Art & Inspiration Sitting and Rotting.............picture thread

Here are the ones that I can go get, don't know if the chrysler is saveable. Roof is really smashed, but they in a dry climate, and have almost no rust.

 

Should have thrown that roadster in the truck while you were there.It looks like easy pickings.

 

I have't seen been to the farm yet, my buddy brought me the pics. In the spring, we are going out the get the 46 plymouth, the rusty roadster, and We may flip the woody upside down over the plymouth and bring it home also. He hunts up there every Nov, and said just walking around there are tons of parts laying in the grass. I found some I think they are the 32 ford large headlights. Still in the stock mounting bar. We are going to do a three day weekend and just hit his place and some of the neighbors places.

 

Stumbled on these a few years ago driving around in middle Georgia. Guy had a TON of cool stuff back in the woods, mostly muscle cars, though. From the way the guy who owned all of it talked he'd picked up a lot of cars and old hot rods during the 70s-80s, fixed a bunch up, and these were just the ones he didn't get to. Sad to see because most were too far gone to be saved, but a cool way to kill a couple of hours nonetheless.

 

Found this last month. Owner wants 5x real value of course...

 

same guy had two more beyond repair sitting since 70's and way overpriced...

 

"Christines" cousin maybe?

 

man, that one really brings a tear to my eye

 

Guess I better not put up the pic of the other side...

 

heres another one saved

 

Well it used to look like this when it was found in Northern Ontario Canada along an old railroad line.......Friends picked it up and I did this to it. My A-bone was featured in Ol' Skool Rodz magazine as well as Canadian Rodder magazine....Dave



*Try anything once!!

 

Bravo, Well done on the 'A' Good on ya!
HG

 

So here is the story of the 'sitting and rotting' 1956 hearse that showed up on here, parked in Washington state. Not sure where the picture went, it's black, it's in the weeds. Time lowered it.

A number of years ago a friend of my fathers had this ol' blue '56 Superior Cadillac hearse sittin' alongside his barn. For those not in the know, Superior is the coach builder, the folks that built everything aft of the dash. Most 'coach builders' built stage coaches, and hand built custom cars and bodies for stuff way back when. Anyhow, this friend had this ol' blue 56 caddy sitting alongside his shop. A christmas tree farm using it for their haunted house display had sent it there to make it run once more. Seems at some point somebody had done in the engine somehow. They weren't sure how or what was awry.

They also were not sure now to pay for the repairs, so the car sat, and sat, and the tires went flat, a cat got stuck up in it and mangled the front seat something awful.

Years went by and the car became a shelf for lumber, soon it was mostly lost but for the ass end and the fishfins.

My dad asked about it after a while, and through some checking with the christmas tree farm it was determined they would sell it. I think the price was $900. Not bad for a car where the unrusted front clip was likely worth that. Sure, good deal, had a title and everything. We drug the car home with the truck and some straps, or maybe AAA towed it the few miles, not sure how it got there, all I remember was that it showed up in the yard and I went out to help wiggle the hood open.

Huh, it has the cool oil bath air cleaner, that's good. It looks all stock, that's good, still has the Armor Plate battery, and nothing looks molested under the hood. GRAND!

Go to pull the dipstick...~tonk~"huh...."~tonktonktugwrenchyank.....tonk~ "Hey dad...somethin' aint' right here...." So we blink, ponder, think about things a good minute leanin' on those big blue metal flake fenders....and then both get to our knees on either side of the engine lookin' beneath the car...

And then we see one another.

Through the oil pan.

"Hey I think I found the thing..."

Well, that ain't no good folks. Seems at some point someone had, we imagined, wired open the throttle for grins and done in the ol' V8. We'd later surmise that the hydromatic went bad and someone hadn't the common sense god, or ya know, whoever, gave em to let their foot out of it and scattered the engine.

We pulled it around to the shop, yarded the motor out, broke it down, and found that all of the pistons were broken, all of the connecting rods were damaged, all of the bearings were wrecked, the block was punched in several places into the water jacket, the crank was chipped and gouged, the heads were full up with more flake than a Winfield and in short, it's one of the few engine detonations we'd actually wished we had been present for because it must have been completely spectacular.

So, after digging the new coffee table out of the bay dad sourced a 56 caddy fourdoor out of the weeds. The engine was locked up but the car was solid and complete. He sold the rear bumper for some reason I can't fathom, as that's now the only other missing part aside from the engine that we soaked in diesel and trans fluid, tapped around on the valves, and managed to get unstuck while at the same time preserving me in a high velocity stream of oil based lubricants.

"Yes dad...it turned over. Now remind me where the eye wash and safety shower is..."

there's still an oil patch on the inside roof of the pole barn some 20 ft in the air. It's easy to find, it's the one place the wasps never build nests.

Spark plugs in, gas in a can, dad bombing around the field in the 56 sedan with no brakes....and around....and around....and around....it's alarming and highly amusing (when not behind the wheel) how many laps it takes to stop one of those rigs with no brakes.

That motor found it's way into the blue 56 hearse just in time for halloween. Just in time to form the Pacific Northwest hearse and ambulance club dubbed "Hearsing Around". Later when we relinquished control to far more ambitious (obnoxious) folks it became 'Casket Cruisers' (Which sounds like a dating service for necrophiliacs).

The club grew, the ol' blue hearse motored around Portland Oregon covered in christmas lights for the holidays, taking treks to the Highway 99 drive in theater, one of the last in the area, if not the only one around. The best improvement later on was the 2 inch unmuffled dual exhaust piped all the way to the back, out the bumper ends. The many bends and curves muted it decently but it burbled to a roar when you felt like motivating.

Down the road a year or two we started looking for parts. 1956 Superior hearse parts are not easy to come by so at the time, ebay was the source. We went there looking, and in some random late night jaunt nowdays reserved for craigslist I stumbled across a mechanically identical hearse. A 1956 Superior end loader hearse in the same state as us. It had the trim, it had the S bars on the rear, called Landau bars after the folding mechanism on the older buggy type canvas tops that by 1956 were just style relics.

We piled in the car and trucked all the way across the state to the Tri-Cities area to see this thing. The auction was ending soon, that day in fact. We figured we could run over, look at it, then run home and edge in a bid.

Well, after being run off the road by one of those stupid HOLYMOTHEROFGOD huge windmill power station pylons on the back of a semi truck (And later the generator head on another such truck) it took us all day to get there. When we did, we met the owner, a nice older gentleman and his wife with a plethora of neat old cars, a few hearses, mostly old fords and lincolns and a cool 60's mercury pickup. We told him about the car we had, described it and the blue metallic paint, the purple interior, and other details and he smiled and nodded and wandered into his house for a few minutes before returning and handing my dad a picture.

A picture of him, 20 some years earlier, standing beside the same blue 1956 Superior when he had purchased it from a used car lot with reverse chrome rims and side pipes.

The car had always, from the factory, been blue, with a dark blue, later faded to purple, velour interior. It had been nice inside, and rust and damage free outside. In the picture it is shiny and quite stylish, for a hearse, as he's proudly standing beside it.

Dad was amazed, as was I. We were shocked at how retardedly tiny the world had become. Smaller than that bothersome ride at that place with the mouse. He had sold the car and had instantly lost track of it. The buyer said it was going out of state to the east coast, but it would appear it never made it that far. Already an odd story, it only became more abnormal.

The car we were going to look at was the parts car that this fellow had purchased around the same time as the blue one, with the intent of using the parts to fix up some missing trim. The only thing is, he never did that. The car was parked at his sisters place and had never been utilized. Not a screw one was removed from it. He had a title, and when he parked it the car was running, fancy aircleaner and all. After he sold the blue hearse, he never got around to doing anything with it until he listed it on ebay.

So now, after hearing this story, and looking at the car, a rusty beast, but complete and by east coast standards a complete gem, we were dismayed to find the whole day had gone by and we would not be able to make it home in time to bid on it.

"Oh I've got a computer if you want..."

So we find ourselves in this nice guys living room, 20 some years after he's sent away the blue car to fates unknown now sitting in his living room bidding on the parts car that was never parted.

We bid, and we bid, and dad started sweating about how much it was going to cost. The final selling price was *FAR* more than what we had paid for the blue hearse.

And at the last refresh the winner changed to my ID.

So while my dad is pondering if he wants to hug or kill me for winning the auction, the phone rings. Somewhere out there, a very upset second place bidder is calling to coerce the seller into taking a higher offer post auction to sell the car out from under the winning bidder, us, who is sitting in his living room (On what I must say was an ugly but alarmingly comfy sofa).

I won't say the seller was rude, but he was quite short with the person on the phone while informing him what he thought of his suggestion of underhanded dealings.

So, my 71 lincoln was traded to the guy to deliver the hearse, which went off well. He scored a lincoln, and we picked up the long lost parts hearse. Several years later however, the story became more odd.

We're not sure how Marvin got ahold of us, but a man of such name contacted my father. We never listed that blue car for sale, it never was. My father loved that car. Somehow Marvin was able to find our number, track us down, and talk with my father enough that he was persuaded to let the car go. He got a good price for it, both parties were pleased. The only reason that my father sold it was because Marvin had every intent of restoring and lightly modernizing it to put it back into active duty as a funeral coach, the one thing it was hand built in 1956 to do.

The chrome was chromed, the body was taken down and painted white, and the interior was restored and the drivetrain was updated to a more service vehicle friendly 350 and more modern automatic (the original on a pallet just in case).

This car of a most stoic duty served it's time for years, and then had many more years of play time before once again returning to it's calling of helping folks experiencing a time of loss to heal and move on with their lives.

That black '56 rests under a tarp, same as the day delivered, while I can only imagine that big white caddy giving a former-life wink with it's 40 ft of straight exhaust tucked under it's lead and steel skin.

 

Neat story of the hearse jaygryph. Merry Christmas

 

I love a good car story.

 

The crappy economy is starting to get a few folks around this part of the country to cut loose of their “cherished yard ornaments”. The problem is… that same crappy economy is keeping me from being able to do anything about it

 

the Dad and the Cad

 

Wow, I hadn't seen that picture, that must have been shortly after we got it up and going. Makes me wanna get one of the other ones up and going, though neither of them are as nice as that car was.

I have no idea where that was taken, probably at one of the shop halloween parties or something, That was such a fun car.

 

That truck bed looks good enough for me,,
too bad its about 10 hours away,,

 

Some around here.

 

You can fix this, mine was worse

 

where is it I will come get it.

 

Perfect `rod project

 

Naw, I fixed it.

 

Hey Bob W, is that the same car?

 

Here's a few i've found out in the desert when we go rock crawling.

 

that last one needs to be hauled outta there,,
find a 'historical document' and make it run, and drive it,
even if only in parades,,

 

Well these are not exactly rotting and are for sale. A close friend of mine is closing the yard and these were saved from scrap. here is a pic of a 1926 Dodge Bros Coupe to start with..You can see the rest on my photobucket..Let me know if you are interested in anything you see in the pics
Troy
http://s237.photobucket.com/albums/ff85/njnascarfanz29/Wrecking Yard Cars and Parts/