Several weeks ago I received an intriguing text from a friend that included a picture. Once I figured out what was under the thick layer of dust in the picture, I was very interested in seeing more. He proceeded to send me several more pictures that he had taken the prior day.
My friend had traveled to see a relative of a different friend, who apparently owns a large property upon which a large quantity of interesting cars had been squirreled away . What makes it doubly interesting is that the location is in a part of the United States I would not have thought of as having many of these particular cars to begin with.
Unfortunately at the time they were sent to me the opportunity to take more detailed pictures had passed, perhaps in the future another opportunity will present itself. Doubly frustrating is that my friend is a professional photographer who on this occasion found himself armed with nothing more than an iPhone, so please excuse the sub-par photography.
The lead photo shows three BMW 2002 models, the center one being the more desirable and much rarer Tii version, of which the current owner is the original purchaser. All three look to be in serviceable condition with the red one missing the front grille, at least as far as one can see through the dust. Can anyone identify the motorcycle in between?
There is also a green Isetta that also looks in excellent condition.
And if you didn’t like it in green, perhaps one in red is more appealing. But wait, what is peeking out from under the cover to the left?
Why, it’s a 1957 VW Beetle with just over 30,000 original miles! Simply amazing.
Moving outside, here is an example of a more recent mid-to-late-80’s Saab 900. Even though the badge is missing, I believe it is a Turbo, although running (well, sitting) on steelies at the present time. The hood being slightly ajar makes me think it may be in need of some repair. There are apparently three or four more similar Saabs dotted around the property and while not exactly rare or old, in this part of the country they would be very uncommon. (The truck in front belongs to my friend, the license plate is not of the same state as where these cars are located, in case you were thinking of using that as a clue to locate this stash).
Hopefully one day we can have another opportunity to see more of these cars in greater detail but for now, this will have to do. The owner did ask to have the link to this article sent to him, and I hope he will register on CC, log in and leave some comments regarding the cars.
At what point does a layer of dust become a layer of dirt?
The 900s are what I am really interested in but I have to wonder how solid the under carriage is on those cars if they are just parked in the grass. The plastic panels do a good job of hiding rust, but since the fuel filler door, hatch sheet metal, and hood look solid my guess is the rust is probably not too bad. A funny thing about those Saab spoilers is how they are squishy rubber like a stress ball, never seen any other car company do that.
Alfa Romeo Spiders had the same squishy rear spoiler before the 1986 CHMSL requirement. I believe some Audi 4000 quattros had it as well and that one was painted as well.
I think the dust becomes dirt after about a decade. But then sometime after the second decade it just turns into additional patina and the cars are worth more with it instead of having it washed off 🙂
That’s more than one layer of dust….
I am interested in the Isettas and maybe the Bug, as much as I love gigantic cars, I do have a thing for teeny tiny cars too.
I’ll take one of the ’02s please. Can’t tell if they’re roundies or later ones, but I’ll take one either way. Love the auxiliary seating. Hope it didn’t destroy the roof.
Oval window for me, followed closely by the Isettas.
My two Beetles (’62, ’63 projects) have nowhere near that much patina. Yet.
The 3 wheelers(aka bubble cars) were popular when I was a kid in the 60s as they could be driven on a motorcycle licence.Always liked the BMW 2002 ,usually seen in orange but they were very rare and expensive.
Although the Gas Monkey Garage guys will never visit here you might want to forward the address of this place to Antique Archaeology. I love watching those guys try to talk a hoarder out of even one piece of their horde. 😛
Why so vague about which state (of the Union) they’re in? It’s not like we can use that info the narrow down the location to the point that we’d be able to badger the guy. I’m just curious as to what state SAABs are perceived to be this rare in.
I’m only being vague since I was specifically requested to be. However, upon re-reading my post, instead of the words “very rare” I probably should have used the words “relatively rare”. In my opinion that would cover at least half of the states.
I would not think that Saabs are particularly rare in absolute numbers on either coast, the New England area, or within several hundred miles of Chicago or Denver. I would think that there are not many in the Dakotas or New Mexico for example though…(but could certainly be mistaken).
That motorcycle might be a Honda 200T a broughamed bike that had a patch of vinyl down the center of the gas tank.
Jeez, I could post a picture of an IKEA warehouse and you guys would find a piece of Brougham in it. Unbelievable. 🙂
But that does seem to be what the bike is, it looks correct to me.
The plates on the barn wall suggest the Kansas/Missouri area. BMWs older than the e21 were extremely rare there. In high school, I wanted a beater 2002, or better yet anything with a BMW M30 engine, provided I could afford it with a few years’ lawn mowing money.
This was the late 1980s, in Topeka, and European imports were pretty rare. (My dad’s VW Beetle had been laughed off the road sometime around 1980, I think.)
I managed to look at one extremely rusty 2002, in several months of following the classified ads, before settling on an early e12. I pretty much had the only one on the road, as far as I knew, back in 1988-89.
So, assuming the old license plates reflect where Jim’s friend’s friend saw these, 3 02’s is pretty special.
That bike looks like a 2 stroke with an expansion chamber coming over the top. The wide bars suggest off road to me and we can’t see the tires. There were more bikes that had that strapped looking tank. You may be right. It will be interesting to see and I hope we have the opportunity to know more.
A low mileage oval is pretty rare and pretty neat.
To carry this a little further, this is from Google Images. A second look at the bars on the bike in the story shows the cross piece for support. IIRC those are called renthal bars. I am attaching a picture of a Penton 125 which is what crossed my mind when I saw this. Note the strap on the tank and the wide renthal bars. Any number of these styled after the ISDT bikes probably had the strap. I think though that this tank looks pretty close. The expansion chamber makes the look that I think the subject bike has as it sweeps across the top of the engine.
That’s my $.02 worth. Now I guess we wait and see.
I think your right, I had thought the bars might have been changed but now I see the expansion chamber which I missed at first.
I agree, this is a dirt bike with 1 cylinder 2-cycle engine. It has fanned out cooling fins on the head and the exhaust expansion chamber goes from left to right. I found a few but none had a tank as boxy as this one, as high as this one and with a strap.
Interesting colllection. Could definitely use a bucket of soapy water though. Those two Isettas are probably worth the most.
I call contracting the disease that is those horribly gorgeous Saabs.
I think a layer of dirt like that in a dry shed/barn is a very good preservative, blocking uv and as a barrier against stuff in general. Wash it off eventually and the paint is probably not that bad.
The cars are definitely in good storage but hopefully they get properly revived. 2002s are a nice car, I’m not sure I would like to drive an Isetta any distance tough.
This story reminded me of this link, which i found earlier today. Art or “crime”? http://driving.ca/bmw/auto-news/news/rare-classics-rotting-in-the-woods-on-purpose
Art and crime. And a healthy dose of Guatemalan Insanity Peppers…
Probably a Penton 250 or 400, they had the leather strap on the gas tank. Cylinder finning looks big enough to be one of the larger engines. KTM made them, about 1978 Penton disappeared and they’ve been KTM.
Looking at the green Penton posted above, that’s a 125 and the gas tank is just a little above the seat. The bigger engines sucked gas, needed a bigger gas tank, so they made the tank a lot higher above the seat. But still kept the tank width about the same so it wasn’t like straddling a 55 gallon drum. So it’s a 250 or 400 for sure.
Amazing stash for anywhere! Such focused and tasteful hoarding…
I think the size of the headlights on the Isettas indicates that they were US-spec imports originally – which seem to be rarer than the European cars, even in the US. Google says about 8,500 were sold here by BMW, which is actually way more than I would’ve guessed, but it also says that not many have survived (estimated to be < 1,000). I also just learned that there was, in fact, a 3-wheeled Isetta built under license in the U.K. (I was all set to correct Gem on that comment… shows what I know!)
02s are getting thin on the ground where I live. I still see them, but almost always as restored garage queens. It's nice to see any 02, of course, but I do miss the curbside beaters – they wore that look real well. One of the first "CC" sightings that made a huge impression on me when I was a kid was seeing an honest-to-goodness 2002 Turbo in the middle of nowhere near Cooperstown, NY while on vacation. It was the single coolest car I had ever seen in my life at that point, and it's still pretty high up there. I've never seen another one since.
I'd gladly take any one of these, even the Saabs!
02s are getting thin on the ground where I live. I still see them, but almost always as restored garage queens. It’s nice to see any 02, of course, but I do miss the curbside beaters – they wore that look real well.
…and of course 12 hours or so after making this comment, I saw the most beater-iffic 2002 I’ve seen in years:
Whoa! Looks like it came out of Sheepshead Bay. I love it all the same. 🙂