I saw the strangest thing yesterday. Driving down a country highway there appeared to be a tattered old Toyota pickup and a 1990’s Chrysler LHS spread amongst five foot tall weeds. Further peering in resulted in an Escort Wagon, 3 Oldsmobile Cutlass Convertibles and 2 Sebrings. I wondered… had Monsanto finally invented some special car seed to plague the Americas? Not yet. Thankfully. Instead it was a dealer friend who was literally hiding his compulsions amongst the kudzu. His case may be extreme since he apparently has nearly 30 vehicles strewn throughout his prairie land. But he’s not alone.
Automotive Compulsive Disorder. Laugh if you must. But I know of a Datsunaholic who has nearly 20 vintage Datsuns parked on all four corners of his small Seattle property. They were all free except for one, and they all run. If you so much as mention the word Datsun… forget it. He becomes lost in a world of carbureted inebriation. The same is true for a Ford dealer friend who can’t seem to let go of old Volvos. He has them lined on a remote lot side by side, ready to take on all non-Nordic trade-in’s in a Texas style stare down contest. I know of dozens of cases throughout North Georgia, and even have caught the bug myself a time or two. Have you ever known anyone afflicted with this strain of steel, speed and nostalgia?
My wife is the saving grace that keeps me from pissing away my money decorating my property with “cultural” automotive pieces. 90’s Camaro’s, Suzuki X-90’s, Yugos, Saabs, Alfa’s, American pickups, Cadillac Fleetwoods…I’m mostly into cars that evoke the uniqueness of the country and culture from which they came. What I find interesting, most people find pointless.
It always seems to start with “the parts car”.
This spring, I drove from British Columbia to New Mexico, and it seems a lot of people have this affliction, in varying degrees. I think there is a business opportunity here, somehow, but I haven’t figured out what it is. Perhaps I just like junk yards, but I spotted a vast amount of good parts and “builders” in a lot of back yards and fields.
Back in the 70s, a friend took me for a walk-about on someone’s semi-rural property where he had a couple hundred Hudsons, Nashes, Kaisers, Packards, Studebakers and other odd makes of cars from the 40s and 50s. Most didn’t run, and we didn’t talk with him enough for me to find out just why he had been accumulating them. Spreading suburbanism was forcing him to curtail this, tho. The local authorities decided that he was running an unauthorized junkyard (even tho he offered nothing for sale) and ordered him to remove the vehicles or store them inside buildings. So he was in the process of erecting as many pole barns as he could afford, and towing the best examples under roof to comply. My friend had worked for the guy with the tow truck who was doing the moving. It was the most amazing automobile afternoon of my life, alternately marveling at the cars and the compulsion of the collector. It exceeded any car show that I’ve ever attended, despite the condition of the cars. I never did find out what eventually happened with the collection, but I have to believe that someone settling the estate was stunned to find it.
Yes, this mental illness seems to afflict millions of men — they are almost all men.
See the “Cars in Barns” website here:
http://www.carsinbarns.com/
BTW, where I live, the municipality has an ordinance against keeping unregistered cars on your property — strictly enforced.
People with this affliction somehow always manage to live in places without zoning. Hmmmm, coincidence?
I’m also sure they are well loved by their neighbors for all that “lawn art”. Remember, Appalachia isn’t a place, it’s a state of mind.
Here in East Anklescratch, about 15 years ago, a guy living in a 4 room, ramshackle “house” along one of the state roads got some money as part of a broader lawsuit his family filed and won for something, I don’t remember what. His cut wasn’t huge, I think it was $15-20K but I have no idea where that figure comes from.
What did he do with the money?
He bought Pintos, a veritable shitload of Pintos..and, you guessed it, parked em on his propity. None of em worked, they just sat there and rusted for the next 8 years.
I think finally he either died or was committed and it took the family another 5 years to slowly get rid of the vehicles.
I love, old full size Pontiacs, if it was up to me I would own hundreds of them. Here in suburbia, not such a good idea.
@ skor Great link, thank you so much.
If I need a Pontiac fix, Indiana Pontiacs. com
PS. I’m working on my linking skills
I’ve known several people like this, and I might have been one myself if not for my compulsion to accumulate old license plates. One old character I knew in Seattle had a 1916 Buick touring car in his basement; a 1903 Ford on the second floor of a storage building; a NOS-looking 1936 Ford stake truck that had been parked since 1937 when someone sugared the gas tank and that had subsequently had a building built around and on it; and I can’t remember what all else, as he died 40 or so years ago.
A contemporary of mine had at one time an accumulation of a hundred or so cars; everything from a 66 Caddy convertible to a Chrysler 300B ragtop – supposedly original, a 52 Hudson sedan, to non-runners from virtually every manufacturer.
And I have to mention Harold LeMay, who when he died had more than two thousand cars, some stored two deep in old barns and chicken houses mostly in western Washington, but some in other states as well. If you’re ever in the Tacoma area on the last Saturday in August, don’t miss the LeMay Museum open house…and plan to spend the entire day.
I have a thing for station wagons of a decent size, since they pretty much no longer are in production. I pass some eight or nine used lots on the way to work, and every Volvo 700 or 900 series, Roadmaster, Camcord Wagon… hell, even a Celebrity Wagon will tempt me to look over window sicker.
Haven’t bought any of them, yet. But at $1500 a pop (on average), my yard could very easily get filled with them.
I have this compulsion with computers.
I still haveh a router/firewall with a Pentium Pro 200 that works great. I also have a backup/idential motherboard for it _still_in_the_box.
That assembled pentium-pro 200 has long been retired and virtualized….
“I saw the strangest thing yesterday. … a tattered old Toyota pickup and a 1990’s Chrysler LHS … an Escort Wagon, 3 Oldsmobile Cutlass Convertibles and 2 Sebrings.”
Strange? Shoot, I’d call that “a good start.”
It runs in my family.
I’ve heard family rumors that one of my (if I remember this right) grandmother’s uncles? had acreage in the mountains of southwest Virginia where he had parked one vehicle from each successive model year from sometime in the late 1930s until his death in the mid 1970s, wartime years excepted. He apparently bought a new vehicle every year and parked it on his property when he bought a new one until the total of his estate was a plot of land with a $hitload of rusted-out cars on it.
Another distant cousin (by marriage) in the region has a barn full of decent enthusiast cars: GrandNationals, a GNX, Turbo Firebird (or was it TransAm), EVO VI replica, Lingenfelter TT C5 Vette…
My dad’s cousin has a warehouse (again, SW Virginia) where he keeps a bunch of old cars in various states of (dis)repair and occasionally opens it for public viewing. I know he used to drive his original unrestored triple-green 31 Model A Deluxe in local parades, and probably still has it.
If I had more money/space, the last Isuzu cars: Impulse, Stylus, even the JDM versions.
Some Caprices 80’s and 90’s. And a lot of other cars.
The Barney Pollard collection is probably the most extreme example, no doubt well into OCD hoarding.
There is a place up the road from us which used to have something like 50 Pintos and Mustang IIs lined up behind a fence. I think they are finally gone.
Fortunately, lack of storage space has saved me from this . . . . in automobiles, at least. I was running the same situation in vintage motorcycles for quite a few years until marriage and a new house (with a smaller garage) forced me to cut back to five bikes.
Five years ago, I rediscovered (now-vintage) racing bicycles. I’m in the process of plastering every bit of garage wall space with running models, and ride 125 miles a week.
I’ve spent nearly two decades of my 35 plus years dealing with ACD. It started with my father, a 1988 Merkur XR4Ti, a 1969 Cougar XR7, and a 1963 Triumph TR4 project car. I was 14 or 15.
It soon blossomed into more XR4Ti’s than I can count (one day I will sit down with pen and paper and map out that adventure like Peter Egan’s car-motorcycle-guitar column in R&T — it is probably more than two dozen), a Merkur Scorpio or two, another TR4 parts car, four rusty non-running Bugeye Sprites, a pair of 1970 Cougar Eliminators — a rusted out runner and a solid disassembled one — and a 1965 Mustang GT fastback project. Some 1500 square feet of pole barn (plus loft for parts) kept most of this lovely fleet out of sight.
Some of those cars came and went through the 90s, but a job change forced and move liquidation of the fleet in 2000. That was certainly a blessing.
But we’re still the stewards of a few stripped out XR4Ti bodyshells, and I still have the first of our XR4s that I drive when I have it running right.
As for the bodyshells, anybody want one? Or all three? Plus parts? Will trade for beer? :)
It’s called hoarding. Help is available. Last episode of “Hoarders” on A&E centered on an auto/scrap-obsessed old man.
I have a different version of the affliction – Bicycle-itis. I have 14 bicycles and I’m looking for more.
My 89 year old aunt still has every car she has ever owned. They sit in the garage, buried under crap, disintegrating.
Trust me… her “car collection” is the least of her hording problem. When she goes, I think I am going to have to burn the house and everything in it to the ground. I don’t even know where to begin with her collections of stuff. And I don’t want to die from Hantavirus from 40 years of rodent poop dust in there.
Yankinwaoz: are you sure it isn’t Alzheimers?
I get the collecting part, but Pintos? I mean really, let it be something interesting at least.
Perhaps the Niedermeyers are familiar with that cache of Edsels there along Highway 20 on the road to Newport, Oregon.
They were only recently removed from this property. There must have been 2 dozen of them at one point.
I managed to get a picture of one of the last ones left, a 60 4 door.
A definite road side attraction for a car fiend.
And I’d do it myself if I had the room, just to save the ordinary from the crusher.
I own two cars and two pair of underwear, thats it.
(both cars are S classes)
I’ll be one of these people soon enough.
At least I’ll be saving on lawn care time/money.
My late brother had a bad case of ACD.His biggest weakness? Late 80’s Plymouth Acclaims.
He was truly a man of vision.
http://www.mystarcollectorcar.com/
supposedly there are a few acres of old Peugeots in vermont, or maybe New Hamster. If anyone knows where this is, please email me, motorlegends@aol.com.
There was a guy in Mt. Rainier MD who had five ’57 Chevies. But three of them were in mint condition; I can’t remember the condition of the other two. I thnk one was a bit ratty. His house was full of ’57 Chevy memorabilia (his) and chicken memorabilia (his wife’s).
Across the street: five Peugeots. Last time I was in Mt. Rainier, in hte late ’90s, it was still a haven for old classic cars.
@SherbornSean: Collecting old Pintos, Vegas, Chevettes makes perfect sense. It’s called saving history. I do the same with (1973 prices) $100-150 ten-speed bicycles, because anyone and everyone in the hobby will happily save a Masi, Colnago, Pinarello, Schwinn Paramount or other pedal-powered equivalent of a Ferrari . . . . . but it takes a true enthusiast to save the bikes that were the mainsteam of cycling 35 years ago and all too often head for the local landfill.
@Dynamic88: Your restraint in numbers is commendable. One of my Sunday riding buddies has his entire dining room filled with Peugeots. Other makes are spread throughout other rooms in the house. And yes, like me, they’re all in restored shape and rideable as soon as the tyres are pumped.
Jerry Sutherland wrote:
His biggest weakness? Late 80’s Plymouth Acclaims.
Oh snap! My neighbour has just one of those (not running) sitting in his backyard … and it’s driving me nuts.
Now if it was an old Volvo or VW–or many old Volvos and VWs–they could be melting into the ground in his front yard and I’d defend it as a civic improvement :-)
If I had the money and room, I’d have lots and lots of full-size American cars, especially GM’s…any model year, any body style, any condition. And 1989-1996 Mercury Cougars, the last “real” Cougar. Always loved the styling. And Cadillac Cimarrons. That car holds a peculiar appeal to me. Don’t know why, it just does. I’d snap up every one I could get my hands on.
It’s probably best that I don’t have the money or room. My wife would eventually have a fit!
In Iowa the disease manifests itself in tractor collecting.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPy1Advujhw
One neighbor couldn’t get enough old Case tractors. They came up for sale to settle his estate.
During the summer these guys do ‘cross country tractor rides. I’ve had up to 200 or so go past my place. Takes hours and makes quite a show. The amazing thing is that they all look good and run.
My father was like this. But he bought old motorcycles. My parents garage was a mess.He particularly like british bikes. He was going to get all of them running after he retired. He actually got an old Triumph running. He replaced all of the analog gauges with digital ones. I think he stole all of those parts out of GM Truck and Bus (where he worked). Sadly he died before he could retire. After he died, it wasn’t that hard to move them. There are plenty of other sickos, er enthusiasts, who love crappy, old, non-running motor bikes.
Once upon a time, there was a house by the side of US10 between Minneapolis and St. Cloud, MN, with several Corvairs neatly angle-parked in the front yard. At least 2 were wagons, but I don’t recall any vans. All looked complete but unrestored. No idea if any of them actually ran – they never seemed to move. All disappeared around 10 years ago – the guy probably passed away.