When I came across this 116-vehicle auction, all from a single owner, I was astounded at the variety of vehicles on offer! If you can’t find something you are interested in at this sale, you aren’t a real vehicle enthusiast. Most are in true barn-find or field-find condition, although some have been stored indoors. They are scheduled to be auctioned off Thursday, September 10, in Quincy, Michigan. Here’s a link to the auction site, which we’re told will be updated on September 8 with more vehicle information.
I’m sure you found a car in the cover photo you’re interested in, but I picked out four others to highlight in the post. According to the serial number, this is a 1941 Lincoln Continental Club Coupe, originally equipped with a 292-cubic-inch V-12 producing 120 very smooth horsepower. It’s one of only 1,251 (some sources say 1,250) Continentals produced that year, of which only 850 were coupes. I’m not sure this is a restoration candidate, but think what you could do with that beautiful shell?
Believe it or not, under that pile of stuff, there’s a 1969 Jaguar E-Type. We don’t know much more than that it still has the original 4.2-liter, 6-cylinder engine. How do we know this? It turns out there is a list here of all the vehicles being auctioned. It’s painfully obvious that there’s a lot more information to come, but we can see that Mr. Rostetter liked a bunch of different cars!
This 1994 Mustang GT is one of the vehicles we know a bit more about. It’s fitted with the 5.0 liter V-8 and has 112,426 miles showing. The Mustang features new tires, a new battery, and has been stored inside. The auction ad says it’s rust-free as well.
Here we have an Opel GT, or the remnants of one. I have a soft spot for these “mini-Corvettes” and the coolest flip-over headlights known! Originally, this small German GT would have featured either a 1.1 or a 1.9-liter four-cylinder engine. The 1.9 was pretty peppy as I recall. Depending on the rust in the lower extremities, this car may well be salvageable.
I’m pretty sure this Shala “Vette” kit car (VW-Beetle based) is the same one Josh wrote up in 2015. Seriously, how many of the 12 (!) produced could have the same color scheme and a hardtop? Since Russ wrote up another one here in 2024, Barn Finds has featured 1/6 of the entire production run of this unusual kit! To quote Russ,
“The Shala Vette (or Shalavette) was the creation of well-known custom car designer Dick Dean. Using a VW Beetle chassis and engine/transmission, these had the potential of being some of the coolest of the dune buggy types that were popular in the 1960s and 1970s. Though usually built as a kit car, some of the 12 that saw the light of day may have been sold as turn-key cars.”
There are quite a few kit cars and highly modified vehicles in the auction–take a look at the listing and tell us which vehicle is your favorite and why in the comments!
Wow what a variety!! Is this all no reserve?
The Collyer Brothers got nothing on this guy!
Random guy # 300 passing by- ” You want to sell that car over there?”
Owner- ” Naah, I’m gonna fix her up someday”
That list seems heavy on Jaguars, more than a few Lincolns and Thunderbirds too. And then, one Toyota Corolla. Go figure. The one entry that’s intriguing is the Cobra kit car with a 427. But how do you bid sight unseen? Guess I’ll check the auction site.
Close enough I may go kick a few tires….
Please give us a run down!
Maybe. Barnfinds would let me write something up to give the lowdown
Ah, the glory of the hoarding world, where anyone with a ton of money and plenty of space can accumulate objects once desirable and turn them into trash through criminal neglect. The later acquisitions haven’t had a chance to deteriorate as much but the earlier ones are pitiful. Not that this guy is the only one who’s done this, but this is on a far grander scale than one normally encounters.
He does get points for his eclectic taste, however.
but if he did not hord these cars there would be nothing to restore
I accumulated over 100 cars, trucks, teactors, crawler loaders and trailers without a ton of money. I thought the outdoor storage idea was OK. Not ideal but OK.
40 years ago the to soil was scraped off the slope with an antique grader. Case crawler loader with1.5 yard bucket dug and loaded a 50s Oshkosh. It hauled itsloads up to yhe front and we raised the site of the ne shop over 3 feet. We made it level dèep in the sub clay. Road gravel was packed with heavy equipment. Then millings (ground blacktop) was applied and packed made it like a parking lot. It was good for a long time. Now some of the weeds are pretty good sized trees and it’s difficult to get to the parts cars.
I could add to my rust collection. Does every state seem to have a Quincy?
Fairly close to me. Might go and have a look see…
Just a lot of interesting rusty cars. If this was someplace like Nevada, California or Oregon it might be worth the drive with a trailer and pocket full of cash. But a pile of rusty vehicles out in a Michigan field? Probably more heartache than fun. (spoken by a former rust belt guy)
On one hand it’s sad to see these cars left to the elements, on the other, it’s a trove of parts that someone is looking for…
I think this is a scam! These are obviously photos of a civilization lost in the last century and recently discovered during a search through the Amazon Rain Forest..
Or maybe even the eBay Rain Forest!
It’s amazing the amount of stuff some people will hoard. I have one old car that keeps me busy enough.
I would love to pick up that Lotus for cheap. However, there is no such thing as a cheap Lotus.
NOTHING MORE EXPENSIVE THAN A CHEAP LOTUS, ROLLS ROYCE OR LAND ROVER. Although fun when done, the frustrating never ending costs often taint the fun value.
(And I’m a Lotus fan!)
A friend of mine had a job driving a flatbead that picked up cars for donation to a children’s charity. He got “First Dibs” on t whatever was donated. On the way way to the scrap yard, he made a diversion to his backyard instead.
He acquired lots of XJ Jags, a couple of Saabs ( including a Sonnet type 1-with a rusted frame ) two Fieros ;one was a indy pace car edition ,half of an early Lotus Europa … only the passenger side: it made a nice wall hanging and a Jensen Interceptor )with a mopar 440!)I was tempted by quite a few things he had. He had about 40 cars in his back yard, with a 6 foot stockade fence. you couldnt see what was inside the fence without standing on a ladder: the neighbors had code enforcement on speed dial. This was on the days before drones.
Nothing there I would pay any money for
Everything but the kitchen sink in this auction. Oops! No, there’s a kitchen sink, too, right in front of the Pacer.
Its really sad to see so many classics deteriorating in a field like this. The seller bought them, let them rot away, then is reselling them. Kind of “reverse flipping”!
if he did save them from the scrap man they would have been distroyed ,the people that save these from the the scrapper saw something special about these cars and saved them,watch mr.goodplires as the midwest is being cleaned out of old cars in fields,never will happen in 50 years from now, as no one is hording cars
Spotted a Facel Vega? That would be worth restoring!
Nope, none listed on the web site.
I’ll take dibs on the “Alfo Romero”…
Are you sure that’s not an Alfo Romeo?
On line 60 of the spreadsheet, I says “VW Alfo Romero”…heck, I wanna buy it just to see what it is…
This guy is interested in it too.
I wonder what some of these cars actually went for….
I was there as well. Purchased a few cars. Unfortunately a lot of the cars were purchased by local scrappers, who immediately scrapped them. Might be posting pics of the things I purchased on my Instagram @robbyswaps