Wow, some barn find!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=VZII9OVzJ5c

Holy crap!!

Sitting, rotting away in the hands of an automotive hoarder.

Why is it so hard to find barns? I see them all over the place. They are quite big and pretty easy to spot.

It's right there! I totally see it!

crazy

as disillusioning as that may seem, it is his sandbox... er, barn

I must say some of the comments are amusing. The guy owns the cars and he keeps them stashed in a barn and some people paint him as a monster. So you'd do it differently? Go get yourself a berking job!

Interesting, anyone know where in IL this is? I know of a local guy with a barn full of old Mopars, but I've never personally seen them.

1988RedT2 wrote: I must say some of the comments are amusing. The guy owns the cars and he keeps them stashed in a barn and some people paint him as a monster. So you'd do it differently? Go get yourself a berking job!

That old double standard...If I have a lot of cars I'm cool, but if someone else has a lot of cars they're a hoarder.

Well... normally you can be a bit critical of someone hording a bunch of "gems" when they are beat to crap rusting away marginal cars. This guy has some actual gems. Probably just lucky in what he liked, but he has a heap of money sitting in there... if he can ever let any of them go that is....

In reply to stuart in mn:

To each his own, but in my book if you have so many of a thing that you can't upkeep them and haven't touched them in years, yet refused to part with at least some of them, then you are a hoarder.

There is a guy a few doors down from me who has an original 289 Cobra. It is dismantled and sitting in his barn. Hasn't moved for at least 20 years. Probably be there for another 20 as he has no interest in it at all but no shortage of money either. I guess that combination is how barn finds come about.

Yeah, I wish they weren't sitting, but I am curious...How did this guy know to pick so many winners?

We've had plenty of threads trying to define what is available today that will one day be worth money. The general consensus- hard to know for sure.

Even in the crappy condition, he's sitting on a huge quantity of gems, from multiple marques, both domestic and foreign. He wasn't just picking a brand he loved, or obsessing over a vintage, or type, he was picking winners.

How did he do it?

Cool find but it is kind of sad that he's just letting them rot, and I can't get that excited about most of these cars which are only noteworthy for their auction values.

stuart in mn wrote:

1988RedT2 wrote: I must say some of the comments are amusing. The guy owns the cars and he keeps them stashed in a barn and some people paint him as a monster. So you'd do it differently? Go get yourself a berking job!

That old double standard...If I have a lot of cars I'm cool, but if someone else has a lot of cars they're a hoarder.

I think the issue is how they're hoarded. In some parts of the country, it's easy to have the space to keep a lot of cars. At some point, it was apparently easy to grab these rarities, and if you had the room and were sharp enough to predict their rise in value, why not stash them away to cash in later?

A lot of these cars went into storaeg shortly after farmers stopped using these old wooden barns for farm work. I don't think they realized that dirt-floor buildings designed to store hay and protect animals from the weather were a great place to store cars. When the damage started to mount, all of a sudden the work required to save them went from "I just need to clear out the carbs..." to "...what do I do now?". Then hoarder won't sell because it would mean admitting their mistake/defeat.

It's sad certainly, but probably a product of the times, and an understandable human failing.

This is not a rhetorical question: for those of you around in 1970, how common was it to have large, climate-controlled storage buildings? Or even the large, concrete-floored metal pole barns that are common on farms now?

The issue I see is that very few of those cars are drivers, meaning that he had high hopes for them, or had driven them at one point and then let them rot. If he knew the value of them, he wouldn't have them sit for so long.

I've met people like this I'd classify as hoarder. They "hoard" their stash. They aren't sure why they do it. They know better, they know the value or the deteriorating condition of their stash, but they refuse to let it go. Any offer is too low. They don't plan it, and all it does is piss off everyone around them. Eventually they die, and someone makes a buck of their disorder.

petegossett wrote: Interesting, anyone know where in IL this is? I know of a local guy with a barn full of old Mopars, but I've never personally seen them.

I've been in the barn of mopars by the Mitsubishi plant, it was astounding. He is still buying cars to add to it last time I was there.

SVreX wrote: Yeah, I wish they weren't sitting, but I am curious...How did this guy know to pick so many winners? We've had plenty of threads trying to define what is available today that will one day be worth money. The general consensus- hard to know for sure.

I'd be curious to see the return on investment over the ownership and the same figures if he had kept them in decent shape. I wonder how good of an investment it is if you somehow did know "the one".

SVreX wrote: Yeah, I wish they weren't sitting...

You mean hiding his potentially valuable stash of cars in a barn, where no one but him see's them?

Someone needs to get in there and restore them.... then hide the potentially more valuable stash of cars in a garage somewhere, where no one but them see's them....

In reply to chandlerGTi:

I'm not familiar with that one? The one I've heard of is on the east edge of the state.

mtn wrote: I'd be curious to see the return on investment over the ownership and the same figures if he had kept them in decent shape. I wonder how good of an investment it is if you somehow did know "the one".

I'd also like to see the numbers of if he had taken the money he spent to buy those cars and put it in an index fund (I know, they probably didn't have those "in the day" but you know what I mean) and what that would be worth.

I suspect (considering the cars) he would still come out ahead but it may not be as much as you would think. Add any storage related costs (which he probably doesn't have) then things get much worse.

aircooled wrote:

mtn wrote: I'd be curious to see the return on investment over the ownership and the same figures if he had kept them in decent shape. I wonder how good of an investment it is if you somehow did know "the one".

I'd also like to see the numbers of if he had taken the money he spent to buy those cars and put it in an index fund (I know, they probably didn't have those "in the day" but you know what I mean) and what that would be worth. I suspect (considering the cars) he would still come out ahead but it may not be as much as you would think. Add any storage related costs (which he probably doesn't have) then things get much worse.

This was my thought as well. Obviously not a fair comparison, because I would qualify the funds spent on the vehicles as entertainment dollars, but still...

At least in a barn they are INSIDE. I know where a gorgeous 1963 split window vette (silver with a red interior) is sitting OUTSIDE just yards from a barn. The owner refuses to even talk about selling. As weeds grow up through it and it hasn't started or moved since Clinton was in his first term.

Based on the posts, I expected to see a ton of rusty cars.

Dirty, sure.

But I'm not so sure about rust. Better than if they were on bare concrete- as that does promote rust.... Seen that happen. Dirt is good and breathable.

Bet some of them would drive with less than a day's worth of work.

Wayne Carini needs to be sent to some of these places. Even if they aren't for sale/sold, it would make a cool show.

alfadriver wrote: Based on the posts, I expected to see a ton of rusty cars. Dirty, sure. But I'm not so sure about rust. Better than if they were on bare concrete- as that does promote rust.... Seen that happen. Dirt is good and breathable. Bet some of them would drive with less than a day's worth of work.

What would the best surface be for long-term storage then? Asphalt over dirt? Gravel? Epoxy?