This may be a scene not so uncommon in larger cities, but it’s a bit unusual for Eugene. Or maybe not, as it’s not really what it appears to be, a car with its wheels stolen. Anyway, who would steal the wheels from a Mercury Villager? The village idiot?
Let’s take a walk around and try to figure out what really is happening here. If that’s possible.
There’s wheels on this side! And a wheel center cap on the windshield.
A trademark Mercury Breezeway rear window.
Aha! The missing other two wheels are safely ensconced inside. Maybe they’re just taking a rest?
If you have any better explanation(s), fire away.
At first I was going to say well someone may have put wheels worth way more than the vehicle on it like some people do. However seeing the rest of the situation it is hard to say, maybe to make it harder for the tow truck driver to tow it away?
I’m going with the tow away angle.
My first thought was “Parts Car”… but then the picture of the wheels inside threw me.
Working prototype of Mercury Gyron minivan. Gryoscope stopped spinning, those are just spare tires.
Quest/Villagers are the true cockroaches of working class Chicago. So many still chugging along with ladders on top, going to construction jobs.
They are starting to diminish, but I’ve seen some with home made panels riveted on rusty body panels. Owners don’t want to give them up.
This Villager would be parted down to the frame if in NE IL.
You are so right about these being Chicago roaches. When I moved here in 2014 I could not tell you the last time I saw a Quest or Villager. Here in Rogers park they are everywhere.
Heh, you guys are so right. Here in Wicker Park I see an old Nautica that must be used for a cleaning service parked on the side of my building all the time.
Seems to be in the process of being parted out. Note the missing park lamp, headlamp,seat belts, sunvisor, seats, side glass, no license plates. Could be someone got what they wanted off it, pulled the plates and wheels intending to come back with 2 more old steel rims and tires and taking the alloy wheels and tires (making it more complicated to tow in the meantime) before it gets removed by the city.
Yeah, I’m thinking parts vehicle is the answer, as well. One of the most telling clues is the missing rear hatch glass. Notice the missing hinges, indicating the hatch was removed as a whole and the glass wasn’t just broken out.
And notice how the steelies and tires are on the street-side, so it’s not so obvious or outwardly look like an abandoned vehicle. Likewise, removing the inside wheels and tires make it harder to be towed. But it’s odd that someone only needed two of the four aluminum wheels.
The interior is curiously clean, though, for a parts vehicle. Usually, there’s quite a bit of leftover debris from the previous owner. I wonder if it was stolen, maybe off of a BHPH-type dealer lot, then parked for subsequent stripping.
Anti-repo insurance? Or maybe the owner was just having a low energy day. “OK, the tire rotation is half done. Boy, this is hard work. Think I’ll take a nap.”
LOL, sounds like one of my projects.
And here we have a perfect illustration as to how HOA’s got established in the first place. Although to be fair, there are probably city ordinances disallowing this as a permanent fixture as well, even in Eugene.
I’ll go with the attempted part-out angle and maybe even stolen to boot. Not all criminals are smart, after all.
Yeah I’d say that most municipalities have some sort of ordinance that prohibits the parking of unlicensed/inop vehicles on the street, but them enforcing them can vary based on the neighborhood.
In the city where I used to live in addition to the aforementioned regulations you can’t park a car on a public street for more than 24 hours and you can’t park a car with a for sale sign on a city street.
I had bought a car for its engine and Sunday eve after getting that out and any other parts I wanted I pushed it out on the street to make it easier for the wrecking yard to tow it away. By Mon afternoon it had a tow away sticker on it, and by Tue I got the letter from the city telling me to move it or get fined, though it was gone by the close of business Mon and it was not registered to me or my address.
Meanwhile a few months later someone abandoned a car with a flat tire parked way away from the curb and partially in front of the driveway for one of my rental houses. It took me weeks and threatening letters to the city council before it got the tow away sticker and then several more days before it was gone. I never got a letter for it being in front of the property I owned.
The difference of course was that my house was in a better, more expensive neighborhood than the one my rental properties were in.
This is actually on a street dead-ending inside a city park, not a neighborhood. maybe I should have pointed that out. To the right of the van is all parkland. It’s not at anyone’s home.
Well if it is park then city crews should be comming by from time to time to at least mow and otherwise take care of the grounds, but of course that doesn’t mean that they would do anything.
Last year I bought a house for my Daughter to live in while she goes to school and it too is on a street that dead ends in a park. Sitting on the side of the road, 1/2 block down from her place, parked backwards with the plates off was an early 80’s Olds A-body. On the dash was a note that was already pretty faded when we took possession that said “broke down, please don’t tow will return for it tomorrow”. It took 9 months before the sticker warning to have it moved in 24hrs or it would be towed was put on, and about another month before it actually disappeared. City employees visit the park at least twice per day every day of the year to un-lock and lock the bathrooms. Police visit the park frequently enough and even will have their lunch in the parking lot or meet to talk to each other there.
Let us know how long before its towed away.
Probably in the process of being parted out, hopefully, legally. This Mercury’s body panels look to be in good shape, but it is other aspects that date this Minivan. It is nice when there is a balance between HOAs and derelict vehicles lying around everywhere since either end of the spectrum is not ideal. I see a few sights like this in Portland, but not often.
Well aside from the state it’s in, the final picture is a very familiar childhood view. Since I was an only child and we had a large Golden Retriever we removed the middle row in our Villager where on road trips the dog would lay on her bed where the wheels are and I’d sit in the rear bench – of which this seems to have replaced with a pair of captains chairs
Deja vu… that van’s sister, a first gen Quest, was sitting on jack stands on the parkway I drive every day to and from work. In the Quest’s case it was getting a 4 wheel brake job that for some reason took several days. Go figure, the Quest was in about the same shape, kinda rough 🙂 .
I’m curious as to what the deal is with all the compact discs on the windshield. Are they homemade shims to keep the windshield from popping out?
In my unincorporated neighborhood, abandoned cars are handled by the sheriff’s department. A small Ford pickup was left in front of an empty lot in my neighborhood. When one of the neighbors complained, a bright green sticker appeared on the back window within a week. The truck was gone the following week.
Cars on highways or interstates are tagged and gone within 24 to 36 hours.
Cars that are in disrepair in driveways are also subject to the green sticker. Neighbor has a Honda Accord with severe body damage and a flat tire sitting in his driveway for 3-4 months. Not sure who complained (was not me), but a deputy came with a green sticker one day. Neighbor tried to wave him off, but the deputy insisted. Within days, the neighbor had the car towed for scrap.
The Libertarian in me bristles at the thought of being told that I cannot keep a vehicle that I legally own on property that I legally own. The homeowner in me fears for my property value because the guy next door is lackadaiscal about keeping his yard mowed, let alone if he was collecting scrap.
There’s a balance in there somewhere but I’ve not found it yet.
My Volvo got the dreaded pink sticker at one point, because I’d left it parked at the curb in my old neighborhood long enough that my registration had expired. They monitored that sort of thing rather closely as most of the properties had no off-street parking, so curbside spaces were at kind of a premium. The only reason it was there for so long is because I was having trouble starting it, despite appearances. The sticker warned me that I had 7 days to remove it before it would be towed; that certainly induced me to finally get the thing fixed so I could bring it back to my new place.
Do they pave the roads in Eugene? Or do they just let them crumble for decades? I think that the (likely) parts car here is the owner deciding that the surroundings are ghetto, and that an eyesore of a parts vehicle in progress is contributing to the “appropriate neighbourhood decor”. 🙂
I’m a retired public works employee, and as much as I love old cars, I couldn’t stand seeing derelict cars on the streets, especially adjacent to city owned property. Although I hated doing so, one time I had to report a straight, clean early Chevy LUV truck that had been sitting in front of a park with an expired registration. I wish someone could have saved it, but my job was to maintain city facilities, not foster elderly broken vehicles.
I agree with the parts van idea from the overall look of it but that was also a trick with my crowd if you had a buddy not sober enough to drive home but drunk enough to be stubborn about it. tires get locked up and you get them back when you are sober enough to install them yourself. and you always took two so the spare didn’t count!
saved fights over car keys on occasion!
Looks like a “Parts car” from here, too. The sun visors on those Villagers and Quests were notoriously floppy and it’s no surprise that the driver’s is in poor condition; the passenger’s was probably in better shape and has been liberated to fix someone else’s van.
I hate country music, but I can’t help thinking of that song “Maybe Next Time He’ll Think Before He Cheats”.
My story is this is in the process of being converted into a safe haven against mind reading alien invaders. Once the CD shield in the windshield is complete you can sit inside and be perfectly safe from those pesky ESP brainwave scans. The removal of the wheels makes it more difficult to lift with a alien tractor beam as the van is unbalanced and will tilt to one side making accurate lifting difficult.