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- Wayback Wheels -
Vintage Car Talk
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- By Aaron Neilly
- "Nope, not for sale! I'm restoring that car!" .
. . words we've all heard when asking about a seemingly forgotten
classic car sitting in a field, behind a barn, or sitting in
a driveway on four flat tires, rust stains on the pavement indicating
it hasn't moved in years.
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- As someone who buys too many cars, I've heard this many times.
One example is a sad looking dark blue ’73 Volkswagen Beetle
just up the road from where I work.
- My guess is the car has been sitting idle for 10 years. The
floor pan is completely gone, tires are sunken into the ground
and the engine is seized from moisture.
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- Basically a piece of junk, however, a piece of junk with
lots of good trim, glass, and honestly, if I can keep one more
Bug out of the scrap yard, I'm happy.
However, when I asked the owner if it was for sale, I definitely
didn't get the response I wanted to hear. "Of course it's
not for sale. Do you know what that car is worth? That one of
the last ones!”
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- Now, of course I'm thinking "Yeah, I do know what it's
worth . . . about $200, and about four hours of work to get it
out of the muddy grave it's been sinking into for a decade.”
-
 I also had the owner
of an entirely rusted out 1961 Beetle tell me that his particular
car actually belonged to Hitler in World War II. Apparently the
’61 Beetles not only had 27 improvements from the previous
model year, they were also equipped with a time travel unit.
I was wondering why I saw a flux capacitor in the trunk. On second
thought, that may have been a gas heater.
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- Another example of this was a 1978 Toyota Tercel I asked
about a number of years ago. I've always wanted a first-generation
Tercel. I do realize this is a very strange "dream car,"
but it's been a car that I've always had somewhat of a fascination
with, and there aren't any left, compliments of Toyota’s
less than satisfactory galvanizing process, and harsh Ontario
winters. The owner explained that he didn't want to part with
the car because he had owned it for so many years, and that he
would be putting it back on the road in the next few months.
Less than a month later, I was scrounging for goodies in the
local auto wreckers, and this same Tercel is sitting beneath
a minivan.
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- Sigh.
 As much as it pains me to see
vintage cars rotting away in fields, never to see the open road
again, I do find abandoned cars (in the right setting) to have
a surreal, if not humbling effect, which can make for a great
photographic opportunity.What was once a king of the road, somebody’s
pride and joy, has been left to slowly return to the soil. Why
was it left there? Did they intend to return to it?
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- I overheard a wonderful conversation about farm trucks a
while ago. A truck starts off as a farmer’s baby . . . he
brings it into town for the smallest reason when it's new, whether
it's for a coffee with the locals, to get a box of nails, maybe
a bag of feed. As time goes on, the truck gets banged up, it
doesn't get washed as often, the interior gets the "Farm
Smell," until the day the farmer gets a new truck, and his
former pride is now used to haul bales of hay out of the fields,
and drag the odd piece of farm machinery around. When this truck
finally quits for the last time . . . that place where it quits
is where it stays until the end of time. I thought about this,
and it's pretty much accurate. I've seen many old trucks condemned
to rust quietly away in fields, while fresh crops are planted
around them each year. It's like the contrast of new life slowly
taking over memories and miles of yesteryear.
If you are out for a country drive and you see "just what
you've been searching for" sitting behind a barn, stop and
ask … many of these relics are still salvageable, and are
sometimes available for a pretty reasonable price. I think everyone's
ideal "barn find" is out there somewhere. I found mine
five years ago, and although it took three years of persistence
(and finally meeting the legitimate owner of the car who had
no idea it was parked in a field), I finally brought home my
orange ’72 BMW 2002 in September of 2005. The weather and
wet grass have taken their toll, but she still puts a smile on
my face every time I go for a drive. And one day (as I keep telling
people who ask if it's for sale), I'm going to restore it.
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