Recognize that 1961 Chrysler in the picture? A couple of weeks ago that car was sleeping peacefully in a thicket of trees, exactly where it had been parked since 1977. It’s not sleeping peacefully anymore…it’s sitting in the lot at Mid-South Mopars and it’s being torn into as a revival project. We dig the idea that a long-dead car that has been sitting for decades can be put back out onto the road…hell, the Roadkill guys seem to thrive on the concept. But just like the Roadkill guys, for every upside there is a downside, and on this Newport, that’s an extensive list that must be taken care of.
Forty years is enough time for all sorts of disgusting things to happen to a car, and I’ve seen the results from far and wide. In the Pacific Northwest, you have this layer of green algae that grows and if the vehicle is anywhere near the woodline, plants tend to take over, especially blackberry vines and Scotch broom. In Arizona, the cars roast…the paint cooks off until the metal heat-rusts, the interiors turn to dust, and the wiring isn’t far behind. The plains and the midwest seem to rot cars quickly due to the heat and humidity of certain locales, and no matter where you go, there’s the question of what has been (or is) living inside of the vehicle. Spiders, lizards, feral animals, and about every type of wasp that inhabits North America has managed to announce it’s presence right when I’m starting to get comfy with the new beater.
But as for Miss Misery here, the winning moment came as I stood where the trunk floor should be, sweeping out petrified feces from the parcel above the rear axle. Petrified crap. Nevermind the beehive boxes stacked floor-to-ceiling in the backseat area, or the multi-generational squirrel nests on top of the 361 underhood…no, I had to clean up a turd that was halfway to fossilization. That’s a new low in my book.
That’s my line, readers, but I want to know what the most grungy thing you’ve cleaned up out of a car is…
The dismembered and stinking corpse of the asshole who tried to steal my car!
I didn’t clean it out, but I once found someone’s big toe in a repossession at my work.
Mount it in your key ring!!
My Dart had some really weird, molding, deteriorated carpet that was full of live ants and had to be shoveled out. But I think the grossest thing from a smell point is overheated differential oil. I swear that stuff is made from rotting seafood.
Wait, just forgot about one that could give differential oil a run for the money in the smell department and has some extra intrinsic grossness. One rat that had crawled under the seat of my wife’s Nissan Pathfinder, died, and spent several weeks putrifiying.
Condoms. Used……
Dan
my girl friend’s tampon. eeeewww.
i had the unfortunate job of cleaning out the interior of a car that some poor soul blew his brains out in—-maggots—called the wife to bring me another set of clothes,and destroyed the ones i had on….
Were you in Pulp Fiction elkyguy?
A car pulled into my brother in laws service station complaining about a smell coming from under the hood through the a/c vents. The lady lived on a farm about 20 miles from town, done shopping and was heading home when she noticed it. Opened the hood, and lying in the area between the dual overhead cams was an orange and white tabby…..well done. He slammed the hood shut and told her what it was. She looked at us like we were going to clean Mr Whiskers out!
The most disgusting thing I ever removed from a car was a SBC someone had put into a Plymouth Scamp…
yuck!!!!
GMAC. Yep, I bought an identical car then stripped the bitch and told them to come pick it up. Really had to be there to see the look on their faces when they came in suites thinking it was going to be a cakewalk.
Cleaned out a few police cars. The ones with cloth interiors were the worse. Some took up to 6 cans of carpet cleaner to get out the stains. Don’t want to know what bodily fluids ended up the the seats and carpet.
That’s why they use hard plastic seats now
Not sick but saddest cleanout I did was for the lady who thought 2 50# bags of
ROCK-SALT in the trunk wells of her pristine 67 Mustang fastback would
help her get around on our snowy streets. Due to a leaky trunk seal, the bags deteriorated and took out both trunk floor lower-inner wheel-wells and ruined 2 quarter panels. She said that must explain her stained driveway where she
parked during the winter.
Way back in 1986, I bought my Road Runner. It had been sitting in a barn since 1976 and the animals had their way with it. From firewall to tail panel, the floor was covered 4 inches deepl with rodent crap, dirt, trash and rotting vegetation. The trunk key did not work, so I had to remove the seats, crawl through that shit and open the trunk from inside with a pair of pliers. The worst… the ABSOLUTE worst! Once I got the trunk open, my buddy and I took the entire car to a local car wash, rolled up the carpet (with all the crap in it) and threw it in the dumpster. We then pressure washed the entire interior for an hour and a half…. Ugh!