Oct '07 Pt.St.Lucie ,Fla . to Canaan ,Ct and back flat towing a '52 . 2880 mi. Another trip to Goose Lake , Mn. to get 9" rear back in the late '90's . You know you have a serious vibration on the truck being towed when your rear view mirror falls off the tow vehicle . High lite of the trip was a stop at the Udvar -Hazy Air & Space museum in Chantilly , VA. across from Dulles .It is Bad A** . A must see !! One day I would like to write a book including the numerous trips and stops at salvage yards east of the Miss.Those alone would be a chapter .Have been thinking of a name for the book . How about " Your Aren't Gonna Believe This "

 

Call me CRAZY..but, I bought my fully rebuilt 56 F100 in May this year from a guy in Whittier CA. (same owner for 40 years). I live in metro Atlanta..2195 miles away. I bought it sight unseen for 32k just from pictures (many..many pictures) and many phone calls. I had it shipped to me by (enclosed) commercial carrier for another 1860.00. Everything was as stated..no surprises..no regrets.

Five weeks later my best friend, a Chevy guy , bought a fully rebuilt 1950 Chevy 3100 5-window pickup truck for 40k out of WA (about 2600 miles) sight unseen (again plenty of pics and phone calls) and had it shipped for 1600.00 to his house in metro Atlanta using the same commercial carrier I used. Again, no surprises and no regrets. I know not many would do this..but, I guess we were just lucky..and can read people pretty well!!

 

1000 mile roundtrip with my daughter to get my panel. Left Friday afternoon, loaded it up Sat. morning, home that evening. Flew to Dallas to get my son's F-1, owner picked me up at terminal. Drove to the rental car place, paid him and drove it to Wichita Falls to surprise my son. He drove it home from there.
Alot of fun with the kids.

 

We drove 700 miles round trip to get our '49 F1. That was after lots of pics and phone calls. It was a roll of the dice, but it was an educated roll. The truck was actually better than the seller described.

It may only be 8 hours, but it is about 1,000 miles. At 15MPG that is 50 gallons of fuel (about $300) plus food and maybe a hotel room. I think you would be better off coming down $500 and letting him pick it up at your place.

By the way, NICE truck!

 

Three years ago, picked up a Model A my buddy bought in Rockford, IL. That was about 1300 miles round trip.
Last year I drove to Omaha, NE to pick up a set of wheels and tires to replace my widow makers, 1900 miles round trip.

 

Not sure if this counts, but a few years ago had to take a new van up to my wife's grandmother's house in Wenatchee, WA. While there, I met up with a guy selling an F2-F6 front clip and running boards. Bought them, put them on the empty trailer and drove home. Each way was about 1000 miles.

 

I went with a guy to Montana once to pick up a '39 or '40 oval grille cabover project truck. It was about a 5 or 6 hour drive one way. (it's been about 15 years ago now) We get there with the truck and trailer, the cabover is complete and in beautiful shape. My buddy starts to negotiate with the seller. Seller says seeing as how you drove all this way, you must be pretty interested and the price is the price. I think it was like $2500. Buddy says he can't argue with that and paid him in cash. We loaded it all up and went home. Fun day.

 

This probably shouldn't count but I live in NC and on two different occasions have gone to the Hidden Valley parts yard in Mariposa NM about forty miles south of Phoenix, (BTW this is the best parts yard I have ever seen) to look for parts. It shouldn't count because I was in Phoenix as part of my job as a corp. pilot but it's still along way from home.

 

You mean Hidden Valley in Maricopa, AZ, am I right? And I would guess it's been a few years since you went there, right? I went down there a few years ago and went looking for Hidden Valley. Couldn't find it. Drove up and down the road where it was supposed to be, even left the main road and entered what had to be an illegal immigrant camp with shelters made of pallets and other junk. I got outta there quick. Turned out Hidden Valley had been moved to another location, and most of the really old parts vehicles had been crushed. I afterwards went to the DVAP yard in Casa Grande and asked what they knew about the Hidden Valley yard. The guy I talked to sounded ticked because apparently they'd crushed most cars/trucks without having offered them to other yards. Stu

 

Well, about six weeks ago, my brother had a lead on a "low mile, clean, original 351C short block in St.Louis... guy provided pictures and everything was set..... we drove 384 miles (one way) got to the place, and the engine was a rusted, siezed mud covered chunk of junk. The guy had the nerve to say "I thought you knew it was locked up."
Yeah, we just drove 7 hours to pay $350 for a 400 pound chunk of rusted iron, because there was nothing that good in Northern Indiana...
We walked out and got back in the car and left without saying a word... quite frankly, if I had stood there for three more seconds, I probably would have beaten the jerk with a pipe.
But we did drive on a couple miles of the original ROUTE 66 so the day wasn't a total loss

 

I guess it was too well hidden.



Hey, someone was going to say it.

 

They'd lost their lease for the property, as explained to me. Urban sprawl. I did find the new location when I got a correct address but it wasn't a great old yard anymore. Stu

 

1,812 round trip from Colorado Springs to Alice North Dakota for my 48 F1.

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46 Ford Tudor - Street Rod
48 Ford F1 - Darkside

"When someone says it can't be done, what they really mean is they can't do it" - Baxter Black