while we are their he is going to mow his moms lawn and opens up the garage, a 40' ford deluxe convertable unrestored! come to find out he had made a deal to cut the guys lawn and when he turned 16 he could have it if it was ok with his mom. went by his moms 5 years ago and it's still their, unrestored just waiting for me to get rich and buy it. some guys have all the luck!
Damn, I just remembered one that I see practically every week. My wife works at UCLA and I take her to work a few days a week. While driving through Beverly Hills, there's a gardener's truck that's always loaded up with hundreds of pounds of equipment. It's an unrestored '70 El Camino SS 454. The gardener is some older guy who looks like he's probably the original owner. Cool, but sad at the same time. Mostly cool though -- after all, it's a truck!
I have been checking in on the same 55 Nomad on the westside of San Antonio once a year for the past 20 yrs. you just have to be polite and persistant, so much is being observant and being in the right place at the right time..got a nice 60 Pontiac 2DHT from an old lady for simply taking down and disposing of the garage that had fallen on top of it, Oh, and I bought her a little TV set..saw a crack in a garage door that showed a license plate and part of a bumper, wound up buying a 59 Caddy 2DHT from them for 1500.00..some people at a garage sale sold me their Regal T-coupe because they were unable to get the hood to unlatch,couldn't check the fluids and had stopped driving it...and so on....
this is 10 feet from out restaurant!!!locked up for years as you can see!!!the kids that inherited it is a ro*****d!im hopin to snag it one day but he's a doc [in training] so he's no dummy!!dammit!
My aunt has a 40 std. 2-dr sedan. Its been sitting in the garage for about 40 years. She won't sell, but I'm still working on her. I also know where there is a 36 buick 4-dr sitting in a barn with 5995 miles on it. It still has 1956 tags and 3 out 4 tires still up. I almost had him talked in to selling to me a couple of years ago but he changed his mind. I'll check with him again soon.
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