Haunting Yard Finds

[jerrysdustydog]

Something that still haunts me to this day. In 1982 I was working in a small town not far from my home town in Texas and saw a car in a front yard with a for sale sign in it. It was a Plymouth Superbird! It was the bright red color (don't remember the correct shade), 440 super commando, and automatic. I knocked on the door and a 30ish year old girl came out and said that she and her husband just couldn't afford insurance on it any longer. I asked her the price, and she told me $6,000. Of course, at that time I couldn't sell everything I had to come up with the money. I have thought about that for 30 years now, and can't get it out of my head. Nothing wrong with the car, still looked good with only a few dents in the left front fender, just in front of the door. Always happens when you don't have the money. Always wondered what happened to it!! A couple of years later, I was working with a guy whos dad had bought 2 Superbirds new. Some guy from Houston had been trying to find one to restore and told his dad he would give $70,000 for one in restorable condition. Went back to see what happened to it, and family had moved. Guess it pays to be born rich!

 

[69hemibeep]

I waited a couple of days to long on a 67 hemi Charger, silver complete no rust just a few blocks from where we lived. Not being a huge fan of first gen Chargers I hesitated. A year later my runner moved in 2 doors down.

 

[RdChicken]

I don't know it makes you feel better but I know where there is an Alpine White Superbird. It's just sitting in the yard behind his garage and dude won't come off it even though it's been sitting in his yard for YEARS! Those are my favorite cars to find, they won't do anything with them and they won't let anyone else have them. It's like they enjoy watching them rust.

 

[generaljmwlee]

Friends of mine saved this pink roadrunner after 20+ years of sitting.
http://www.carsinbarns.com/Mopars%20In% ... 2mopar.htm

 

[Basketcase]

sometimes you just have to be the right person at the right time.

 

[george68hemirr]

ya snooze ya loose :brickwall:

 

[jays69bird]

When I was 13 my dad had a 53 Plymouth Cranbrook he wanted the radio repaired in,there was this older gentleman who was a navy vet and was a expert on radios,Fred Guilles I suggested to my dad we take the radio there.His son was living there at the time,we got there there was a 70 GTX in the yard,brown with a tan interior,while my dad was talking to the old man young Fred was trying to talk him into the X,he wanted like 400 bucks,motor was set up.we looked it over,I remember it being locked in gear since he had lost the keys,it had a console and pistol grip,on the hood was a decal that really didn't register in my young mind it said 440+6,dad explained it meant it had 3- 2 barrel carbs . My dad was out of muscle cars by that point,in 1979 it was just a used car that didn't run.About a month later young Fred showed up at my house,now my dad wasn't living there at that point as my parents split up,so he asked me if I thought my dad was interested in the car,I said no,he asked since I was looking it over if I was interested,now remember I was 13 and could not drive for 3 more years.Still I asked well how much are you asking? He said the city of Fulton was sending his dad nasty letters since the car was unregistered and he had to get it out of there,he said and I can 34 years later he his words clearly," 50 bucks and get it the fuck out of there,"now mind you I worked a paper route and had the money to buy this car! When I started to think it over though,I had no money to repair the car,my mom didn't have a garage and my grandmother,s barn was in bad shape so I passed. THAT CAR WENT TO THE JUNK YARD! I still kick myself in the ass over that all these years later :brickwall:

 

[Basketcase]

I've told this one before...I could have had a second owner '69 Coronet R/T.perfect except fot the lower 1/4s, and needed a fuel pump. I know I could've traded a rusted out '69 Mustang for it because the guy with the R/T had a 6cyl Mustang and wanted the V8 stuff from mine. Passed because it had a column shift automatic.....car got crushed. :brickwall: :brickwall: :brickwall:

 

[moparchris]

Ok I will tell mine. It all started when I was 15 and there was an urban legend of a Superbird in a yard. Everyone and their mother tried to buy it. That was 1988. 3 years after learning and looking for this car a friend (that I just met through Super Shops) tells me that his dad has it in his yard. He had a yard full of abandoned cars. So I call BS and demand he take me to see it. Well it was midnight and his dad was asleep and I think he was afraid of his dad finding out about him bragging to his buddies about the car since he wanted to keep it a secret. So in the dark of night we sneak into his yard and take a look and sure it enough it is the car described earlier in this story. It was on a trailer and in pretty sad shape with the wing removed. Now, fast forward to 1995. I was working at a local gas station as the mechanic and I kept quite a few Mopars (mostly Road Runners) around. I came to be known as the Road Runner guy. Well this guy stops in and tells me about the same bird. I tell him yeah yeah I know not for sale. He tells me that the dude hangs out at the 7-11 in town and is there on Wednesdays. So being really hungry for a Superbird I begin to stop in and say hi to him for the next year on my way home from work. With a rotation of 5 Mopar drivers he is cool to me and we BS about cars and stuff. After about a year or so he tells me about the Superbird and, of course, I act like I have never heard of it. Well he tells me how its worth 100K and is one of 2 or 3 built for Nascar. I totally go with the story and leave a few minutes later. Well a month goes by and I can't find him anywhere. He finally walks into the gas station I worked at and proceeds to tell me that he is ready to sell the Superbird. I crap myself and then I grab my boss and about 10K in cash out of the gas station safe and pile into his Lincoln Town Car and drove straight over. We get there and check it out. Its an EV2 Tor-red 440 4 barrel 4 speed bird with 60K on it. Needless to say he expects 100K for it. So my boss proceeds to lay out 8500 in cash on the hood and tells him its 8500 or were packing. The guys eyes lit up and took the money. And since no story is good without pics here is the bird.

 

[moparchris]

It actually really bring up thoughts of :brickwall: Why did I ever sell it. I have been trying to get back into a Superbird ever since.



Here it is at home, cleaned up and being driver at least 3 days a week to work.

 

[69hemibeep]

It actually really bring up thoughts of :brickwall: Why did I ever sell it. I have been trying to get back into a Superbird ever since.



.

Chris, Chris, Chris How could you let it go :toetap: But I let a Hemi car go also :leave:

 

[Big John]

You guys have seen Ralph Barbagallo's black '70 Roadrunner... right?



That car sat next to my friend Dave's shop for about a year. I finally decided I wanted the car... It was cheap too. The hemi was gone, but the original paint was still on the car. It was "panel" painted, a custom paint treatment that was popular in the sixties.

I waited too long and the car had been sold the day before.....

 

[Roadcuda]

You guys have seen Ralph Barbagallo's black '70 Roadrunner... right?



That car sat next to my friend Dave's shop for about a year. I finally decided I wanted the car... It was cheap too. The hemi was gone, but the original paint was still on the car. It was "panel" painted, a custom paint treatment that was popular in the sixties.

I waited too long and the car had been sold the day before.....

Yeah, I have. He had it at the cruise-in a few weeks ago. Great looking car.

 

[moparchris]

It actually really bring up thoughts of :brickwall: Why did I ever sell it. I have been trying to get back into a Superbird ever since.



.

Chris, Chris, Chris How could you let it go :toetap: But I let a Hemi car go also :leave:

I know. :facepalm: I get really depressed when I looks at the pictures of that rusted heap. At least you ended up with a really desireable Hemi car after all.

 

[RdChicken]

There was a 69 roadrunner in my area that had been sitting the same spot since the mid to late 70's. I know at least a dozen people that tried to buy the car from the guy with no success. So after I bought my car about 13 years ago I figured I'd give it a shot since at this point it was a parts car at best. I went and checked it out, it had had the 383 4-speed N96 R4 car. The was pretty rusty, the floor boards were sitting on the ground. Wood chucks bored a hole through the floor board in front of the drive seat and filled the car full of dirt to about the top of the bench seat. I talked to the guy a couple times and he still wouldn't budge, I tried 2 or 3 times. About a month after my last visit I got a phone call from a friend asking me where that roadrunner was located. So, I told him and he responded with it's gone. At first I'm saying to myself WTF, the dude sold it. Then I tried thinking of any junk yards that were in the area and I got the phone and located it. The guy running the junk was surprised that someone would be looking for the car since it had only been in his junk yard for a day. So I high tailed it over to the junk yard and there it was. I went and looked at it again to inspect any damage from the move. It didn't look to bad and the dirt from the interior was removed. So tried to buy the car as a whole and of course he's not budging, he's just selling parts. So, I was mostly interested in the Air Grabber hood set up and inquired about that. He said $100, I couldn't get my wallet out fast enough. The hood has a little rust on it, the Air Grabber is in pretty good shape two small areas that needed attention and the air cleaner was just dirty. I went back a couple times after that and the guys prices were going up up up. So, I stopped going and the car eventually disappeared. That was about 5 years ago, I'm glad I had the opportunity to get what I could but I'm sure the car found the crusher with a handful of good parts still on it.

 

[Basketcase]

dontcha love morons like that? but at lest you got some parts off of it.

 

[jays69bird]

I have another one,when I was working at Par-k motors,my service manager Tommy Alnutt told me about a GTX convertible on County Rt.4 ( which I happen to live on) out by Red School House Rd. This was in 88, I drove out one Saturday morn. and sure enough in a field by a shitty looking trailer was a green 68 GTX convertible missing its motor and tranny. I pulled in and asked about it,some wood chucky looking guy came out,( with a beer in his hand at 10 in the morning no less) I asked about the car and got the old,"It's not for sale,I'm going to fix it up someday," line. I said OK,but if I where you I'd get it out of that field,bring it up here and at least put a tarp under it to protect it from rotting out. Years later I saw it advertised in the local Swap Sheet.My buddy Pat who had bought my 72 Charger from me and I went to look at it since he wanted an "X' The subframe rails were shot as were the floor boards.Really at that time no one was making all the stuff to fix the car.I saw the car shortly after that going down the road on a trailer,I hope it got somehow restored and not used as a parts car.I always keep an eye out for it.