...after you bury them it really wouldn't matter if you remembered where it was anyways. The property is probably dotted with craters now.
As you can see as nice as it was to rescue these gems that circle of life here wasn't a very pretty one. It would be nice to know what really happened.
David Mount's dad, Paul Mount, was a local grading contractor and short track sportsman stock car owner/builder. Paul built a 57 Chevy in the mid 60s on a 55 or 56 Ford frame, on the theory that the stiffer Ford frame would make for a better handling car. Of course there were no custom built frames back then. That car won 19 of 21 races that season at New Asheville Speedway. All the other teams figured they were cheating somehow, and all the attention was focused on the engine. When someone finally figured out the car wasn't on a Chevy frame they assumed they'd found the cheating and Paul's car would have to forfeit all the wins for that season. Paul knew there was nothing in the NASCAR rule book that made the car illegal, and NASCAR confirmed it was legal. But, the next year there was a rule change that required the frame and the car had to be the same make. When Paul retired from racing, his cars had racked up 288 wins running against cars driven by the likes of Bob Pressley, Jack Ingram, Harry Gant, and a bunch of other equally successful drivers. Pretty good record for a man for whom building cars was always a hobby rather than a profession. His cars won races because he was meticulous in every phase of construction and maintenance rather than by having sponsors willing to throw several thousand bucks a week into his cars.
I don't think the guy simply covered them with dirt, but I could well be wrong. If I were to do something like that, I'm not sure how I'd go about it. He might have just pushed them up gulleys and left them. He was the subject of many a rumor, and, like I said, kind of sketchy anyway. I never felt comfortable talking to him, like he might just take a shine to busting you in the mouth for whatever reason. That kind of "sketchy".
On the subject of roundy-rounders, the grandfather and uncles of one of my schoolmates had some home-built dirt trackers in their woods stash. One of them was a '56 Chevy and the other was a '57 Ford. Both had roll cages, widened steel wheels with re-rod bracing, and were beat up and down with dents. I used to pester the old man to sell me one of ANY of the dozens of old cars he had, but he wouldn't sell. Then one day a flatbed came in and they hauled off about sixty old cars after the old man died. I doubt they were headed anywhere except Montvale (the local version of a steel scrap buyer at the time).
Let's just say not the kind of fellow that you would like to see getting anything of collectable value. There are no doubt hundreds of stories like this so when you hear survivor sometimes it was a miracle they made it out with a chance at resurrection.
I suppose way back one could have hugely valuable collection for a vastly cheaper cost than today even including averaging values of the dollar. No matter what the true story is it was a sad one. Perhaps Mount is researching those details as well. He would have to in light of registration albeit there are ways around that.
The North Carolina version of the Schlumph Brothers? A vast collection (almost a misnomer regarding Bugattis) almost lost to rioting factory workers..... damn interesting story.
Wow, great to see that they took some care when extracting them and that they didn't just scrap them all. At least they will be preserved, see the light of day and be driven again.
The Jalopy Journal
