VCCA Home Forums GENERAL DISCUSSION General Discussions A Barn Find is always fun

You have all heard stories about a rare old car that someone saw in a barn years ago, may be still there. Well at a recent car get-together a gent had a '28 Pontiac Sedan (selling for $14,000 OBO) and while talking to him, I told him I was helping a friend restore a '27 Pontiac Coupe, and many of the '28 details are similar. He then told me where there was a '28 Pontiac Coupe in a garage, he had seen it through an acquiaintance 15 years earlier, covered in an inch of dust. He told me where it was, across from a church in a small fishing village nearby.

So yesterday I decided to make the 20 mile drive for a look, thinking it was likely not to be. No one was home when I arrived about 4pm, so I learned from a neighbour that the owner in question was a long time bodyman who restored cars in his garage as a passtime, but had died last fall and his daughter now lived there and would be home in an hour. When she arrived, I introduced my self, gave her my condolences,and she seemed at first a bit nervous, but after some idle chatter, she seemed comfortable enough to pop the question "is there really an old car in there"! Her reply was obviously well rehearsed "It's not for sale". "Can I have a look". "Well......I suppose since you came this far".

She went in the house, retrieved some keys, went in a back door of the garage and opened the old wooden overhead door (I have to build up some suspense). And there is was in all its glory, a 1929 4 door Willys Knight, in near perfect original condition. The doors opened and closed like new, the all original 85 year old body paint was buffed to a glistening shine on 3/4 of the body (her Dad had done this shortly before he passed away). The interior was original and immaculate. The fenders had some surface rust in spots and 2 of the wooden spoked wheels had flat tires. Chrome was excellent, including the huge chromed headlight buckets, but showed some signs of aging, and the 6 cyl sleeve valved engine was complete and looked like it may start. His daugther said it had not been running since her Dad brought it from Saskachewan in the 1990's. He had given the car to his grandson on his 16th birthday 13 years ago, and it is her son's plans to keep it much the way her dad found it except to get it running. What a wonderful find, would I ever like to have it!!

Yes you never know what is behind those garage doors. If you think about all the old cars in back yards, garages and barns, plus all the ones owned by people like us. I would bet the prices would drop way down, I bet there are thousands of cars, may be hundreds just like that one. Several years ago I found an Indian motor cycle with a side car that was bought new, the owner went to fight in World War 1 and never returned. It was in perfect condition, drained the oil, cleaned the tank and it started right up.

How about a field find?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1923-frankl...%26rk%3D2%26rkt%3D10%26sd%3D251636909239

If I had the room.........

Dean

Love all the stories..At 14 i delivered TheChicago Daily News in my Home town..Sadie and Emma McKeefer had an old home with a small barn. In the summer when the door was open you could see the black rt, fender of an old car..It was love at 1st sight. Emma said Billie you don't want that old car, but I will save it for you when you are 18. At 18 I went back and bought a 1932 Willys Overland ,drove it one year to college and on summer break my brother totalled it. It,s now 60 years past and I still grieve for that old car,

Well you guys are not going to believe this one! My Dad who was a mechanic often told me decades ago about what he considered the coolest car around Cape Breton, NS, Canada in the 40's/50's, a "rodded" '31/32 Chrysler D Rumble-seat Roadster, which had a 48 Cadillac V8 Engine, a Lasalle transmission and an Auburn Rearend. He had known the original owner, a guy named Walter, and the big black roadster, left largely original otherwise, with larger rims at the rear, smaller at the front was just an awesome car.

Over the 40 years from 1960-1999(when he passed away)I often asked him if he knew where the car had gone, and he thought it had gone stateside. But I always thought how cool it would be to find this old rod.

This past week I went back home (about 250 miles) to visit my brother, who hates old cars. While visiting, I told him I was always chasing leads on old cars for sale, or just to look at, and so we headed out yesterday to look at a couple of pristine '34 Fords we knew of, a '63 Studebaker, and a '40 4dr Chrysler Royal. Just by chance, I asked the owner of a nice '34 Ford V8 Tudor (just like Bonnie and Clyde drove)if there were any old cars still around he knew of which might be for sale. He says there is an old garage a couple of miles from his place where there used to be 2 old cars and as far as he knew they had not seen daylight for 40 years+. He thought one was a '30's era Chrysler and the other a late 20's Essex. He further explained the owner had been a mechanic but had passed away recently, and as far as he knew the cars were not for sale

We drove down and the old gent's widow greeted us at the door. She said sure you can see the cars, they're not much to look at, and that her late husband had almost completely dismanteled one of them about 40 years ago.

When she opened the man door I could not believe my eyes, here standing in the middle of the floor was a '31/'32 Chrysler Rumble-seat Roadster, completer body sheetmetal still on chassis, drivetrain (Cadillac V8 engine and LaSalle Tranny) sitting in parts around the garage. All the trim etc had been removed from car and were in boxes, and the whole car including the rad shell were in red primer. The rumble seat lid worked perfectly, as did the fold-down front windscreen, the folding roof bows (no canvas left) and the 15" front and 16" rear wheels were just as my Dad had described 50 years ago.

She said her son was getting the cars ready to sell, so we went to meet with him. He tells me his Dad bought "Walter's" hodrod in 1967, and drove it for a five years before barning it in 1973, and the car had not moved since. His Dad had stripped it and planned to put a modern V8 drivetrain in it, etc and paint it before reassembling, but had not worked at it for over 30 years.

I asked what the price was he was considering, and we agreed on what I though was a reasonable price, considering how rare the car is generally, and that it has 50 years of history in my memory.

I hope to drive down again this coming week and bring it home. While restoring a '31 Chrysler Rumble-seat Roadster to original specs would be a fun (and expensive) undertaking, I suspect parts availability would be a huge problem, only perhaps 500 of these models were ever built. So my plan is to "restore" it to the look and rod style that "Walter" did back in the 1950's, will likely use a 318 Chrysler Engine and Tranny to keep everything same brand, and otherwise try to emulate what Walter thought was cool at the time. I have some photos of car as found today, and a couple of it from a car show back in the 60's in its best shine. Will post soon in member project area, sometimes you just get lucky!

What a neat find! Good luck on bringing it back!

Amazing. You never know what is out there until you look.

In old trucks its not uncommon still today. Here's a great example of a not so common truck (1 ton w/9' bed) that is in ORIGINAL paint and just woke up from a decades long nap:
http://www.hemmings.com/classifieds/carsforsale/gmc/unspecified/1682608.html

This seller, Dave Donley of Ottertail MN, has been coughing up great barn finds for over 20 years. He knows where the secret stash is.

Great Stories...

I love barn finds and finding things that have been hidden or stored away for years.

Now, If I had a barn to go hunting in !!