.....Mike, I thought it was a "Yeah Sure Bud"...deal too. You have to remember Im a 27 year Investigator and Recovery Agent originally from St. Louis MO. I DON'T believe ANYTHING some one tells me and even then if there is solid proof of it...being from Missouri you still have to SHOW ME!! But this one WAS for real!! I did actually see most of these cars....some were already loaded into enclosed trailers and several were on open trailers. I am still kicking myself for not taking pictures....I keep forgetting that Im in the new milinium now and my PHONE has a CAMERA!!! I have over the years ran into some great finds....the best so far was a story I kept hearing about in the back woods of Missouri in the mid 90's. The story went that there was this 80 something old guy who used to be the Sheriff Dept tow truck driver for a county in the backwoods of the Missouri Ozark mountains. Thru the 50's, 60's and 70's he collected somewhere in the amount of about 2000 cars from tow ins, Police tows and mechanic liens.... For about 2 years I blew it off as hearsay. Then one day I was eating at a Diner in Springfield MO. when a real weird guy (Think: banjo player kid from movie, Deliverence) came up and asked me if I need any parts for my 70 GTO that was parked outside. I told him no that the 70 was complete and original, but asked if he had parts....He says, "My Grandaddy has a whole farm full of 'em!" To shorten this story...I get in the Goat and follow this kid way back into the hills. He pulls off a country road up to an overgrown chained up wooden fence with barely enough room for you to walk thru. We get out and he walks me into the place....about 200 yards in I start seeing old relics of cars...mostly picked apart old 40's and 50 year big cars, Buicks, Olds, Chryslers and some old 40's and 50's trucks. As we get deeper into this place I start seeing Cuda's, Camero's, triple 5 Chevy's, Mustangs, GTO's, Thunderbirds, Corvettes,......you name it...IT WAS THERE! Scattered over 147 acres of overgrown, hilly, rocky forest. There were A-models, T Models, pre war cars of everykind. Trucks, tractors, Busses, Early 60's big cars, late 60's muscle cars....JUST EVERYTHING! Now these cars were hardly in good condition...most were rotted to hell. Rusted beyond repair and very little if any cloth/rubber/glass material left on them from sitting in the Missouri weathers for decades....BUT, the kid tells me his Grandaddy is dying and they need to get rid of all of this so they can sell the land to the mining company. And the ball begins to roll..........I spent over $8000 in crew help and 6 weeks of traveling back and forth to have paths made thru this place and haulers to remove all of the cars that we thought would sell or had enough parts on them to salvage. We buried the rest where they laid. I purchased all of the vehicles from the Grandaddy for $5000 and after all said and done...we made around $53,000 after expenses which includes the "Big Sell Off" of left over parts I had at my place in 2005 just prior to moving to Florida! There was several websites back then in 1998 that had this reported....but I think the only ones left is on Sean Mattingly's , The UltimateGTO site....you can access it here.
http://ultimategto.com/cgi-bin/showcar.cgi?type=lot&pic=/1966/66_00136_1 Once you get to the site, click "Next Pic" in top left corner to get to next pictures....the story behind the car is under each pic. There is only 3 cars on his site now....but when this took place it was on every classic car website!! And yes I had to hear each and every story from the old guy about how he got it, what happened to it and what the story was behind it on EVERY friggin car in there!! We removed a total of 62 vintage cars. We buried 834 junks of metal...most only after we removed, cataloged and tagged anything worth keeping from them. My age and new life responsibilities doesn't afford me to spend the kind of time it takes to search out and secure these kind of deals anymore... ..but Man it sure felt good last week when I ran into this little VW Bug! : )
(the pics are not his shop...thats in my dirty shop) This is a completly original 1967 Type 1 (the spare was in the well....I had it out when I took the pics). It has 49,819 ORIGINAL miles on it. It has NO rust ANYWHERE! The chassis, except for the silver paint sprayed on it to protect it, is like brand new! The heater tubes with original paper air leaders are still in perfect shape, the old cloth braided fuel lines...still there! The reason the hub caps are off is because due to sitting, the brake shoes froze up and he had to remove them to get it to roll. It has never been wrecked. I hooked a battery to it and all power came on...lights, signals, wipers, hazards and even the cigarette lighter and Original AM Radio WORK!!! I just cranked it over to make sure the engine turned freely but due to it sitting so long I didn't want to contaminate the engine with bad varnished gas and want to lube the cylinders before firing it up.... The 68 he had was in the exact same condition but it did have a rusty place in the drivers pan...so I passed on it. Here's the clincher....I had to pay $1250 to the estate for it and $250 to the brokerage firm.....$1500!!!!!!!!! Now...I just CAN'T hurt this little Bug for a Dune Buggy project......so Im still looking for a better chassis candidate for the "68 Manx!! You never know WHAT I may find next......( next post to add additional pics due to 4 pic limit) Doh!
I hope this post makes it to the board since I am averaging about 1 out of 5 of my posts ever making here!