.

the car junkie daily magazine.

.

Question Of The Day: What’s The Coolest Dead Car You’ve Ever Found?


Question Of The Day: What’s The Coolest Dead Car You’ve Ever Found?

There is a difference between just finding a car, and finding a dead car. A dead car is one that is only coming back to life with a totally stupid amount of cash, a spare parts car, years to dedicate to the project…and that’s if you are lucky. It’s one thing to find some old bucket that needs an engine, or needs some parts here and there. It’s another altogether to find the remains of a car on it’s roof, pumped full of bulletholes from years of target practice, never to return to the road. And that’s what we want to hear from you guys today: the best “dead car” you’ve ever found.

Mine, I found in middle school. In the area of Western Washington where I lived, the woods were littered with old, abandoned carcasses of machines. I distinctly remember a mid-1970s Monte Carlo, a Maverick on it’s lid with a Ford truck parked next to it buried in blackberry vines, and the Chevette that was sunk into the far end of a horse pasture, but the winner for me…well, to be quite honest, I’m not 100% sure what it truly was I found. Just beyond a house that looks like it was raided from the set of Snow White (I wish I was kidding as I typed that…) sat an abandoned house and carport. Inside of the carport was what, in retrospect, I believe was a 1955 Dodge Royal, but the years have faded that memory and if the car is somehow still there, I’m willing to bet that identifying marks are all but gone…it was pretty shot when I found it in the mid-1990s.

Some dead cars have legends about them. Some are landmarks after remaining in place for decades. All have a story, whether it’s legitimate or folklore. So let’s hear your stories! Meanwhile, check out this footage from Noriyaro, who found a Toyota Supra with a rollcage half-buried in runoff and leaves at the bottom of a valley in Japan. You know this car had one hell of a story…


  • Share This
  • Pinterest
  • 0

21 thoughts on “Question Of The Day: What’s The Coolest Dead Car You’ve Ever Found?

  1. john

    Found and early ’50s Dodge/Plymouth/ DeSoto (?) convertible with a small hemi buried in a chicken coup. “Dad…can we bring it home? “…” Not on your life” was his final, no arguement response. Case closed.

  2. Loren

    In the eighties a place I used to hike had a late-fifties Corvette, stripped, on a hillside…then a place beside a road where people dumped stuff had a two-door Falcon wagon that was for a long time in restorable shape…I found a TR-6 once way down the side of a mountain in the brush, which had a few good parts on it which -might- have removed…whoops, found out later it wasn’t exactly abandoned.

  3. Big Sky Dreamer

    Just outside of Chertsey, Montreal, Canada, I found a ’53-4 Ford 2 dr wagon. The drivers side was almost minty, considering where it was. It had been used as a soil erosion method and was completely buried over and to the center of the car…..I got pics but

  4. Keith

    63 Ford Galexie fast back. 390 4bl 3 on the tree factory elec overdrive. Untouched original owner. But living in the rust belt you could throw a cat through it. Just yard art now but maybe someday I’ll come across a good carcass and who knows.

  5. Brendan M

    There’s a 1950 Mercury on its roof in the woods behind my neighborhood. I’ve always wondered how it got there.

  6. Brendan M

    In the town next to mine there was a used car lot on the Connecticut River back in the 50’s and 60’s. Over time the ground eroded and half of it went in the drink. There are maybe ten vehicles which are submerged through the spring, later in the summer when the river goes down you can walk them. Nothing worth saving now. Trees have grown up through most of them, it’s super creepy!!!! You have to think at what point did the owner say “screw it”? He must have thought it was more cost effective to leave them down there than recover them.

  7. Matt Cramer

    On the Amicaloa Falls trail in North Georgia, there’s the frame of something from the 1940s clearly visible about 500 feet down a 730 foot cliff. This is a very steep trail, one that winds up a slope that ranges from vertical to about 60 degrees. Not sure if that car got there from the top or bottom, but neither one would have been easy.

  8. Anthony

    I found a late 40s Dodge in the woods behind my inlaws house. Years later Im talking to a guy who said it was his! He dumped it there because the cops were looking for him for driving drunk and he hit a fence. This was in the late 60s! I saw it in the early 2000’s!

  9. Singapore Hot Rod

    In the late 80s someone told my Dad and I about an abandoned ’69 Camaro in an old strip mine. There wasn’t much left but we got a few small parts we needed for our own 69. I’m waiting for that pile of crinkled rust to show up on eBay for $10K!

  10. Walter Joy

    I’m lucky for where I live, as my neighbor is scattered with old cars. I want to resurrect my great grandmother’s 1971 numbers matching 383 Dodge Polara Sedan. But even cooler than that is there’s a Studebaker Hawk sitting right near where my grandfather has a 59 3100 Chevy rotting away.

  11. HotRodPop

    It don’t qualify, but, back in the ’90’s, there was a black 1964 Lincoln Continental 4-door sitting in the front yard of a house in Houston, Texas. Didn’t run, grass had to be weed-eated from under the rockers, blown engine (rings, I think… BLOWN???), “nah, I’m gonna fix it!”. 12-18 months later, I drove by there and there was the Conti… TRASHED! Messin’ where he shouldn’t be messin!!! He got caught, and she trashed (or, from the looks of it, got someone to) the car. There wasn’t a panel that hadn’t been bashed with a bat. Every piece of glass, every light, the ROOF was caved in! Dude told me the story as he was moving out. Asked if I still wanted to by it! All I had was my last $10, so I passed.

  12. BeaverMartin

    Hiking in Boone, NC I came across a mid 60s Chrysler Imperial. It was sad to see that the whole bottom of the car had returned to earth.

  13. Brendon

    Where I grew up in upstate New York there were several old abandoned “shacks” as we’d call them- old single car garage buildings right alongside the main road across from where we lived. In one of them was a late 1940’s Studebaker 4 door. No interior, or glass, probably no engine either (never looked) but it was in surprisingly solid, especially for an old car in upstate NY. As kids we’d occasionally go sit in the car, or on it. It was there in 1977 when we moved to the neighborhood, and around 1988 or so when I was a young teen I somehow convinced my dad to inquire about the car. He went to our local town hall, got the land owners info and wrote a letter asking about it. We never heard back but then the car was gone a month later.

  14. Biggreencow

    When I was stationed in Guam, I found a fully-intact Japanese Zero plane with a sealed canopy, just missing the wings. Last I heard its still there

    1. Roger

      Found an upside down P38 lightning partially buried behind Cleveland Hopkins airport when I was a kid. Given all of the expansion Hopkins has gone thru over the last 40 years I’m sure it’s REALLY buried now!

  15. Lou_100x

    Came across several cars from 30’s & 40’s out in various parts of the NM desert. Missing most components and shot up like Swiss cheese, couldn’t ID them beyond the make. A common past time was to take your AR/AK out and spray junked cars. Much more satisfying than paper targets.
    Also spotted a mid 50’s Dodge that had been buried in an arroyo at one point, then partially exposed due to some recent rains.

  16. Ted

    Not far from me here in South Surrey off of HWY 99 is the flattened carcass of a 55 Pontiac 2 door sedan delivery. No idea what happened to it, but it’s stripped, wrecked, flattened, but any car guy can identify what it is from the remains. What a waste..

  17. charles moxley

    out hiking a few years back when we stumbled on a pond as we were walking around it i started noticing parts of cars sticking out of the bank all around the pond i really took notice of a 57 chevy fin sticking up and yes it was a 2 door bel air that the owner had buried along withwho knows to reinforce the pond walls lol

  18. Joe Conard

    Up in the U.P. of Michigan where I have a deer camp, there\’s the remains of a car far back in the woods, no roads near it. I believe it\’s a \’53-\’54 Ford. I don\’t need much to identify a car, a tail light ring, or fender badge will do, but it took several trips to identify this thing, from what looks like a piece of trim from the glove box door. The locals said it was a car they dragged back there when they were kids and dynamited it….many times! The area was an iron mining community and kids had no trouble obtaining dynamite. It\’s really a frame and shreds of sheet metal now.

Comments are closed.