What's the coolest thing you found in an old car?

Me working on it. Ok seriously One time I bought a car for 100.00 and found 12.00 in the glove box. 1980 pontiac Parrisiene The car was great .Drove for a year.Started to redo the car to keep up with those grand nationals .Installed a 455 pontiac from 73 Then emissions started pulled motor and junked car. This car was slick took 4 inches out of front and rear .Snorkel hood scoop reversed .Painted the car nason both reds they had mixed together Dark red Everything was blood red 15X 8 CRAGARS REAR 15X6 FRONTS Even those were painted red. Never even fired the motor.At 88.00 and then only less than a grand.Great car and also a fun car.Even though it wasn't a classic

 

Both cool one's!
Thanks,

 

a silver spoon, a wasp nest, and 6 9mm bullets

 

I found the original maintenance & warranty book for my '64 Studebaker Commander. A little old lady in Orlando bought it new.

 

I won this on ebay (cuz no one else bid!)
drove 350 miles across Texas to get it
Looks like junk but I needed the rear subframe
It was good and I got the decklid
I disassembled the body at the seams
and found a 1938 Buffalo nickel!

 

If yer talkin about one of those NEWLY made semi-auto M1A1 Thompsons from Auto-Ordnance, what I'd do is sneak it into a junk yard and put it under some rusted out POS's back seat with the rest of the junk... ask me how I know...

If yer talkin about the real deal WWII Thompson, shhhhhh! There's a 10 year trip to club fed depending on who you tell...

And if yer joking, I found a "Japs Bomb Pearl Harbor" newspaper under the seat and a skeleton in a flight suit with a Japanese flag, and HAWAII 1941 plates in the trunk of my '41 Plymouth.

 

the coolest thing I found was... I bought a 49 dodge that was parked in 59. sat in a barn until last month. as i lifted the carpets to my suprise i saw my reflection. yes thats right nice glossy shiney black paint still on all the floorboards. ya dont find that very often.

 

... my wife, she was in the front seat of my '55 Fairlane

 

When I bought my '56 Dodge from the guy that my deceased father had restored it for 15 years earlier there was the original estimate of repairs in my Dad's hand writing and a stack of Polaroids in the glovebox of my Dad working on the car in his shop. Worth what I paid for the car.

 

A 1953 mouse!

 

You win!
Very cool story.

 

The first job I ever had was a gas jockey in a Chevron station ,1977, and in those days gas stations still were repair shops. One day while repairing a tire I opened it up to fix the leak and found an unopened deck of CAMEL cigarettes inside , so being of unsound mind and soon to be body I sparked one up . Lets just say one of the more stupid acts of my early life! Rob

 

not in a car, but in a garage after cleaning it out due to a death in the wife's family.

 

That's way cool!

 

Cleaning a bunch of old rotty trim wood out of the trunk of a Nash I disturbed a snake with wide bands of orangish red and white and skinny black bands. Good thing I'm way out of the region for a Coral Snake. Bad to not remember the difference in how to tell them apart or know it's too far north for them when you have to change a tire on the same damned car.

 

bought a box van full of motorcycle parts one time for $50 cash. Just the parts, not the van its self. i spotted an XS650 motor in there, and some unknown frame in the back, so i figure i couldnt loose. Ended up finding 3 XS motors, an XCR 1100 race motor, and a complete dissasembled 1973 Norton 750 Commando with interstate tank. Some the XCR motor for 350, kept the XS motors, and assembled the Norton, and sold it for $1100 CASH!!!!!

All when i was 14 =D

 

That would be a 'Sweet heart' item, back then pretty much all Army's, Air Forces and Navy's sold trinkets that the service people could buy as a gift for that someone special, more often than not they were broaches but there was the occasional things like this. There are some big collectors of this stuff and the German stuff pulls the biggest dollars.
Doc.

 

Dunno about cool but it told a story. I was working in a wrecking yard in Melbourne, and in one car I found a birthday card to a girl who had just turned 16, a picnic rug, and a jar of vaseline.

 

Couple years ago we were replacing the carpet in the '67 Lemans and pulled a nudie calander from 1969 out from under the front seat. Also found a big a$$ steel pipe under the seat too, just the right size for smacking somebody in the head. The original owner was from Conn. and had a real gangster sounding name, so we figured the calander was to pass the time while he was waiting to whack some wiseguy with the pipe!

 

I have a Mason jar on top of one of my shop cabinets about half full of all of the cash that I’ve ever found in cars, but after all this time it has only ONE piece of “folding money” in it! A single one dollar bill! I still ALWAYS look in the trunks & back seats of cars in junkyards anyway!

At my “secret little country junkyard” that we used to hit a lot, I opened the back doors of an old bread truck that some contractor or plumber was using for a work truck / mobile tool shed. The back doors had (about) 18” x 36” tall aluminum panels on the insides COVERED in old dealership trunklid decals and plastic or die cast logos from all over southeastern Virginia stuck on it. Rambler, AMC, Chevrolet, Pontiac, DeSoto, and even a “Hearse and Ambulance” dealer. Luckily it was a rare occasion that I DID remember to bring my cordless drill! About 60 rivets later, I got the panels off, and still have them. (PS –The panels will be donated to, and auctioned off at the Virginia Fall Classic Show, October 24 in Newport News, VA. www.VaFallClassic.org if you’re interested!!! All proceeds go directly to the “Children’s Hospital of The King’s Daughters”)

Of course, I’ve found my fair share of tools, but unfortunately most of it has been cheap K-Mart stuff, and not much Snap On or Craftsman...

And the “scantily clad woman” photos I kinda wish that I HADN’T seen… (I didn’t know that Victoria’s Secret even MADE stuff in that size!?!?)

Found an old ‘70’s metal “Scat Pak” lapel pin (the kind with the tab that folds over your pocket or lapel) in a ’70 Super Bee that I started to restore.

Not as much “car-related” but… when I bought my old brick rancher in the suburbs (built in 1957), I was crawling around in the attic and when I looked over the edge of the rafters to see where some wasps were getting in, I saw a MINT condition Budweiser can that had apparently been left there by the house’s original builders. The brick underneath was perfectly clean, the bottom of the can is still shiny gold, and had the little triangular holes in the top where it was opened with a “church key”. When I renovated my laundry room last year, I found the local paper’s want ads from “July 2 1957” wedged under the windowsill (presumably for “insulation”, so I’ve heard). The ads actually call out that they are looking for “white female for office help” or “negro girl for…”. Hmmm! Now, just for fun, any time that I open up a wall or do major renovations in my house I leave a “recently emptied” bottle or can inside before I put the drywall and insulation back up...

By far, the BEST find in a car was in a 71 Satellite station wagon that I bought as a parts car for my ’71 Road Runner about ten years ago. Someone had installed Cordoba bucket seats in it for whatever reason. A friend of mine needed some temporary seats for something that he had bought recently, so I offered them to him for free if he’d just take them out himself. He takes out the passenger’s side seat (after removing a ton of trash and newspapers from the car) and shows me the outer shell of the super-ultra rare “hump mounted cassette player / recorder” that was offered as an option by Chrysler for only about two years. It was missing the cassette player unit, but it was in mint condition AND it was the exact same caramel brown color as my interior! He then takes out the driver’s seat and finds the missing cassette player / recorder unit! Kinda dusty, but otherwise in really nice condition. It has a rubber band around it with a Chrysler repair tag under it which reads “cassette player doesn’t work properly”. (I still have the Road Runner AND the cassette player / recorder inside!)

THANKS to whoever started this thread, and to the other posters!!! COOL stories!!!<O</O

 

In a 66 Coronet parts car, found a .22 cal pistol under the back seat.

In a 68 Cougar that was "given" to me as a parts car found a tunnel ram intake for a small block ford, along with a 4-speed. also a pair of Thrush side pipes.

Bought a 72 GMC sprint at an estate auction, tools behind the seat turned out to be worth more than the car, and no-one knew they were there.

 

About a decade ago I bought a pair of '68 Mustangs and had them towed to my house. Popped the trunk on one and was met by a pair of beedy eyes staring back at me. I slammed the trunk shut and 1 rat trap, a table spoon of peanut butter, a pair of rubber gloves, and an indistrial shop vac later I could safely open the trunk again.
Somewhat related, I worked at an old school Full Service gas station from the time I was 13 until I was 21. All kinds of weird people and things would come in. One day a guy comes in with some lady he picked up that had run out of gas. He borrows a gas can from us, buys some gas, and comes back a little while later to return the can. Later on that day, I was cleaning up the service island where they had stopped that day and found a "preowned" rubber. I guess she got "Full Service" that day too.
Same Service station. My boss bought an old Argosy motorhome and parked it in the parking lot next to the office, installed a video camera in the main office, then ran the wires back to the motorhome. I wasn't sure why until I received the inenviable task of cleaning it out after a couple of weeks. I opened the overhead compartments and was greeted by stacks of porno mags and condoms. I guess that also explained why the women in the Jaguar had been showing up every other day but never had any work done on her car. Ah Yes good times, good times.

 

sorry "unenviable" task

 

I found one of those on a back road when I was surveying for construction near someone's house where there was a black lab. So, naturally, I kicked it out of the ditch into the yard where the dog could get it. I can only imagine the dog running around with that and taking it up to someone at the house for a game of fetch.

 

This thread kicks ass for two reasons.

Reason #1, awesomeness. It's got everything- death, sex, generosity, greed, money, guns, and speed parts.

Reason #2, I now know to totally step up my game around ladies in high end luxury cars.

 

For all you northern alberta boys I was messin with 1960 studabaker Lark 2 door and found a full case of beer beer the little stubby ones (cheap but tasted like ass) it was an unopened case so we pulled on out and opened it smelled okay but to Chicken to try it.

 

I just took the last piece of interior panels out of my car.Inside the rear rear panel next to the rear window was written in
BLACK
PFXXRS
I thought this was so cool as my car was original black PFXX rumble seat car.I forgot my camera so i will have to take pics of it.

 

Bought a 57 Dodge Custom Royal a few weeks ago to part out. There was a bag of very old dynamite in the trunk! Owner laughed and said he forgot it was there.....

 

medium sized floorjack in the trunk, 15 inch long buck knife under the seat, roach clips, roaches, bagoweed, about 20bucks in change, and a fiver stuck in the seat. All in one $300 car.

 

Holy crap man!!!