Has Anyone Ever Found an Abandoned Model "A"
- Thread starter ericr
- Start date
In the early 60's I found a few,one was on Welsley Island,in Canada or near,I borrowed a few parts.I found a coupe in Rockland county New york and removed a few parts ,also A lot of "A's were in wrecking yards and the prices for the parts were dirt cheap,God I miss the good old days!!!
Years ago I bought parts from a guy that had several outbuildings stuffed with A and T parts. He acquired this trove, along with several cars that he had restored, as abandoned vehicles scattered throughout inland Northern California and Southern Oregon. He worked as a dispatcher for a large timber outfit and had work crews on the lookout for old Fords abandoned in the woods. Sometimes they would load one up and haul it back to his place in town at the end of the day. He had more stuff than he could handle but was happy to sell off parts if anybody asked.
When he died in the 1980's, his wife tried to sell off everything on the condition that the buyer take it all. The Model T guys only wanted the T parts and the Model A guys only wanted the A stuff and somehow they couldn't seem to coordinate a purchase on the widow's terms. An impatient daughter from LA got involved and I heard that she arranged for all the tonnage of parts to be scrapped and the cars went to an auction in Nevada. He did have some nice stuff, including a nearly complete 1928 Phaeton with an unblemished body.
When he died in the 1980's, his wife tried to sell off everything on the condition that the buyer take it all. The Model T guys only wanted the T parts and the Model A guys only wanted the A stuff and somehow they couldn't seem to coordinate a purchase on the widow's terms. An impatient daughter from LA got involved and I heard that she arranged for all the tonnage of parts to be scrapped and the cars went to an auction in Nevada. He did have some nice stuff, including a nearly complete 1928 Phaeton with an unblemished body.
CHuDWah
Well-known member
Found a nice driver-quality Coupe in a barn - had it bought when the seller decided we also had to take a parts car (for more money). That sank the deal.
Found a Tudor in the woods - landowner gave permission to take what we wanted. Some of the parts went on our Sport Coupe and CCPU.
Found a Tudor in the woods - landowner gave permission to take what we wanted. Some of the parts went on our Sport Coupe and CCPU.
Ray in La Mesa
Well-known member
I went to high school in Big Bear Lake in the San Bernardino, Calif. Used to ride my horse all over Big Bear Valley. I was restoring a '31 s/w sedan and needed a windshield frame. On one ride near an old miner's cabin hanging on pine tree limb, (honest to God!), was a Model A windshield frame!! I didn't even need to get off my horse. Carried it home and, unfortunately was not for a s/w. The following winter while driving through downtown Big Bear I I spotted a water pumper off road buggy with a Model A windshield, this one was for a s/w so traded mine for that one. Truth is stranger than fiction some times!
chap52
Well-known member
Hey Ray, My buddie and I went up to Big Bear in about 1970 to pick up a Model A coupe with my brother-in-law. Plan was for my brother-in-law and I to drive it down the mountain to Anaheim where he lived and my friend to drive the car back. We went about a mile, he discovered the lack of brakes and we rolled into a trailer park barely stopping before the end of the driveway. Left the car there and he came back the next day with a trailer That's my Big Bear Model A adventure... Chap
vern hodgson
Well-known member
Part one
back in the mid sixties I scavenged eastern washington for A parts and got my tudor from an old orchard, tookit home, putzed around a bit and it started right up, began firing hazel nut shells out the tail pipe like a machine gun, drove it for many years.
Then I was told by a hunter friend about an abandoned farm, located on a bend of the Columbia river, on the beach were the remains of a single engine aircraft and further up was the old farm, littered with old car hulks. So many that the hunters had broken out the wooden spokes and used them for a campfire. There was no other access by road, they had come in by boat. Curiosity aroused I began searching, they had travelled up river from where the launched their boat for a given time, rounded the bend a seen the old aircraft. So after many hours of studying maps and doing calculations I and a fellow A nut left the city and drove back roads to the closest we could get to the old ranch.
Several hours of hiking, one portion following an old road built into the side of a basalt cliff, by drilling holes and driving 8 inch dia. logs into the cliff face then filling and covering with rocks and soil to make a roadway, thus we worked our way to the ranch. Mind you we felt this was going to be a real goose chase. I mean crashed aircraft, old outbuildings full of derelict autos of vintage years, cars and hulks scattered around the immediate vicinity, come on. But youth and optimism prevailed and we forged ahead. Oh and the name of the old ranch "The Spanish castle ranch"
Well we pushed on thru the sage and basalt and lo and behold there was the aircraft and upland from the beach the remains of old sod covered buildings. Scattered all about was just as we had been told, old cars hulks. We found old chevys, a star I cannot recall the various old makes, probably fifteen or twenty hulks among which was a 29 roadster body, a ford coupe body and parts of a sedan. If you know the desert, what you get is light surface rust on the sheet metal, rarely any serious rust outs. It was like finding the lost dutchman mine to us.
Well, the road was some three miles back, so what to do. Our plan, with the optimism of youth was to section the roadster into at least two sections, and carry them out on a pole between the two of us. You know how it is, we only thought a short distance ahead, so we cut the sub frame just forward of the rear of the door. That is to say we cut mostly thru until we broke our last hacksaw blade. So home we went and formulated plans to return asap with a means of rolling the sections out to where we could load them into our truck. Having reached the ranch we found the access road into the area from a different location out in the remote sage brush foot hills. Upon our return to our vehicle we encountered the local forest ranger who informed us we had parked on a road labeled as "no access" we were awarded a fifty dollar ticket to the rangers ball. Well to wrap up, we returned, bouncing over miles of remote washed out, pot holed road to the site, armed with many hack saw blades (these were the days before battery powered tools) and other various tools, we arrived at the ranch only to find some one had beat us to the punch. Who, the forest ranger?? Every thing gone, even the aircraft. But it was a great adventure for a couple of young guys.
So perhaps a barn member knows some thing about this place?? Hopefully it was not all simply hauled off for scrap.
back in the mid sixties I scavenged eastern washington for A parts and got my tudor from an old orchard, tookit home, putzed around a bit and it started right up, began firing hazel nut shells out the tail pipe like a machine gun, drove it for many years.
Then I was told by a hunter friend about an abandoned farm, located on a bend of the Columbia river, on the beach were the remains of a single engine aircraft and further up was the old farm, littered with old car hulks. So many that the hunters had broken out the wooden spokes and used them for a campfire. There was no other access by road, they had come in by boat. Curiosity aroused I began searching, they had travelled up river from where the launched their boat for a given time, rounded the bend a seen the old aircraft. So after many hours of studying maps and doing calculations I and a fellow A nut left the city and drove back roads to the closest we could get to the old ranch.
Several hours of hiking, one portion following an old road built into the side of a basalt cliff, by drilling holes and driving 8 inch dia. logs into the cliff face then filling and covering with rocks and soil to make a roadway, thus we worked our way to the ranch. Mind you we felt this was going to be a real goose chase. I mean crashed aircraft, old outbuildings full of derelict autos of vintage years, cars and hulks scattered around the immediate vicinity, come on. But youth and optimism prevailed and we forged ahead. Oh and the name of the old ranch "The Spanish castle ranch"
Well we pushed on thru the sage and basalt and lo and behold there was the aircraft and upland from the beach the remains of old sod covered buildings. Scattered all about was just as we had been told, old cars hulks. We found old chevys, a star I cannot recall the various old makes, probably fifteen or twenty hulks among which was a 29 roadster body, a ford coupe body and parts of a sedan. If you know the desert, what you get is light surface rust on the sheet metal, rarely any serious rust outs. It was like finding the lost dutchman mine to us.
Well, the road was some three miles back, so what to do. Our plan, with the optimism of youth was to section the roadster into at least two sections, and carry them out on a pole between the two of us. You know how it is, we only thought a short distance ahead, so we cut the sub frame just forward of the rear of the door. That is to say we cut mostly thru until we broke our last hacksaw blade. So home we went and formulated plans to return asap with a means of rolling the sections out to where we could load them into our truck. Having reached the ranch we found the access road into the area from a different location out in the remote sage brush foot hills. Upon our return to our vehicle we encountered the local forest ranger who informed us we had parked on a road labeled as "no access" we were awarded a fifty dollar ticket to the rangers ball. Well to wrap up, we returned, bouncing over miles of remote washed out, pot holed road to the site, armed with many hack saw blades (these were the days before battery powered tools) and other various tools, we arrived at the ranch only to find some one had beat us to the punch. Who, the forest ranger?? Every thing gone, even the aircraft. But it was a great adventure for a couple of young guys.
So perhaps a barn member knows some thing about this place?? Hopefully it was not all simply hauled off for scrap.
Cool 33
Senior Member
I developed a 'thing' for old cars in the mid 60's. An aunt told me about a car that she believed to be an A in a shed on a farm out on a dirt road near Kemp , Texas. Dirt roads were common then in a lot of rural areas of Texas. I got my mom to take me out to try to find it the next time we went to visit, and we did. It was close to the road in a very dilapidated shed with no other buildings around. There was a very sturdy barbed wire fence, but I got through it. It was a 28 or 29 sport coupe, no tires or interior but was complete and very straight. It had a rumble seat and when I opened it there was a long dead owl in it. I have often wished that I had taken my mom's little camera and taken a picture of it. For some reason I never inquired further or went back to see it. My dad was a carpenter and a man and his son that he worked with occasionally also had A's. Several years later while setting around eating lunch old cars came up and they were telling how they had bought an A with a dead bird in the back. I assumed that it was probably the same car and was glad that it had been rescued. That is the first of many over the years that I found and did take a lot of pictures of and rescued a few, Both A's and V-8's.