# The American Dream - USA - May 2016



## mookster (May 24, 2016)

I honestly don't know where to begin with this one.

While travelling the back roads with my two friends one of them said that he had heard a rumour about an old junkyard fairly close to where we were, but that nobody knew if it was true, and if it was true, whether it was still there. So after a fail at another site we thought sod it lets go and see if we can find it. We drove into town and found someone suitably old and wise looking, but he really wasn't all there. After about fifteen minutes of rambling and showing us his own collection of scrap he suddenly seemed to spark into life and said he knew of the guy who owned the place we were looking for, and gave us some very rough directions that seemed to change every time he repeated them to us. He said the owner was 85 years old and in a wheelchair, and 'thinks everything is worth thousands of dollars'. Filled with excitement at the thought we were getting closer to this place we made our goodbyes and headed off, on what was basically a hunch and a few loose directions. We followed what the old guy had told us, turned up this road that didn't appear on any of our satnavs or phone maps and off to our left suddenly car after car began appearing in the woods. Real old stuff from the 1930s and 1940s. We had found it. Somewhere that nobody, not even many of the locals, know exists. Somewhere that has been held to mythical status amongst American car collectors. Somewhere that simply defies belief and shouldn't exist in this day and age.

We roll up unannounced on the property and it's at this point that things can go either way. We will either end up with a gun pointed in our faces or welcomed with open arms. Thankfully it was the latter, my friend went in to speak to the owner and his wife who live in a big static caravan in the yard itself, and after they had apparently told each other their life stories we were in. We were allowed to go anywhere we wanted, take as many photos as we wanted, and spend as long as we wanted on his property. Unlike the one I did in Canada last year which is an active junkyard, this was this one man's lifetime collection of vehicles. As such they have never been raided for parts, the vast majority have their original running gear, chromework and emblems intact. There is some ridiculously rare and desirable cars sat on the property, which is heartbreaking to see at times. We spent five hours wandering around the huge plot of land, and I could have spent five hours more there easily but it was getting dark and rain was setting in at the end of the day. We thanked the owner copiously for allowing us in, and parted ways.

If you could name an American car, truck, or bus from the 1930s to the 1970s it was probably here in some form. I took a ridiculous number of photos so this will probably be quite photo heavy...






























































There isn't much left of it, but this is a 1937 Packard Hearse.














































But after five hours of 'holy shit' moments around every corner, there was nothing that matched my friend's reaction to seeing this -






It's a 1938 Hudson Terraplane, an exceptionally, unbelievably rare car in any condition. One it is highly unlikely any of us will ever see again. And there it was, sat in the middle of some woods on this guys property.





















There are loads more photos to be found on my Flickr here https://www.flickr.com/photos/mookie427/albums/72157668466022092 ​


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## Malenis (May 24, 2016)

Now I'm jealous, this is like heaven to me!!! Fab!


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## degenerate (May 25, 2016)

That's a lot of rusty gold just sitting there! Well shot mookster


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## Tigershark (May 25, 2016)

Thats some nice pictures, its a shame alot of the cars are too far gone to save


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## UrbanX (May 25, 2016)

Fantastic set of photo's and a great adventure. I look forward to many more rfom your trip!


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## flyboys90 (May 25, 2016)

what an adventure you must have had,there is everything there ...Heaven!!Great write up and images.Thanks for sharing your American journey.


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## Richard Davies (May 25, 2016)

I've seen a few pictures of car graveyards like this - I presume these were dumped there in the 1950s - 60s when they would have been considered old bangers.


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## Gramm (May 25, 2016)

I love the brace of GMC pickup trucks , looks like they are both pre 1941 , and the Buick Sunseker, theres a hint of its original color too , i had a friend died prematurely sadly , his was baby blue , with a cream top half and original cherry red tuck and roll leather upholstery and the original valve state radio (three pre set stations)
Many thanks for the memory trip


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## mookster (May 25, 2016)

Richard Davies said:


> I've seen a few pictures of car graveyards like this - I presume these were dumped there in the 1950s - 60s when they would have been considered old bangers.



Bought and acquired by the owner his whole life, the oldest stuff in the furthest bit of woodland has been there decades and he is still buying the odd bit today. We bumped into his grandson when we were walking around the oldest stuff and after explaining we had permission from his old man to be there he told us some more information about the place.


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## Gramm (May 25, 2016)

The little susty red two seater in among all tires is a 1937 Buick Club Coupe , love it , they are , were , such a pretty car Thanks again


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## woody65 (May 27, 2016)

Tigershark said:


> its a shame alot of the cars are too far gone to save



I've taxed worse....


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## Richard Davies (May 27, 2016)

mookster said:


> Bought and acquired by the owner his whole life, the oldest stuff in the furthest bit of woodland has been there decades and he is still buying the odd bit today. We bumped into his grandson when we were walking around the oldest stuff and after explaining we had permission from his old man to be there he told us some more information about the place.



OK I was wondering how places like these build up. There have been a few hordes of cars found over the years.


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## Kilted Mac (Jun 23, 2021)

Amazing. despite their condition there must be a few collectable there!


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## Dirus_Strictus (Jun 27, 2021)

At the onset of the MOT Regs here in the UK, there were a number of sites full of really interesting stuff. Unfortunately my local dump fell foul of the environmentalists and the whole lot ended up in the Sheffield scrap furnaces. In the 50's and 60's it was dead easy to collect an interesting collection of 'non runners' if you had a bit of land. Then the environmentalists started to crawl out of the woodwork and these wonderful places started to be cleaned up. For a youngster who had just passed his Test; summer motoring could be very, very cheap - happy days!


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## Richard Davies (Jul 2, 2021)

There was a scrapyard in Norfolk that was more or less a hoard as the owners never stripped any of the cars down & just sold parts that customers had to remove themselves.

I'm not sure if it was closed for environmental reasons, or because the owners realised they could make a lot of money selling the land off.


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## night crawler (Jul 3, 2021)

Awesome Mookster you did yourself proud. My Favourites are those two pickups, I dare say the owners would people queuing to get hold of them and a lot of the other cars. Nice one


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## J_a_t_33 (Jul 6, 2021)

Whoah! I don't often entertain old threads that have been dug up... But I am very glad I had a mooch through this one! Bravo Mooks!


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## J_a_t_33 (Jul 6, 2021)

Damn, just looked through the Flickr reel too... Absolutely incredible! What a privilege to be able to explore this place!


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