Been there awhile, ya think ?

[MJD]

Caught this on a muscle car thread...I never see sights like this, too dry here I guess ??

[hofficergrover]

thats crazy

[festymick]

What a top photo!

[blindcornbread]

I'm thinking the hood ornament on the right hand car would look good on Vetstiva!

[milehighbear]

Thats a studebaker lark on the right, looks like pontiac in front of photo, and 60-61 chevy or pontiac on left

[Damkid]

i can't understand how some people let there cars just sit around for that length of time and not do anything about it

[deathegg]

I agree, why in the world would you let cars sit and rot? I remember years ago in Pittsburgh there were 2 Hudsons with 30' trees growing out of the engine compartments, and they were up to the floors in the ground. Totally beyond saving.

I have some pics from PA that I can post: this old guy had 70-80 cars out in the woods behind his house, He died recently and the family is crushing most of the cars, since they are all now beyond saving, having too much rust from sitting in the damp woods for 40 years. My brothers friends are getting what they can. He had some odd things too, like Subaru 360's and Panhard Dyna's. (the Panhards were saved, they have aluminum bodies and were not too far gone.....and they are super-rare besides.)


Anyway...

Thats a studebaker lark on the right, looks like pontiac in front of photo, and 60-61 chevy or pontiac on left

The car on the Left is a Chevy, but a 1950-1951. Yes car in foreground in Pontiac, maybe '55 or so judging by the little eyebrows over the lights and the hood strakes..... Car on right looks similar to the Chevy, but not sure what it is. But it's definitely not a Studebaker Lark!

[todd00]

why in the world would you let cars sit and rot?

lots of reasons that could happen. probably the most likely is, im gonna fix her up, so i dont want to sell her. but never does anything and the car sits and rots away. sometimes hard luck and sickness are to blame, other things become priorities.

maybe that old guy had dreams of having some kind of car museum. 70-80 cars, is alot of cars. i hate to see cars sitting for many yrs, i think its sad. guess im sentimental but i wonder how many owners a car had and how nice it must have looked brand new.

when i was a kid, my aunt had a 33 plymouth coupe given to her by a relative, this would have been in the early 60s. it ran great, all original. i dont recall if there was a motor problem or what but the car ended up sitting in my grandmas garage wasting away, it was a real shame. i didnt see them often as i grew up, as they lived out of town. when i was of driving age i recall asking if they wanted to sell it, and of course they said no. why, oh because they were saving it for their son, 6 yrs my junior. of course he never took any interest in it. eventually they got rid of it, but it had been sitting close to 20 yrs by that time. i dont know why they let that happen. maybe cuz it didnt run, no one cared. as i know them id say its just cuz they were stupid. i hope some collector got it, but just as likely it ended up at the junk yard.

[ruppenduro]

I have some pics from PA that I can post: this old guy had 70-80 cars out in the woods behind his house, He died recently and the family is crushing most of the cars, since they are all now beyond saving, having too much rust from sitting in the damp woods for 40 years. My brothers friends are getting what they can. He had some odd things too, like Subaru 360's and Panhard Dyna's. (the Panhards were saved, they have aluminum bodies and were not too far gone.....and they are super-rare besides.)

i know this is a long shot, but is there any possibility that you know the guys name. is it Fred Johnson? In Temple PA (near Reading). i hope its not him, he was a nice old guy (around 82 yrs old). i dealt with him several times for 360 parts, festiva parts, brat parts, ect ect. he had a massive collection including 2 old buses full of nos NSU minicar parts and about 60 others cars sitting in the woods (20 of them were corvairs) these weren`t behind his house though, they were on a piece of land where he had planned to build a house years ago. near the house where he lived, there was a shed full of nos subaru 360 parts, another half shed full of nos 12 inch tires for his metro/festiva, and a garage full of misc nos parts AS WELL AS a mint prewar Crosley coupe, a corvan, a metro conv, a freeway 3 wheel microcar, and some other cars. he said if he ever died, his daughter was just going to crush everything. he gave me some awesome deals over the last 3 years.

[deathegg]

Wow! What a small world! Yes it was Fred Johnston.

I was out at his place quite a few years ago. He passed away earlier this year. I stated that all those cars were behind his house just to make the story shorter. Yes, they were at the property that he had for his house, etc.

Didn't he have the most amazing collection? He also had very BMW's (700's), Type 3 VW's etc. My brother has a Honda 600z and Fred told him he had some parts for it, that's why we went to see him. I remember the Corvairs; many of them were full of vegetation that were literally growing INSIDE the cars.

I have a small story from someone in the Subaru 360 club who has a web page just for these cars. These cars are so interesting I will create a new thread.

[ruppenduro]

dang! that makes me upset :-( he was an awesome guy to talk to, especially about old cars. there is a unfinished cement foundation on his property, if you take a walk in there, there is a 360 that he bought with 5 miles on it. it had rolled off the carrier when it was new, so he bought it and made it into a roadster for parades and stuff. there is another 360 in there with a neat roof rack. i hope that crosley doesn`t fall into the wrong hands, that was a rare car. he had some nice cars at his house too, a brat, a 4 door ragtop lecar, a festiva, rabbit pickup, civic hatchback. my favorite was his vw diesel delivery van, i worked on that a few times. i did pick through his 360 parts pretty hard, he actually kept pushing the boxes out for me to look at. after selling my 360s, i ebayed the parts and made several thousands on them (which eventually got me banned from the 360 club by ed parsil). my father was debating buying his property when it was for sale, $60k with the cars i believe it was.

no doubt it is a small world, i can`t believe we are talking about the same guy.

[todd00]

why would she just crush them? it seems an insult to his memory as that was one of his loves in life. ill never understand people. may he rest in peace.

the 360s are really cool little cars. anybody ever driven one?

[ruppenduro]

i drove mine a few times after restoring it, ended up having to sell it to pay for insurance.



never started the van or pickups

[MJD]

I agree, why in the world would you let cars sit and rot? I remember years ago in Pittsburgh there were 2 Hudsons with 30' trees growing out of the engine compartments, and they were up to the floors in the ground. Totally beyond saving.

I have some pics from PA that I can post: this old guy had 70-80 cars out in the woods behind his house, He died recently and the family is crushing most of the cars, since they are all now beyond saving, having too much rust from sitting in the damp woods for 40 years. My brothers friends are getting what they can. He had some odd things too, like Subaru 360's and Panhard Dyna's. (the Panhards were saved, they have aluminum bodies and were not too far gone.....and they are super-rare besides.)


Anyway...


The car on the Left is a Chevy, but a 1950-1951. Yes car in foreground in Pontiac, maybe '55 or so judging by the little eyebrows over the lights and the hood strakes..... Car on right looks similar to the Chevy, but not sure what it is. But it's definitely not a Studebaker Lark!

Deathegg -- I think the car on the right is a Kaiser-Frazer...or a Kaiser ? And...the site I got the first pics from is also showing pics of this same auction that took place where the gentleman you speak of had a lot of trees in the land where all his cars were..I think ? I think it is the same guy you talk about out in PA ? I recall a LOT of vehicles there at this auction that show a lot of woods, and muddy conditions, where many old cars are sold at auction, I sure remember. But I do not know when it was now, I just recall reading of it and lots of pictures guys had taken.
Regardless, a sad sight to see so much history gone, etc.
I love talking to people like you mention.

[thirdman]

reminds me of this: