I was at work yesterday and a woman came and looked at my truck and said my friend has an old 46 chevy pick up out behind the barn and it has been there for a long time.i asked her if he would sell it,that night she asked him and he said no way that was my fathers truck and no one else is going to get it ,dad died 25 years ago and it has been setting there ever since.i am going to just let it rot, like i said no one else is going to have dads truck

 

I bet there's a lot of that out there. I can understand the reasons for keeping it. I just don't get the let it rot!

 

I can understand how people get to that point. There's a 1960's Mustang sitting under a shed in my neighborhood with the same intentions. My truck had a relatively similar life for about 2 decades before I bought it. The PO (2nd owner in the truck's life) found out he was sick in 1991, parked it under his shed, and died in 1992. The truck was within sight of his wife's kitchen sink window. She didn't allow any of the family members to touch it for 20 years. All she wanted was to be able to look out that window and see that truck sitting there. She passed away, and they waited a good year or two after that before they decided to sell it. And I know for a fact that they agreed to sell it to me for 2 reasons: 1) I was taking it out of state (she wasn't going to be forced to see it driving up and down the highway) and 2) I sat down beside her and pretty much promised her that her daddy's truck would not be modified and turned into a hot rod.

 

You see these 80 year old guys on American Pickers that have been hoarding junk for 60 years and they are don't want to sell just yet. They need to hang on to because one day they are going to restore or refinish it. They should sell it now and get some value out of it because half of the stuff only they know what it is from or was used for. When the kids inherit it they will have no idea what it's worth and I'm sure most of it will end up in the dump or scrapyard or be so rotted that it won't be worth anything. That's my .02USD, (we don't use pennies anymore in Canada). ,Doug.

 

My dad has pointed out a 1963 corvette next to a house a few times that we have went by it. He says that it was a young mans corvette that he had before he went off to Vietnam and never came back. His mom wont let the car go. It has been sitting in the same spot since he left it there before leaving for vietnam. There is also a 1970 cuda' behind a house not far from the corvette that the owner refuses to part with. It has been sitting there rotting for years. I dont know the story behind that one though.

 

I'm sure Doc knows that eastern Kentucky is full of those vehicles, and stories.

As the generation of Vietnam parents have past away some of the old vehicles have moved. For some it was too late. They were beyond restoration.

Unfortunately, the high price of scrap and meth probably led to the demise of a few.

 

One year on my way back from the Carlisle Truck Show in early 2000's I stopped at the foot of a mountain where a 55 F-600 with a flat bed sat. I had seen it along with various other old trucks and cars sitting in their so called yard around the house.

I knocked on the door and asked the old man who answered if I could buy the stock radio in the truck. He said "No I am going to fix her up one of these days and use it for logging." The next two years it was still sitting there untouched. The third year I stopped again and asked again. At first he said no. Then I offered $80 and his eyes lit up. I got the radio, the tube box and the speaker. I forgot to get the antenna. This spring when I went to Carlisle it was still sitting there but in worse shape of course! Don't know if the man is still living. I don;t know if there is any sheet metal that is usable.Maybe I will stop when I go to Carlisle this summer.

 

There's 10,000 corvettes out there that someone parked before they went to Viet Nam/Afghanistan/Iraq/Somali/etc. and never came back and it won't be sold
Then there is the Bentley that someone died in and wasn't discovered for a year and everything they've tried can't get the stink to go away

 

I took this photo 11 years ago. When originally parked here, this Nomad was beautiful...paint was vibrant, chrome pristine, interior perfect, a complete bone stock Chevy Nomad. This car is still parked in the same spot but it no longer looks even this nice. The owner won't sell and he won't do anything to protect the car. Thieves have pretty much stripped the car of trim and broken the glass. Once the glass was gone the interior was soon rotted. Some people have a different view of things...

 

My late father in law had a 62 unibox pickup that I had always wanted. He said he would leave it to his kids when he was gone. Well now it sits out at the farm still. The son says he is going to restore it someday. When is someday?

 

It is kind of odd. Each person should be able to enjoy what they have the way they want to enjoy it. We look at someone that is not working on some thing and think they should sell it to us so we could save it. Each person thinks their way of saving something is the right way. Restore, Rod or just conserve. Even to the extent of how the build is done. Total original, all one make or put a different manufactures equipment in it. The loss of any one vehicle does not really matter. We should all try to understandand respect how the owner of something enjoys their property even if it seems they are not taking care of it. Even the owner may not know why they are doing what they are. Also most of the time the dollars do not matter to the owner.

 

Another thought. We all have stories of items someone is not doing what we think they should with. If they would just let us have the item we would show them what we could do with it. At the same time we do not just go find adifferent one and build it to show what we could do. It is easier to just complain that the owner won’t let us have theirs. I am not pointing these posts at anyone as I am just as bad about this as anyone. Deep thoughts I guess.

 

I can relate....I have 3 old trucks that were my dad's, that I will never sell. All are currently sitting and rotting. All have a lot of sentimental value to me as I grew up driving or riding in them. A reminder of what a great guy my dad was.
I have plans to restore them all, but time and money are a big factor...so they wait.

 

Kind of funny, just before bringing up this post I got a call from a friend who has a friend with a stash old trucks he's been amassing for some years and would still be gathering trucks but the municipality he lives in forcing him to clear out his property. Here are two trucks, if I had the money they'd been coming home with me:

 

Very good choice Bob. They are 2 I would want.