I bought my truck from a guy in Apple Valley California and it has rust on the floor boards and fronts of the fenders at the running boards. I think the previous owner has a lot to do with keeping the vehicle rust free.
From my experience, Pennsylvania is bad. A new guy moved in the neighborhood from Austin, TX with a nice Corvair convert, which he had under a car port. Within a year it erupted with rust & the seats went moldy. I heard somewhere along the line that the optimum temperature for the oxidation process is 32 degrees F. If this is true, it may explain the reason for the rust in our particular belt. We're always flirting with that average temperature during the winter.
Even though both states get snow, North and South Dakota vehicles are always worth a look as I believe neither state uses salt on their roads yet. My 67 Imperial came from western South Dakota and had VERY minimal rust
That's a nice solid one, only needs one patch panel. If you took that picture in Wisconsin, it'd be a picture of a concrete floor with some pedal pads at the top.
you guys talk as if it was only the road salt that had adverse effects on the cars. i've been in nw indiana all my life. the pollutants in the air can have as bad as an effect on the sheetmetal. i remember cars driven to the mills in the 60's and 70's that really looked like shit after only a couple years. used to be you had two cars, one nice and a beater you took to work. the emissions coming from the mills today are far cleaner than they were back then. i bet you could park a new car in or just outside the mills back in the 40's or 50's and have the desired patina in 9 or 10 months. probably why guys like titus in minnesota keep coming up with relatively rust free iron. another thought on this is cars didn't get parked behind the barn to rest so much in an industrial state. when the car came to the end of it's useful life, it was mighty convenient to melt it down to make new steel.
I agree with the idea that its just how well the car was taken car or by the previous owner. I live in downtown San Diego and this place is not kind on cars. The wind brings the ocean salt straight up into the city. The further East you drive the less the effects from the salt in the air are seen.
Im in the same city as you and the beach salt air has taken a toll my front grill. Never had any issues in TX, but within a couple of months living out here the salt air had lifted the chrome and started rusting away underneath
I bought a '69 Grand Prix for $50 or so. The floors and trunk were so rotted, that every time I did a burn out, the interior filled up with smoke.
Pheonix Arizona was chosen by the US Forces as an excellent storage area for surplus aircraft after WW-ll. The cretiria for the stie was determined by soil ph as well as average rainfall. Phoenix won out as being one of the few place that was metal friendly in that the atmospheric and soil conditions did the least amount of long term damage to metals. Long story short, The US Forces started storing 10000's of aircraft after WW-ll and the facility is still in use today. -If you want to find rust free cars it's hard to beat the dry desert areas in and around Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada and even western Texas.. The area extends north into Colorado and beyond.
HA HA! We got you! For years all you guys from back east have been coming out here and looking for "rust free dessert cars"... They don't exist!!! See, while you guys deal with salt on the roads and snow and humidity and such, we have the sun. Thing nobody ever thinks about is this: every soft product on a car out here dies within 10 years of a cars production. We're talkin' interiors, seals, window rubber, if it's cloth, foam or rubber you watch it degrade before your eyes! Big Deal? Ya, big deal! Almost every car you look at down here had it's lower windshield rubber corners dry, shrink and break years ago letting a steady stream of rain water and wash water down into the flooboards and padding for ever. I figure unless it was garaged all the time throughout it's life, at some point I'm putting in a least part of the floor. The worst car I ever saved was a '59 El Camino that first glance looked rust free and had lived it's entire life in Vegas and Phoenix. Basically everything from the door handles down due to keaking windows...
Rust is everywere, my 55 chevy sat in a field for 27 years with the windows down and just had a bit of floor board rust. And I bought a 78 f100 that sat in a driveway for 15 years and had a tarp over it. the f100 was rusted to hell and my 55 was good and solid. I live in ohio and it just depends on were the car is setting and how it was taken care of. I also got a 68 impala wagon that sat in a drainage ditch for 12 years submerged under water, it has some significant rust but nothin too bad.
I've bought great cars out of Iowa, Nebraska and Minnesota, mississippi and west Tennessee and the carolinas--it really just depends how careful you are in looking. seen BAD cars in all those places as well. I think the key is finding cars that were functionally off the road before they started really salting roads in winter weather states helps. Have heard good things about Montana and wyoming, and have seen firsthand good tin in NM and AZ. I'm always leary when folks advertise "florida car"--not a selling point in my book--sorry sunshine staters.
I think the winner is still az, but like chip said, there maybe "no rust" if your lucky, but everything that isnt made of metal has literally turned to dust, and that stuff gets expensive, So now that i am in a rust state, i will scarf some cheap sheet metal, grab my trusty electrode holder and some 6013 skinny rod and do some welding. I will say this though, my 50 coronet actually had a little river running through it, and only had like 2 little spots of rust on the floor, so i would venture to say that its also the quality of the car, like seeing a 10 year old dodge with no fenders or door bottoms left... that's sad actually....
I think the soil PH has a lot to do with it too. You would think that Alabama cars would all be rust free because we seldom use salt on the roads, but the humidity and soil acidity I think causes some problems. I have seen lots of Alabama and Georgia cars with considerable rust but have gotten cars just west of me in Mississippi where the soil is sandy that were sunk in 2 inches in the ground and still not rusted out.
Any state that salts their roads in the winter will have some rust issues. States that have lots of snow, and salt their roads will have more. But any coastal area will have salt in the air and more rust issues. We don't salt our roads in Oregon, but I can remember lots of people living along the Pacific Ocean towns having rusted out cars. We've always avoided buying "coastal cars" here because they rust out early.
I knew an old mechanic who worked at one of the gm dealers in florida back in the 50s. He told me a story about a guy who bought I think it was a 56 olds. He tried to trade it in for a new 58 or 59 and the dealership would not take it in trade because it was so rusted.
Here in NY we have rust, unless its never been driven in the winter months. Here we have to deal with the rust i hate it when I watch on of the TV shows where they are to rebuild a car they got from somewhere like Nevada and the first thing they say is what a mess, rusty and in rough shape, and to me I would love to start with one in nice of condition, such whiners.
In northern calif its hit and miss...I like to inspect anything im buying and ask if it's a california car....some are shipped to LA area and sold after they arrive from another state....a bodyman told me once run your hands on the fender lips that will tell you about rust repair...
I have been told all my life about the rust free cali cars, A friend of mine and his brother bought (5) 67-69 camaros from a yard in cali, from a add in hemmings motors about 12 years ago, Add said rust free cali bodys. When the transporter got here with them, They were worse than alot of the cars you find around here. I think the guy who sold them to him mean't that he was not charging for the rust that was in them when he said "rust free". Anyhow rust is everywhere
My Pontiac came from the Houston area and it rusted from the top down. It was so bad I replaced the roof since the drip rails were rotting off! I'll get to work and copy & paste the list of states Chrysler thinks are bad for corrosion....
eastern or.western id.isn't to bad.dry desert country,snow can pile up but low humidity.i came here 20 years ago,out of central ca.never seen any thing like here.car sits 20 years,don;t need a torch to get out a bolt.no salt,they use lava rock here,widshields and paint take a hit.now the secret is out my freinds won't be happy. jack
I like the Orange Cream. Oklahoma could be considered a rust free area, surface rust which is almost like a smooth hard surface is easy to deal with, but then there also might be some tornado damage to watch out for. (easy to recognize).
Florida is bad for the upper half of the body. It rains, then gets hot fast. Moisture rises to the upper part of the body and rusts the roofs, upper cowl, and around the windows. The rain most likely has some salt content too. Steve
The rust in Rhode Island will feel up you wife, steel your wallet then eat your car clear up to the garnish moldings. Seriously, thats really what happens
Here in western Chicagoland they used to salt the roads to such an extreme level that I'm amazed theres' still fish in the rivers. Lately, only the intersections are heavily salted. The latest trend is to spray a beet juice cocktail on the roads before it snows. It's true, look it up. Back in the eighties I pulled up to the high school pom pom squad while they were doing a carwash fundraiser. I was driving a total POS rustbucket and they sent me on my way. No carwash...no not nuthin
Im in ohio...and its a rust state. There is a whole technique to checking out a ohio car. When I walk up on a car for sale, I start checking it out from the bottom up
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