I always wondered when you see western cars pictures they are basically the gutted body, no interior, no wiring and most of the time no frame just a body sitting in the middle of a field. Why would people just gut them and leave the body, at least they could have sold the body for s****, what did they do with the interior or the wiring or frame and running gear? Any one know?
Alot of the running gears were used for wagon running gears and on other farm equipment. I still have a gear that was converted at a local blacksmith shop made from a '36 ford. During the war the s****pers only took the heavy meatal to sell also. Alot of bodies left on their sides with no frames.
One reason might be that many were recycled into farm or ranch wagons, trailers, doodlebugs or converted to tractors with the kits available or by a blacksmith. . No body was needed for any of those purposes.
lots of bodies on their sides.... Here in Oklahoma people got all the good they could out of everything... Anything they could find a way to use they did. I pulled a set of 30-31 a headlights converted to sealed beam by way of 46-48 chevy car buckets and headlight rings off of a combine!
Ten cents a hundred is what I remember from the 50's-60's When I was a kid, I'd put effort into finding soda bottles at two cents apiece. Five soda bottles=hundred lbs of tin. Sheet metal wasn't worth the effort to bring it to the yard.
Ever heard the term "I'm going to do something with it some day". People actually thought they were going to put it back together, some still do!
Up North, bodies wear out long before the drivetrain. Plus, people drive fewer miles because things are closer together. Out West, and in the South, drivetrains wear out sooner and people drive more miles.
Still do...80% of the population of the US live east of the Mississippi River...out west it's stilll wide open space...lots of miles between rod runs... R-
The interiors become furnature in the barn or on the porch and the ch***is becomes a trailer or a tractor. When those bodies got set in a field they were probably worn out cars that someone bought for 10 or 15 bucks and the body was not a usable part on the farm.
Western Prairie Rule #46: Prior to putting any vehicle into target service, all interior items and all running gear must be removed. At that time, you may fire at will.
I know on our farm in Santa Maria we must have 6 dead A and other bodys,, Grand pops used parts for pumps Etc.
A friend of mine lived on a farm locally when he was a kid. He told me about a '48 Chevy his parents had. It was the family car until the early 60's,until they bought a new 1964 Rambler! Anyway,he remembers his dad driving it on the farm ,sitting on a bucket.with no trunk lid or interior ,hauling hay in it.
Biggest reason is what someone already said, the tin wasn't worth bringing to the s****per back then. And since we didn't have near as many whiners and complainers worried about what you did with it, it got dumped somewhere. That happened in the east, too, but now when you find those cars often they've just about dissolved from rot.
They were just old cars, in 55 a 29 A was 26 years old, in 2012 a 86 model car is still just an old car. People s**** 86 model cars all of the time so why should it have been any different in the late 40s or early 50s. As a kid growing up in the Texas hill country almost all of the kids that had cars had Model As to 48s because they were cheap and plentiful and could be found on the back row of almost every used car lot in town. We stripped the running out from under 40 Ford coupes and sedans to put the spindles and brakes on our model A along with the engine and transmission. A striped A V8 is a whole lot lighter and faster than a 40 Ford in stock form. And what we wanted was acceleration and speed.
Vancouver, while West, is way too far North to count. We're talking Arizona....New Mexico...Nevada...
5 years ago bought an old hay wagon at a farm sale the wood was all rotted but it had 32 ford running gear.
That is the main reason you find them like that. I used to go up to the dump a few miles up the road from my house and there would be bodies up there that guy had towed up there and rolled on their side to take the frame and running gear out of for s****. The dump guys burned the bodies and then pulled the copper wire out of them and pushed the hulk over the hill. In those days no one wanted the sheet metal of the old cars. The 28/31 Chev frame I bought a week ago was under a trailer for years and I spotted another one under a trailer last week. The 27 T roadster body I had when I was a kid came out of the neighbors field after I spotted it there while hunting one day and it had been in the same spot for 30 years then.
I never really thought about it until I read your post, but you are right, every time I see a car from out there for sale it is either just the body or the body and bare frame. The fenders and runnng gear are gone a lot of times. Don
Here's a western 35 chevy that came from the desert , at least it had the frame. Another shot of it 12 years later.
It is a lot easier for those p***ing by to take bits and pieces off a car in a paddock and throw it in the trunk than it is to cart away the whole car. Stripping over time is more common than wholesale removal.
The Jalopy Journal
