Art & Inspiration treasure left in a ditch

Used to be , that , the frames were the only profitable part of steel for scrapping , the bodies were usually left in the woods , over the hill , or , in this case , in a ditch , my dad told me stories of chopping 30' , 40's and 50's stuff up , they'd roll it over , chop the frame out of said vehicle , and haul the frame for steel, and use the top off of some '40's model acr(due to it being rounded) and set it upside down in the local river , and step over in the center of it , and use it as a raft....idiots...

 

Good friend of mine ran a rail dragster back in the 60s, they put an old HenryJ body over it. He was operating a salvage yard back then a few mi outside of town. We got to talkin racing one day and he looked over at this old timer that works with him and asked "what did we ever do with that old Henry J body?" The old guy replied "It's out there on the other property, we put it in that creek, remember?!" The interstate runs through the middle of that property now. I have walked the creek on the south side of the property and found several tri year chevy parts half buried in concrete......I have yet to walk the north part where the ole J body was left. One day soon though.....

 

I am going to ask around and look for this place then. I have pretty much cased out the back roads around here. Door knocked a few a got an old 60stude lark, 65 pontiac starchief from that.

 

Did you take these pics in the Welling area off Budinot (sp?) hill outside of Tahlequah? If so you missed the best part, across the road down a pig trail is an old homestead foundation with a 100% complete 1940 Ford sedan. If the tweekers knew about it, it would be crushed.

 

Why the hell is it still there if you know about it?

 

You might want to carefully cut the taligate area out of the '57- they tend to rust there and would make some wagon owner MIGHTY happy

 

If its the same location (i'm 80% sure it is, aint been there in three years though) The '40 is way up a sketchy pig trail where a 4x4 is a must. Twelve years ago my friend tracked down the owner of the land to try to buy the car, owner never responded. The bad karma involved in pilfering the '40 has long kept us away.

 

If I could get the wagon and 56 to my place and cut the floors out I could then put the 56 on 3" pole frame slightly elevated saying "I buy old cars" on my land.

 

Ill take a wild guess. With the amount of debrit and broken snag wood pushed up against the cars, and the way the cars are slammed into the standing trees...... Id say there was a flood in 1969. Just a guess. Do you know of a major flood in 69?

 

Sad, yes - but there's a treasure in those left over good parts that are still there. Get to work and save some of that back woods stuff. I pulled a '37 Ford fastback out a cheek with excellent floors and sold it for a nice profit.

CRUISER

 

when I was taking pics and looking at this I kept thinking of this thread. Looking back this 56 might be more complete
http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=431669&highlight=55+desert+find

 

You might want to carefully remove the upper and lower tailgate sections- they are prone to rusting out and will surely make some wagon owner MIGHTY happy! Oh, and don't forget the wagon glass!

 

Nevermind me, looked at pics again and there is no fence or bridge in the area i'm talking about.

 

When those were dumped tin wasn't worth anything at the scrap yards in a lot of areas of the country plus you had to have the title to haul it across the scales.. you cut the frames out of them and cut it into 3 ft sections. A different age and those cars were probably worth a couple hundred bucks each at the time only if they ran and drove.

 

glass is gone. only the top part of tailgate is there. the station wagon back seat is all there too.

 

We had a place that we would go when we were kids called "Car Body Lake"
(there was a reason for that name). The whole shore line, all the way around, was lined with old cars from the 20's and 30's. Some may have even been older. They were stuffed into the shore line to help against errosion. It seems like such a shame now, but it was a common practice back then. We would walk around the lake and marvel at all the cool stuff that was half submerged and wish that we had a way to rescue one of these beauties and take them home for ourselves. Of course, we never were able to On the other hand, all my old stuff now has survived "Cash For Clunkers"!

 

Not likely.

 

Kinda funny how cars like this pop up from time to time. Always in the fall when the trees loose their leaves, that's when I let my wife drive on new roads and such so I can look around.

There is a 56 Chevy convertible V8 automatic car and '61 Galaxy in the woods behind my job, look like they have been there for years from when it was all open farm land and now is all developed into Business parks and shops.

Cliff Ramsdell

 

"There is a 56 Chevy convertible V8 automatic car".........Ahem..... road trip anyone?

 

The rear window surround from the Fleetline is sellable, it looks like it's in decent shape, guys put them in customs. The deck lid looks better than my spare one, too.

The '59 Chevy dash is a good one to cut out if it's not too awful, you can always sell one of those.

I would cut that '57 right apart, unless they have rot you could probably sell the quarters - I don't think they're being reproduced. If they're like the Safaris I cut up there's a whole frame to the tailgate section that the bottom, especially, tends to rot out.

For that matter, same deal for the '56, definately get the door, maybe the fender, inner fender, floor, hell if the other side isn't bad the roof might be a donor for somebody, you could probably cut it up into pieces and sell all of the pieces.

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... a '56 Chevy ragtop abandoned in the woods? That's $2500 laying on the ground waiting for someone to pick it up. And that's resold whole, there's more if it's parted out. I'd be getting that even if I had to make a trail 100 yards to get to it.

 

Cool pics ..most of those are restorable compared to what they would look like sitting around here since 1968!

 

I actually meant the sheetmetal/structure surrounding area of the tailgate, especially the bottom part, if it's in good shape.

 

Picture #4 is a 52 or 53 Ford Mainline tudor.

Get what's left of that beltline stainless....that stuff is scarce and is not reproduced. You can easily get some $$ for that.

It'll come off with the windshield gasket, so all you need is a screwdriver to pry up what's left of that gasket....same for the section around the bottom of the rear window.

 

After looking at those photos a bit more, I've gotta say that I'd be all over those cars pulling parts and hacking things with a sawzall.

There's a ton of good stuff there.

Watch out for snakes...but if you go when it's dang cold, the snakes shouldn't be too much of an issue.

 

I'll second that. Spent many hours in the bottom of ditches myself salvaging car parts that were once thrown away. Lots of good pieces in there if you can aquire them.

 

My late Uncle's place in CO was along the Gunnison River. The shore was full of old tin like is shown here, except the cars were all '30s - '40s vintage. Even in the early '70s, these had already been pretty well picked-over and shot up. And, outside of town where the old roundy-round track was located, there are probably a hundred or more late '40s and early '50s cars and trucks that were placed for erosion control along the edge of the mesa. I imagine those are all gone now, since they were relatively accessable. Haven't been there in quite a few years. Some scrapper or tweeker has likely consumed all that was there. Sad.

 

Sad. I bet someone is going to do something with them one of these days so they are not for sale. I found this the other day. It can be scene from the road so I'm amazed it's still there. Here is the directions to get to it; go down that one road over that hill and look to your right and its right over there at that one place. lol. Just kidding....trying to get it bought.

 

I agree the '56 is worth pulling out. The '57... hard to say. Worth something for sure, but it depends on the effort to get it out intact. Next best would be in pieces.

 

There's some good stuff left on that '55 Ford 4 door Fairlane, same body style as my '55 that my parents bought new.