Barn Find Purchases, Regrets and Successes

[Richard Davis]

I define a barn find as any car that has been stored under a roof for 10 - 15 years or so.

I'm interested in any horror stories about “barn finds” that turned into money pits. Were there tell tale signs of the seller or conditions of the inspection that were red flags, that if you had to do it again you would have done things differently (or run away)?

I would also like to hear stories about cars that were “bought right” that had a fair outcome.

 

[Richard Davis]

My original intent of this thread was to learn any car buying tips. I'd thought I'd pass this video along.

Internet car buying tips.

 

[Budnicks]

I like Tony A (Stay Tuned) & Derick (Vice grip Garage)

Derick is Roadworthy Rescue on MotorTrend too

 

[threewood]

My GTX was in a storage locker for over 10 years, if that counts. I knew the condition was rough and what new metal it needed. No real surprises. No regrets, either. $5000 and it was complete with donor roof and doghouse.

 

[davek]

My 70 charger was sitting outside for 16 years. One owner car, car was solid. Only regret is one year only cars bite you every time.

 

[toolmanmike]

I found my 66 Dart on E bay. It was at a farm 40 min. away so I went for a look before bidding. I would call it a "Barn Find".

 

[DeltaV]

Aren't all cars a money pit?

 

[YY1]

My 73 Satellite was a "carport" find.

So was my 67 Belvedere parts car.

At least they were on pavement and covered from 70% of the FL searing sun and pelting rain

 

[Just Send It]

Does a pole barn find count? I bought this Scamp about 4 years ago. It was purchased new in Oregon and spent its whole life here. Not a spot of rust anywhere. The factory paint is Winchester Grey. Was an original 318/904 car. It's now transitioning over to full time race car this season.

 

[DeltaV]

This is a mighty broad brush I'm welding, but here goes anyway:

Cars advertised on Facebook Marketplace are to be avoided; and especially those touted as barn finds, yard finds, or the like. The terms honesty and Facebook are mutually exclusive. Lots of nutty people. I'll leave it at that...I am not going to write an epistle on this matter.

Almost every car advertised on Craigslist is to be avoided. Occasionally, there will be a "pearl" like a car that has been squirreled away for decades and now the heirs are selling it off as an estate sale. If it's an estate sale, then maybe some forgiveness if they use the term barn find. Otherwise, no way. Some Craigslist car listings actually contain an honest description, but caveat emptor...do your homework. Lots of nutty people though.

Craigslist...sigh...I still can't get that 1972 Sherwood Green, 4 speed, Plymouth Roadrunner GTX out of my mind.

Anyway, search estate sales. You might find something nice for a good price before the flippers find it. Don't hesitate.

 

[YY1]

Both the cars I mentioned above were CL deals.

The Satellite is the best deal on a classic car I've ever had and the best body on a classic car I've ever had.

Just gotta do your homework.

...and my $5000 2011 1200 Sportster with 2500 miles was a CL deal.

I still see that year bike with 30,000 miles listed for more $$$$.

 

[dadsbee]

14 years in a box...

 

[Krooser]

My '65 was in a barn until last fall...still has the 1985 rear plate.

Should be driving this year... just a rust-o-ration. I won't live long enough to do a nut and bolt nor would I want to...

@$800 it was a great find. Yes it was on Craig's list.

 

[68BabyBlue]

I've owned two '69 GTXs that spent over two decades forgotten in garages. Both cars were owned by 20 something second owners, who lost interest after a few years, and parked the cars in mom's garage. In each case, the car came on the market when mom passed and the house was sold. I found the first one on racing junk.com, for sale by a flipper who got in a cash crunch after the 2008 financial meltdown. Car was in a body shop, partially done. It never got finished, still isn't. I sold it when I saw how things were headed, cut my losses early.

Second one, I did much better. Car came out of storage in 2001, sold by a dealer who knew the previous owner. Purchased by a young mechanic for $5000. He got it roadworthy, reupholstered the seats, but ran it for over a decade with the original paint and sheet metal intact. He sold it on eBay for $18K in 2013. Guy who picked it up restored it, with help from friends (one of whom was Jeff Bobst, builder of the Nash Bridges 'Cudas.) When I bought the restored GTX, all proceeds went to charity. Seller had done the same with two gen two Chargers earlier.

I drove that car 1300 miles from Iowa to PA after I bought it, and had no issues. I owned it for six years, and put a few thousand bucks into cleaning up some nit picky items. For a Wisconsin car, the body was in amazing shape, rear window channel, Dutchman panel, and trunk floor were in perfect rust free condition. Car was bid to 81K at auction last year, and recently sold after being offered by a dealer at $89K.

 

[Kern Dog]

This turd sat for something between 10 and 12 years.

Even worse....this one was wrecked in the mid 90s and sat outside until 2019:

 

[1 Wild R/T]

This car was stuffed into a barn back in 1977... I bought it it 1995.... I gave $5000.... At the time it was a lot of money & I thought I might have paid to much.... But after finally getting it out of the barn the guy started pulling out NOS parts he'd collected.... Parts that weren't discussed prior to me buying the car but parts he included in the sale.... There was close to 5K worth on NOS parts....

And a little over a year later I took the car back and tossed him the keys....

This one didn't get the luxury of a barn... The original owner let it sit outside with the top down from 1979 till 2001.... But I only gave $75... So I guess I can deal with the neglect...

 

[Detective D]

This is a mighty broad brush I'm welding, but here goes anyway:

Cars advertised on Facebook Marketplace are to be avoided; and especially those touted as barn finds, yard finds, or the like. The terms honesty and Facebook are mutually exclusive. Lots of nutty people. I'll leave it at that...I am not going to write an epistle on this matter.

Almost every car advertised on Craigslist is to be avoided. Occasionally, there will be a "pearl" like a car that has been squirreled away for decades and now the heirs are selling it off as an estate sale. If it's an estate sale, then maybe some forgiveness if they use the term barn find. Otherwise, no way. Some Craigslist car listings actually contain an honest description, but caveat emptor...do your homework. Lots of nutty people though.

Craigslist...sigh...I still can't get that 1972 Sherwood Green, 4 speed, Plymouth Roadrunner GTX out of my mind.

Anyway, search estate sales. You might find something nice for a good price before the flippers find it. Don't hesitate.

How to get a good car/deal on CL or Facebook:

1. Be either retired, filthy rich, or otherwise able to do whatever you want every day all day. Have an envelope of cash, a tow rig/trailer, and whatever else required on stand bye.
Watch CL and Facebook
When the deal pops up, you have less then one hour to contact seller and tell them in no uncertain terms you will be there with cash in hand to buy it. Tell them you are leaving now, need to confirm address for GPS.

If you can't do the above, you are not going to find the car you think you will find at a price that makes sense. If it is still there "next weekend" well you don;t want it anyway. Working schumcks need not apply, there is no way you will have a chance at picking up the deal, unl;ess the seller posts while you are at home in the evening and is close enough you can beat the flippers at 6a.m. the next morning. Of course, this means you will have to call in sick to work. Flippers don't have to work.

2. Get really lucky, and stumble across somthing people have not found because seller listed it with the worst description possible, wherein the vehicle simply will not show up on a variety of search words. Or it is simply a picture in an estate sale ad and not actually described. These types of things show up while you are looking for other items and somehow you hit the jackpot and notice the vehicle in the background or as part of a picture group.

That's it really. Ebay can work like this too but it seems ebay has also improved it's search function to help sellers that don't know how to list something properly. So that is getting pretty seldom.

 

[Detective D]

My first old car "didn't go like I thought" was a '67 Galaxy XL 2 door sport roof 390 car. Buckets, console. Top of car was great. Front 85% of car was great. Interior complete and just needed a carpet. $300, like 25 years ago.
Oh, and the rear frame behind the rear axle was non existent. I mean it was under there, but you could bounce the rear bumper up and down with your hands.
I had it for like 2 years and decided to sell it to a guy so I had some cash for the next fool's errand.
I sincerely regret the sale, not the original purchase. I got more then I paid by a smidge, but ten years later I was kicking myself for not seeking a new frame for the car from down south. In my youth my world was confined to how far I could drive in a day or two max as I had niether the time or tow rig or funds really to do a week long trip down south to seek one out. All that car needed was the bottom 4" of the rear quarter behind the wheels, a new trunk floor, and that frame. I could have done a cut/polish on the paint and a new carpet and made one hell of a respectable cruiser, the rest was that good.

The next fool's errand as it were, was a 1970 Mustang, a 302/auto car that had been totally converted to a 351C/toploader 4 speed complete Mach 1 trim/interior. I got it for cheap. I made decent money on the sale like 5 years later. I didn't really do much with it. I couldn't, I had no idea where to start lol. This car was wearing at least 3 coats of paint on top of the factory grabber blue. The roof had been replaced, badly. The hood did not line up left to right. Well to clarify, it lined up with the fender lines... if you follow what I mean.
Why did I buy it? Because 351C/toploader and righteous burnouts. Man that was a fun car to beat to piss, because it was a pile. A cool looking from 20 feet away, mean sounding tire smoking pile. I am glad I sold it when I did, because the market on projects for those cars has fluctuated wildly for the last 15 years. Don't miss it.

Both of those cars were "finds". The Galaxy was in a machine shed for over a decade. Heard about it from a coworker, it was his great Uncle's car. The Mustang was in the guys driveway since I was in kindergarten on main street lol. One day I was driving by and it was on his lawn instead.

I found my 98 Dakota 5.2 5 Speed in an estate sale ad, it had been parked under a tree for at least 5 years, maybe more. Looked like hell. I had a good feeling, the old guy's kid was selling things. Old guy had like 5 BMW motorcycles going back to the 80's and a dirt bike too. And a Boston whaler sailboat, and a minty looking 80's RXY in the garage. This thing was a toy hauler. $1000. I put a battery in it and discovered it had 52k miles(last year in the spring) started it and drove away with the old guys kid looking at me with this dumbfounded look. It is my daily now to work. 90's V8 trucks are the best snow vehicles ever made, IMO. 5.2 5 speed is a hoot. Righteous burnouts. I doubt I will sell this thing.

 

[YY1]

My Satellite was on CL for about 3 months in 2012.
It started at $7500.
After the first month, The price started coming down $500 every two weeks.
When it got to $5000, I called. It was early Saturday, and I went to look, taking the hour one way drive.
When I opened the door and saw the perfect green dash and interior, I knew I was gonna buy it.
The seller said more than a few people opened the door and immediately closed it and walked away because of the green interior.
I offered $4000 and he accepted on the condition that I never bring it back to show him.
It had 54,000 original miles and only two, post it note size body repairs where the quarters meet the rockers.
It has none of the typical 73 B body rust prone area issues- dutchman, wheel wells, quarters, top rear trunk corners, cowl, A pillar. NONE.

 

[Budnicks]

I found it on an online advert., don't recall where it was listed...

Anyway;

My current (#13) 68 RR RM23 67K miles, that sat for years,
from the later 80's to sometime in late 2004
I bought it in Dec. 2005, only thing the 2nd owner did was change the org. carb
to a POS Edelbrock AFB #1407 750cfm,
& a stereo nice Panasonic head DVD/Casset & 2 6x9"s in the rear tray...
I have most all the org. parts that came off it too, with the deal...
The org. radiator, hood & org. Rusty 14" chrome 'road wheels' are all long gone...
The car was still a lil' rough, but mostly all there, it ran & drove (not great)
w/near perfect Decore black interior (he was asking $7,000, I gave $6k),
the body was beat up, but very little rust, it was from
the/in McClellan AFB in Sacramento area...
He (owner #2, I got it from) had it stored under a pine tree of all places,
didn't do much with it, it did at least have a car cover over it,
but it was full of black widow spiders in the undercarriage...
The fuel tank was crap, it'd run for a few min.s & then die,
the org. sending unit was the main culprit, why the 2nd owner parked it
he couldn't figure it out...
(I 1st thing put a whole new fuel system, tank, plumbing & sender, in it)
It'd gave me the heebie-jeebies when I worked on it the 1st few years,
me finding a spider or several of them staring at me, here or there...

I later found the org. owner's name & address (from the orignal reg. in the glovebox)
when I contacted & visited the daughter, her name in the phone book (shot in the dark)
who was still living at the old registration's address...
She told me her dad put some primer on it, we had a great convo with her...
She inherited the car, sold it, after it sat for 15+ (?) or so years, to owner #2 (above)...
He owned it less than about 1 year...
He gave up...
She learned to drive in that car, it was her dad's daily driver...
Until he retired & parked it...
It was not in a barn, but next to a house in Rio Linda (Sacramento area)
but under a makeshift carpenters lean-to, org. owner was a carpenter
the org. owner's daughter sold it to a guy, who lived in old converted housing
in McClellen AFB...

$20K+ later, plus the purchase price.
complete top end redone, 2 different stroker motors been in it
now back to the org. short block 383, with a bunch of bolt on's,
a lot of alum. parts/stuff, replacing iron or steel, & a 6bbl A12 hood
I've had it for almost 20 years now, still not done, redone stuff a couple times
went from a OE resto, to a street beast/racecar & now sort of back to
a semi-resto again, & it's still not done, I'm still having fun...
but;
With my flavor 'of what' it should have been from Plymouth originally...
Day 2 car baby...