About 4 years ago my buddy and I stumbled onto one of those "once in a life time" barn finds here in central Ohio: a 1969 Lincoln Mark III with ~22,000 documented miles we bought for $500. It was part of an estate where an older eclectic collector (several mark iii's, Buick electras from the 60's, etc) had passed away and the elderly widow had a family friend handle prepping the cars for sale. I think they all ran but this one and the family friend didn't have the patience to diagnose it. So we bought it, rebuilt the leaking rear wheel cylinders and the carb and replaced the fuel sending unit and the thing ran like it was new. It was parked in 1981 and still had the receipt in the glove box for the 5 new BFGs that had been put on in 1979 only 500 miles had been put on them. Would you believe the 4 on the car had no cracks/dry-rot? We couldn't but pulled each one and checked and to our surprise they were perfect. Anyhow, to cut to the chase, we put temp tags on it and drove it a couple hundred miles over the course of a few weeks and then put it on evil-bay and sold it to a guy in Cali for $7000. You read that right, we bought it for $500 and sold it for $7000 and only put about $500 in it counting the gas to trailer it 45 miles home. Sweet car. Had been stored in a fairly dark pole barn with concrete floor so I think that helped those tires survive for sure.

 

I see 1980 era luxo barges for sale all the time in communities that have a lot of retirees. They bought a new Caddy, retired in Arizona, then only drove to the grocery store or the Docs office for the next 30 years.


You want a low mileage, well cared for land yacht? Go to the Southwest, they are everywhere.

 

Not sure about the critter thing.
My wife can let her '08 Subaru set for 4 days and there'll be signs of mice inside. Every time I change the oil, I remove nutshells and trash from the top of the motor.
My POS old '61 F-100 with the rusted out cab corners sits not 20 feet from the Subaru un-driven for weeks at a time and the only signs of critters I ever see in it are wasps inside when the weather starts to warm in the spring.
I think the newer insulation on the wiring is more tasty to them than the older stuff.

 

Nope, the fuel pump would be dead!

 

We owned a 2002 Taurus for a while. It lived inside a closed garage when the wife wasn't driving it. She drove it typically 3-5 times a week. One winter, during the holidays she didn't drive it for a WEEK or so. Then when she needed to drive it, it wouldn't go. The fuel pump didn't operate. I dropped the fuel tank (what a PIA that was!) to access the fuel pump located in the top/center of the tank. Only to discover that a mouse had discovered the indentation of the top of the tank where the pump was mounted and built a nest there...then apparently, chewed on the wires to short out the pump. Why build a nest there? IDK, maybe after returning home, the mouse found it was warm from the pump operation and decided to build there...? I cleaned out/off the nest & replaced the pump and all was good again.

Around these parts, it is a constant battle to keep the bees & mice from infesting a car, truck, trailer, camper or lumber pile. If kept inside a garage or barn you can reduce the chances of bees infesting it, but the mice are a constant battle here. Snap traps and a cat are required to reduce the mice. I don't like poison, but I have some of that in corners of the buildings too.

One spring, I hadn't driven my '65 for about a month. A robin (bird) tried to build a nest in the grill! I removed the nest only to have the bird REBUILD the nest again! I ended up leaning a sheet of plywood up in front of the truck to deter her from her construction plans!

While the '65 was parked on a concrete slab, I found acorns in the rusted out holes of the cab corners.... now that was a task for some mouse to get them in there!

BarnieTrk

 

The Subaru has a pancake engine in it and mice like pancakes...



My 67 always had nut shells and cones sitting on the motor I'd clean off every time I used it, whereas none of my other cars did. Not sure why.

 

moth ***** under the vehicle or near the wiring will stop mice from moving in. it's a real good thing to do with your lawnmower over the winter time. also, drop some into your a/c unit for your house over the winter, too. i lost an a/c unit to a family of mice once. very expensive.

 

In this region unless a vehicle is garage kept and washed weekly during winter, the body is still a 100k car. The drivetrains will last for another 200k or better for sure.
I see lots of rotted 04' cab corners sadly.
If it's unibody it's just a throwaway at that point. Cheaper to buy another used car usually than paying to fix the rot of a unibody.

 

Bunnies too, I guess