Classic cars forum & vehicle restoration.

[Rootes75]

Looking at ebay the other day I noticed the amount of cars that are listed as 'Barn finds', in some cases they have been restored then left in shed for 5-10 years or had recent work done to them in a shed etc.

My way of thinking is 'Barn Find' is a car / lorry that has lain untouched for decades.

Is this just another ebay selling phrase sneaking into the classic car listing jargon??

[Rick]

[PAUL BEAUMONT]

I think this is another of those quirky things that has floated across the Atlantic. Somehow something loosely called a "Barn Find" is worth several times what it would be without that description. That said, the eBay category is worth a browse just to amuse yourself with the abject junk that features (and sometimes sells!!) there.

Paul

[Ellis]

What I would call a real "barn find" was what an old school friend discovered in the late 1970's - 1977 I think.

A local elderly gentleman was obliged to move to a nursing home and asked Cledwyn (my friend and from whom I bought my S2 Land Rover) to sell his 1950's Morris Minor Split screen 4 door. The 1930's wooden garage where it was kept had another car in it at the back and covered in sacking.

It was a 1937 Austin Big 7 which was laid up in September 1939 at the start of the Second World War. When the war ended it was de-entombed only to find that the engine had seized and it was pushed back.

It remained there until 1977 (I think) but the years in storage had not been kind to it and it was quite badly rusted. The registration number was JC 6***. I don't remember the rest.

Cledwyn kept it in a farm building until his tragic early passing in 2006 and it was sold on Ebay for a large sum in 2008.

There was another such vehicle locally if you would like to read about it.
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1964 Jaguar Mark 2 3.4 litre
1962 Land Rover Series 2a 88"
2002 BMW M3 E46 Cabriolet

[kevin2306]

[Ellis]

[lowdrag]

I am reliably informed that near me in France lies the 1958 Le Mans Panhard that has remained in the same barn for over 30 years. I have several times tried to find the farm to no avail, and it seems the only way is to go to the town hall and see if they can help.

[Rootes75]

I think there are an awful lot of sellers on ebay after a quick buck and will add any old jargon to a description in order to add value!

The first car I bought for restoration 20 years back now (and I still have her) is a 1937 Ford 10 model 7W. She was put away in the early 50's and only recovered when the old boy died in 1990 (ish). She was a proper barn find in my view and still has that lovely oily and leather smell about her.

[Rick]

The Austin 7 special I found had been in the same pitch black building since 1959, so I think that qualified. The A35 was more of a "garage find", but had been a one-owner van (with windows), always living in the same wooden garage from 1959 until I discovered it.

My '32 Minor had been in a brick building, I think a former blacksmith's workshop, since the early 1970s, the lady seller having had it since the 1960s when she was given it for her 21st, so I think that too is in the spirit of "barn find".

Thinking about it, few of my purchases have been runners from the outset

RJ
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[peter scott]

I thought a "Barn Find" was just any old car in which the seller had thrown a few handfuls of straw over the seats!

Peter

p.s. On the ice story: Some years ago a friend of mine went on an extended climbing holiday abroad. After several weeks away he returned to find that he couldn't get his front door to open. By entering via a window he discovered that in the cold weather a pipe had burst filling the ground floor with water several inches deep and this had re-frozen!
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1939 SS Jaguar 2 1/2 litre saloon

[traction39]

Straw....? I guess my '32 Riley 9 Special must qualify as a "garage find." It was covered in sawdust having been used as a support for cutting out wood by the joiner who owned it. He and a friend bought it off a local garage forecourt in 1964. After a flurry of mechanical activity the same year, the friend sadly died and the joiner lost any enthusiasm - knowing nothing about cars. He did change the oil occasionally...
He also said his partner had done the engine bearings....
So there it sat until 2010. It had two registration, the original and that assigned in the 70's although it had never been driven since being stored in 1965. The original plate suggested it had always been in the area: TG - Glamorgan. Did not take me long to re-establish the original with the DVLA and put it back into storage!!!
I started the re-build about a year ago - found the original chassis had been shortened as was the way with specials. Engine started after cleaning up the magneto and sounded great. So maybe the bearings were done?
My research suggested it was "chopped" in the 50's from a Monaco (sadly) and driven by, yes, you've guessed it, an RAF pilot from St Athans Yeah, right!
I hope to get it on the road in a couple of years....maybe!
Mind you, my '39 Citroen Light 12, also a "garage find" has been sitting in my hands since 2000....and previously since 1965...with no work on it.

I wonder how many other projects have been bought with good intentions but never quite make it.....only to be passed on and saved from the scrap heap!

What I like are the reasons the cars were wheeled into the garage/barn and just left. They obviously meant something to these people who stored them...

[Riley Blue]

Sadly, the owners of pre-war classics are often as old (if not older) than their cars and are deteriorating just as fast. I've come across several cases of owners falling ill or becoming disabled or just plain 'old' and not being fit enough to drive their cars.

Some have sufficient funds to pay for continued maintenance but others have to sell their homes and cars to cover the cost of their own care; I know of two cases of this in the past two years. I've also come across cars purchased decades ago with the intention of being the purchasers' retirement project and the owners dying before finishing the job; in one case dying before reaching retiring age. In each case the partly disassembled cars were just left, in their garage, until the houses were sold, in one instance in Leeds with two pre-war cars ignored for decades to become 'garage finds' many years later.

[roverdriver]

Around 1960, as a lad of 16, I was hunting for, ideally, a veteran (in Oz at the time that meant pre-1917).

I was told of a lady who had a Ford, the informant thought it was a brass radiator model, so that made me very interested. he gave me the ladies name, and I telephoned her. She was quite agreeable to me visiting her, but seemed a bit vague about viewing the car. I made arrangements for a suitable day, and at the planned time set off on my bicycle. It was about 10 miles away.

Mrs Ruby Cole was a lady in her 80's. She lived alone on the farm. We chatted for a few minutes, then when I discussed the car she showed me a shed, and said it was in there. I shifted a couple of chicken coops from in front of the doors, then tried to open them. Either earth had built up, or the shed had settled down, so I started clearing away soil. Eventually I got the doors open.



Inside was a beautiful 1926 Model T Ford, with a nickel plated radiator, not a pre 1917 brass one, but under the accumulated dust it was in pristine condition, with only 4,000 miles on the speedo.

]

Mrs Cole insisted that it was not hers to sell. It seems that a farm worker had bought it new and left it at the property in about 1928. He never came back for the car, so Ruby and her husband, just left it in the shed, waiting for the worker to return. Mrs Cole also had a pay-packet waiting for the man, as she said he didn't collect his last wages of about 25 shillings.

Mrs Cole promised to contact me if there was any possibility of her parting with the car.

I went off to New Zealand for a couple of years, and when I returned I found that Mrs Cole had died, and the car, along with all the equipment on the farm had been sold.
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[Rootes75]

Imagine finding a Model T like that in the UK??

[Rosco663]

Ah yes the "Barn Find" - a very interesting term which has also found its way into advertising jargon here in the land of Oz. We don't have barns in Australia we have sheds .

Another little misnomer creeping in here is "Dry Stored" - this could relate to being found in an open yard or paddock somewhere in an arid area as I deduced recently.

Just the other week I went to inspect a Morris Series MM Lo-Light, as the picture and description on Gumtree looked to be promissing and the price wasn't too scary. So off to 'Honest John's Motors' - (not it's real name ) - I drove.

The guy selling it told me it had been dry stored for the last 30 odd years (ding ding - warning bell). So I asked him where, to which he replied in a 'barn' (ding ding, sirens, flashing lights). The paint was so badly sunburnt - inside and out that he had sprayed a light coat of black something or another paint over the ouside of it, tyres and all. The faded green paint on the interior prompted me to think the black wasn't the original colour This light coating of blackness failed to actually disguise the bodgy filler repairs on the typical rust areas. The window rubbers resembled rock hard, matt black crumbly charcoal. The tyres cracked and split, surface rust inside the boot you could push a marshmallow through without effort. Accidentally brushing the upholstery resulted in a cloud of dust similar to a small volcanic erruption . Testing the front shockers resulted in the old moggy bouncing happily on its springs for 4 - 5 seconds.

Anyhow to cut the story short I told him the most valuable part of the (AUD 3,300) car were the two rear light assemblies (that I didn't need) then just walked away.

Beware the "Barn Find" or something that has spent the last several decades abandoned on a cattle station somewhere in the outback "beyond the 'Black Stump'", as the description can dissappoint
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Rosco