Ford-lover's "barn finds" paradise!

I ran across an ad in a nearby newspaper a few days ago, listing a '71 Ford F100 with less than 17,000 original miles, and was described as still having the original tires on it. Needless to say, I was intrigued. I couldn't afford to buy it, I just wanted to shoot some good hi-res shots of it for my website, and so yesterday I decided to make the three-hour drive to the seller's house to do***ent the truck. However, I had no idea just what I was getting myself into, hoping the long drive would be worth it...

...and man, was it ever! The truck was as-described, so I was definitely happy there. However, the gentleman selling the truck has been collecting and parting out other vintage cars (mostly Fords) for 20-30 years and had an extensive collection of parts, and also had a very nice collection of all-original vintage cars. This is the epitome of 'barn find' here....these cars are all-original and completely unmolested, and have been collecting dust for a long time. Here's a few teasers of the collection:



Those are the vehicles in just one shed! In another shed there were a trio of Pontiacs...two GTO's ('67 and '68 ) and a mid-70's big-block Trans-Am. (I didn't get shots of those though...I was too busy trying to keep my jaw off the ground!) In another there was a '77 Lincoln Town Car.

Then he started showing me around the rest of his property:



What shouldn't have taken me more than an hour or so turned into a 4-hour visit. We talked cars and trucks the entire time, and the gentleman who owns everything you see here hinted that he was interested in beginning to liquidate the collection. However, he's never had or used a computer or a digital camera, so it would be extremely difficult for him to target these items to the right people. We never discussed prices on any of the vehicles or parts, but I got the impression that he was an honest man who just wanted a fair market value for these items. So we had a brief discussion about a possible mutually-beneficial arrangement, where in exchange for certain items from his collection, I would take pictures and list the stuff online for him, acting as a go-between on his behalf. He hinted that he might be interested in that, and we left the discussion there, but I told him I'd definitely be contacting him in the near future about it, after he's had some time to mull it over and discuss it with his son, who owns some of the collection shown above.

...and my jaw is STILL sore from hitting the ground so many times! A guy doesn't run across something like this every day!

Anyway, I shot a whole bunch more pictures and just posted them in high-resolution (1024 x 768) at the following link, if anyone wants to kill some time and drool!

http://www.fordification.com/barnfinds.htm

Keith

 

Well, tell him I would be interested in the 36 Ford pickup.

 

very nice! If only I could find these barns that you cats keep running up on

 

That appears to be a 1935. It looks like it has the indent below the windshield. Maybe not, its pretty dusty

 

whats that track racer lookin thing? is that a soap box car or is that a full size dirt tracker?

 

It's pretty small, like maybe an old midget racer? It was set up for a motorcycle engine up front. Aside from a missing engine and seat, it looked to be pretty much complete though. I was planning on doing some research on that and see if I couldn't get a better idea of just what it was.

 

i think it might be an old 3/4 midget !