HappyJack
HappyJack New Reader
6/5/10 5:05 p.m.

A buddy of mine asked me to look at his tractor that died in the back 40. As I drove back there I found a bunch of dead cars that my buddy said have been there since he bought the place 12 years ago. For some reason they are all upside down, and the frames are missing. Car you guess what they are? Some are obvious.

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

There was also a random fender buried in the leaves that may or may not belong to car #8. I don't know.

All pretty much useless, but cool anyway.

neon4891
neon4891 SuperDork
6/5/10 5:07 p.m.

looks like wthe woods behind my fiance's parents house

Osterkraut
Osterkraut Dork
6/5/10 5:14 p.m.

New goal in life: own a place that has random old cars in the woods.

Woody
Woody SuperDork
6/5/10 6:12 p.m.

I see a Ford F1 and maybe a 60 or 61 Galaxie.

novaderrik
novaderrik Reader
6/5/10 8:37 p.m.

all i see is a bunch of rusted metal that isn't even good enough to take in for scrap.

Carson
Carson Dork
6/5/10 8:43 p.m.

There are a lot, I mean a lot of cars in similar condition near the bottom of steep descents and ravines off the side of the road in the NC mountains. Cool mangled cars from the 40's, 50's, and 60's that didn't make the turn. I found a modified one that was probably moonshine bootlegger's car.

jrg77
jrg77 New Reader
6/5/10 8:45 p.m.

Think I saw an Impala...

DoctorBlade
DoctorBlade Reader
6/5/10 8:46 p.m.

I see rust.

HappyJack
HappyJack New Reader
6/5/10 9:34 p.m.

Well my best guesses are,

1 is obviously a Ford Pick up

2 Mercury Monterey Maybe a 63?( you can make out where the chrome used to be on the fender that said so

3 Chevy pick up

4 Impala. 59 I think

5 Some sort of Oldsmobile (because it says so on the grill)

6 63 Belvedere. Maybe?

7 No idea. Maybe a Ford Crown Vic?

8 62 Ford Fairlane?

ddavidv
ddavidv SuperDork
6/6/10 7:01 a.m.

Nice challenge. I had to look up some for exact (or near exact) years but got them all. There is not enough detail on some to be year specific, but here ya go: 1. 51 Ford F1 2. 59 Mercury Monterey/Montclair 3. 53-ish Chev pickup 4. 59 Chevy 5. 59 Oldsmobile 6. 60 Ford 7. 57 Ford 8. 53-ish Ford And yes, the fender would go to that car.

914Driver
914Driver SuperDork
6/6/10 9:24 a.m.

Why are they all upside down?

Dan

mad_machine
mad_machine SuperDork
6/6/10 9:54 a.m.

did somebody turn the frames into trailers?

HappyJack
HappyJack New Reader
6/6/10 10:17 a.m.

I dunno why they are upside down, other than the fact they are all missing the frames. So I assume they were flipped to get the frames. No idea why the frames are missing.

These are the way they were found. My friend who owns the property said they have been just like that ever since he bought the place 12 years ago. And obviously they have been sitting there a lot longer that that. A couple of them have licence plates from 1968.

HappyJack
HappyJack New Reader
6/6/10 10:21 a.m.

In reply to ddavidv:

Wow good job Dave! Especially on 6, the 60ish Ford. I was think Belvedere, or Savoy, but the crease on the fenders wasn't right. I think you nailed it.

Trans_Maro
Trans_Maro Dork
6/6/10 11:38 a.m.

3 is a '54 chevy.

The first digit in the serial number is the year.

Shawn

SVreX
SVreX SuperDork
6/6/10 12:21 p.m.

ddavid:

Awesome job!

I'll add one note:

4 is indeed a 1959 Impala. Your picture may or may not be correct. It is possible that it is either a flat top or a bubble top. Both were available.

1959 flat top:

1959 bubble top:

ddavidv
ddavidv SuperDork
6/7/10 5:48 a.m.

Oh nit-pick why don't ya?

Postwar car ID is one of those great skills I have that generates zero income. The 1960 Ford was easy to ID but finding a photo of one was really tough. Those things must not have survived much.

When my folks had a mobile home on a piece of land for hunting in upstate PA, the farmer who leased the property to us had a couple cars like this (upside down, barely identifiable) along the one fence line of his field. There was even less left of those. One I was able to identify was a Fiat Multipla. How the heck a poor farmer in middle-of-nowhere PA wound up with one of those is probably an interesting story. I doubt there was a Fiat dealer within 200 miles even when they were still selling cars. All of the farms up there had collections of worn out, rusty relics because there were no junkyards to tow them to, so they just got stuck in a field or pushed into the woods. One neat collection that sadly got cleaned up before I hit driving age had one of these still in good, salvageable shape: I guess when scrap metal became valuable it finally made economic sense for them to haul them off.

HappyJack
HappyJack New Reader
6/7/10 5:56 a.m.

Scrap metal prices are up around here, but I don't think there is much actually metal left of these things.

digdug18
digdug18 HalfDork
6/7/10 5:23 p.m.

You'd be surprised how much metal is left in those things. If it were me, I'd right them, and grab any bits that made it, like those hood ornaments, interior bits, etc. Parts that are getting harder and harder to find for die hard restorers. Then scrap them.

Andrew

4eyes
4eyes Reader
6/8/10 12:03 a.m.

I HATE RUST

SVreX
SVreX SuperDork
6/9/10 12:17 a.m.
mad_machine wrote: did somebody turn the frames into trailers?

Maybe on some, but probably not the Impala. It sat on an X-frame, not a ladder frame. It would make a really lousy trailer.

Streetwiseguy
Streetwiseguy Reader
6/9/10 8:26 a.m.

Other than a collage of trim bits, I don't think there is a ton of value there. Always fun to wander through places like that.

I didn't pay the $50 it would have taken to get a 59 Chev sedan delivery out of a yard in the valley when I was a kid. The damage was on the front end, so easy to find parts off a sedan. It would have been cool.

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