Roadside Sighting: Forlorn 1969 Camaro
Reader Scott M recently spotted a rather sad looking Camaro parked by someone’s house. He decided to go knock on the door to see if he could find out what the story was. The owner told him that this 1969 Camaro was his wife’s very first car. It’s a base car with the six-cylinder engine, column shift automatic and front bench seat. Even though it’s a base car, it’s quite rare if it really is a ’69 with a front bench seat. Scott decided to ask if it was something they would let go of since it’s out in the open rusting away. And as you might guess, he told Scott that he will never sell this car. While easy to understand the sentimental value, it’s hard to watch a classic like this be left to just rust away.
We want to thank Scott for sharing his sighting with us, even if it isn’t for sale. At least he was able to document a little bit of this Camaro’s history and perhaps one day soon the owner will decide to let it go to a good home. If you spot any cool finds, grab a picture or two and email them to us at [email protected] so we can feature your Roadside Sightings!
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Comments
Jeeze, at least get it under a cover…maybe throw all that valuable stuff under the carport out into the yard and get the Camaro under there. Some people…
What a loss
Just my thought, but maybe his wife would be honored if someone restored her very first car( that she must of been proud of) and stopped it from going to a crusher. Now was that her very first lawn mower to ? Just kidding
Another 15 feet and it would have been under the awning.
Nah, other “valuable stuff” in there too. These are pack rats, someday when they are pushing up daisies, someone will come in with masks on and sort out the scrap metal then hopefully dig a pit for the rest and bulldoze it in. If he truly cared about her “first car”, he would protect it the best he could and at least lay out plans for a simple restoration. If not, he should look to capitalize on the car and see it goes to a new owner. That in my opinion is the only two logical things to do, but judging by that yard, logic isn’t high on their priority list.
Great feature idea. I’ve driven by a 64 El Camino for 30 years now between Westfield, In and Tipton, In off US 31. It is well planted and lawn art at best…will have to get a picture and a story.
Please include where the car is located, we live in a big country, it would help with the context of the write up, it doesn’t need to be more specific the “near xyz city”.
I miss the old Cars in Barns website, have you thought about adding a dedicated section for readers submissions? There are a lot of cars still sitting around that aren’t for sale that people might find interesting.
Steve R
I agree with Steve R. In my neighborhood alone here in Tucson, there are quite a few classic cars just sitting there. It upsets me to see them rotting away. If I could I would take pics and post them here to share: ’70 Mach 1, ’57 Bel Air, ’68 Camaro, ’62 Continental, ’82 Vette, just to name a few.
Hey Jerry, we’d love to see these cars. Can you dispatch someone to grab some pics?
There’s at least one car socked away in every neighborhood like this. You never know until you see it. An Alfa Duetto in a hay loft, A Big Healey and a Lotus 7 in the basement of a downtown business, what’s left of James Deans’ 550 Porsche is somewhere. Keep looking.
Like the Bullit Mustang that came out of hiding recently, I hear the James Dean 550 body shell is located and currently there are negotiations taking place to secure legal ownership before it is revealed. The group that located the car will not reveal its location unless they can make an agreement with whomever it considered the legal owner. Maybe the Barris estate, maybe an insurer.
I read in a major automotive publication maybe 20 years ago, that someone hauled the wreckage of the Porsche around the country to county fairs and such, as a warning of the dangers of speed. The car was mostly made of aluminum, and people would get out their pen knives and slice off small chunks. Soon there was nothing left but the engine, trans and differential.
Same color 69 sat right on the corner house…all knew about it….she died and the family moved it down the street some 20 years ago…not sure what happen to it. Just these last month’s her house was torn down and a new one going up – she had almost an acre on that corner.
To each his own .
Probably Canadian not that there’s anything wrong with that
Being Canadian, you’re right, there is nothing wrong with that, but why do you say “probably Canadian”?
For almost 40 years I watched a pile of boxes under a carport 2 miles from my house. Friends of mine that lived for 20 years 300 yards away argued with me about what was under the carport.
One day a truck with Texas plates showed up (in central PA) to extract the 1969 Mustard yellow Mustang Fastback from under the pile.
I didn’t have a camera with me (forgot about my phone), But had an nice chat with the owner.
After a joining the Army he had bought it new. It was 2 years old when he wrecked the second time and parked it (with the left front corner rumpled) in the carport at his mothers house. After retiring from the Army he took a government job. After retiring from that job he decided he was going to revive his first new car.
I asked if he had photographed it in the car port. He had not. I urged him to Take photos of the carport and the car still covered with the dust. Also to document the restoration.
All cars that are setting, are not forgotten…
Did not catch if the man’s wife was still alive or not. I’d leave it alone, sentimental value can be very powerful.
Everything is for sale at the right price. Throw 50 grand at him (trying to get into today’s barn find mindset).
I notice no mention of location.
Dale, the car is not for sale.
Sadly we all have these stories of out in the open when cover is near.
How old was the guy who said no?
I only ask as the relatives usually sell off for scrap pricing unknowingly and you might keep it on radar.
I watched a big block special edition 60 thunderbird convert rot over twenty years in my youth. A barn was twenty feet behind and same story each time of going to restore someday. The last stop was a couple years back when the sapling was growing through the rotted convert top ☹️
Ironically later I called about an 70 engine list for a project and asked where it was and same rural place where the old man had passed and it was same location.
I relayed stopping over the years to a grandson and he stated they put it on EBay and a person had came in taking pieces like top , vins and big block after purchase. Yep another fraud car was to be born 😮
I have been watching a 1970 Monte Carlo that has been parked in the exact same spot on a driveway since the early eighties. (Minneapolis western suburb). Watched it go from a very nice driver to a pile of rust. Still sitting there to this day.
What western suburb? Im north of Minneapolis 12 miles.
Same here haved watched a 69 GTO 4 spd. hardtop rot away in a driveway in southern Mass for the last 15 years or so. Have spoken to the owner & has no interest in restoring it but also doesn’t want to sell it either. Funny thing is it sits right in front of a 1 1/2 stall garage asked why he didnt stick it in there said he needed the garage for storage. He had the door of the garage open when I spoke to him & it was full of old furniture & boxes. Like someone posted to each his own its a shame though.
I know a gentleman that owns several self storage lots. He has a sign in his office that reads “only in America do people leave a $30,000 car outside while they use their garage to store junk.”
Hey Chris I’m 54 and that GTO has been in that driveway for as long as I can remember. Much longer than 15 yrs ,long enough for the 85 Monte Carlo SS parked next to it to rot away.Both cars are decinigrating before our eyes.The crazy thing is there is a guy about three miles away with enough GTO parts to fix that car and then some ,But he’s an old timer and really doesn’t advertise any more .He literally has 2 or 3 buildings filed with stuff.
Give the guy a break. It’s his (or his wife’s car) and he can do whatever the hell he wants to with it.
I literally know of dozens of cars like this and was a regular contributor to cars in Barns before they folded. This was a V-code 440 six pack car with its complete original drivetrain and Ramcharger hood in the barn. Yup, saved it
Another….
It’s really sad when sentimentality morphs into stupidity.
WOW! Stupidity? I thought we lived in a FREE country to do what we want with our own property. Why can’t we just enjoy the pictures on Barn Finds and leave out hurtful moron comments to ourselves. CountyJoe ,comments like that is Stupidity!!!!
agree,bring back the thumbs down for these whinners :) there car, they can let it rot
He didn’t say people should not be allowed to do what they want in a free country, he just called out stupidity as most of us here see it. No one is taking a crowbar to these people and demanding a sale, just speaking the obvious. People need to loosen up their shorts a bit, take a deep breath, and relax. The problem in this country is that people right away jump to either political correctness, or another strong held belief without thinking something through before they rush to speak. Charleston Heston spoke to Harvard College back in 1999 and discussed this. More of us should Google that and read it. Even if we do not like what someone is saying, can we not all try to be civil and allow free speech to be a reality?
I know where there is a pasture with at least 10 first gen Broncos in it. They’ve been there 35 to 40 yrs rotting to the groung. In the bible belt. Wwt n humid.
I will take some pix of another nice car sitting outside on my next trip across town and post em on this site. I’ve tried a few times over the past 10 years to buy it to no avail. The guy runs a small repair shop with lots of room inside. Says its gonna be a father son project and will never sell. Runs and drives and is solid so far but not looking good these days. Its a 66 Bonneville wagon with factory 421 ci. 4 SPD.
I know where there is a pasture with at least 10 first gen Broncos in it. Pasture is grown over.They’ve been there 35 to 40 yrs rotting to the groung. In the bible belt. Wet n humid.
If you really wanted to get that camaro, You could volunteer to help fix it up so the lady could drive it again for free. After time passes they will remember your kindness and probably let you have a shot at buying it in the future.
Good luck with that! After a couple of years of trying to buy an old truck from a family member, I finally offered to get it running at least. I put a LOT of time & a bunch of my own money into the project & got it pretty nice back on the road. A few months later, got the phone call, while out in it, someone flagged him down & made him an offer on it he couldn’t refuse, sold he sold it. He at least thanked me for helping him get the truck going, but never gave me the chance to buy it, or even offer to reimburse me for what I put into it. I learnt my lesson.
The lesson should have been to have a clear talk with them before doing what you did. You should have had an understanding that if it was ever to be sold, you had first dibs, but I suspect this party of which you speak really isn’t standing on high moral ground anyway.
Yep, my mistake was never making him a cash offer. Anytime I asked him to sell it to me, I was told that it wasn’t for sale so I didn’t press the matter. I thought it was understood that I wanted at least the chance to buy the truck, but apparently I wasn’t plain enough.
He also has about a 63 or 64 Triumph that I had tried to buy, last time I saw it, the shed had fallen in on top of it. Sometimes I think it’s just greed, or that he would rather have a stranger have something than a member of the family, as I have learned he has done similar things to other cousins & an uncle.
Hey Tyler here is some advise my uncle told me when I was about13 .”It doesn’t pay to be nice to anyone ,9 times out of 10 they will screw you over”.Words that I have never forgotten, and for the most part so true.
Well, this reminds me of a time when I was in love with Ford retractable hardtop convertibles. I worked as a auto mechanic in Provo, Utah. I was driving around the area one fine day when I spotted a 57 retractable in a field behind a house rotting away. Same thing happened, I stopped to ask about the possible sale of the car. No the man told me “it was his wife’s first car’ to be restored someday. I don’t know the rest of the story, but it would be interesting to find out.
“Well, I seen one just like it sell for $60,000 on TV the other day, so yeah, I know what I got there.”
I can’t even begin to count the number of times I’ve heard that comment or some variation thereof! Last time I was told that, it was a 71 Mach 1. I was already grumpy & asked why he didn’t sell it for 50 grand instead of letting it rust away. He just looked at me dumbfounded because as if he had never thought of that. I just walked away.
So, would you have tried to make a profit from it yourself? Or, would you have kept it in your collection and cherished it? The former idea is ruining our hobby. No wonder Joe Sixpacks are confused and greedy. If the money wasn’t in these cars, the hobby could go back to what it once was. The way it is now, people are afraid of making a blind sale, afraid they are getting swindled, everyone loses.
thats like the 63 chev belair 4 door 6 stick, that needed everything didn’t run! i went with a friend who wanted it for a parts car to fix his 63 impala SS, we got there was the same car sell at barrett jackson for 40 grand? that what I want for it! the town made his git rid of it as it sit beside his house! he got 50 bucks for it for scrap!
There is a 68 Cougar XR7 – hideaway headlights, vinyl top, original wheels – sitting in a driveway near my house. It hasn’t moved in the 14 years that I’ve lived here. I will give the guy credit; I’ve seen him washing it, pumping up the tires, etc., and it is sitting on a concrete pad. He may be a cockeyed optimist that he’ll ever get it restored or running, but at least he hasn’t let it deteriorate.
On a recent trip to Snowshoe WV, I drove around the area while my son was skiing. I couldn’t believe the number of 60s and 70 era pickups, F1s, C10s, that I saw in yards. Many of them looked like rust heaps, but quite a few looked restorable.
While down at Snowshoe, we visited the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Green Bank WV. They have a bunch of vehicles that were bought with government money and can’t be sold, so they sit in a fenced in gravel lot on the property. They have a really nice Checker Marathon and probably a dozen or so 50s-70s era trucks – all of which look like they could be restored very easily.
Ah, to have a 20 car garage and a winning lottery ticket! :)
On the other hand, I have bought at least 2 trucks hat I had been told time time & time again that they weren’t for sale. I just had not been asking the right person. Both times it was the wife that I spoke with & then got a call that same night or the next day asking when I wanted to come get it. The wife wanting the “eyesore” out of the yard trumps the husband “restoring it one day.”
Good tip Tyler.
So, would you have tried to make a profit from it yourself? Or, would you have kept it in your collection and cherished it? The former idea is ruining our hobby. No wonder Joe Sixpacks are confused and greedy. If the money wasn’t in these cars, the hobby could go back to what it once was. The way it is now, people are afraid of making a blind sale, afraid they are getting swindled, everyone loses.
I have never bought a car with the intent to flip it. Sure, one of those trucks I ended up selling, but I had gotten it running, cleaned it up, & a year or so later, a cable technician was doing a repair & asked if it was for sale, as his son was looking for something like that. The kid was in auto mechanics trade school & worked part time at a body shop. I shot him a fair price & he took me up on it. I ended up making about $500 on the truck, but seeing the smile on that young man’s face (he was 21) as he was driving it away was priceless. He occasionally sends me pics as he has been working on it, making it into his dream truck.
I’ve sold other stuff after restoring so I can invest it into another project, but that usually ends up as a loss.
I’ve been working on this truck for almost 5 years, after trying to buy it for at least 8-10 years. The previous owner now wants it back. I’ve told him I’ll give him a chance when it’s finished, but otherwise it probably won’t be for sale.
I like that. Thats what our hobby should be about, good for you!
This is what it looked like when I bought it
This is the other truck “bought from the wife”. I can’t find the before pics, but suffice it to say it looked nothing like this when we drug it up on the trailer.
it is all answered in chucker’s explanation, barret jackson and tv and this mentality has destroyed the hobby forever for the average old car lover. just the way it is they are on every corner can’t save them all
Agreed. We need to take the rich boys who are looking for investments and just to show off, out of the equation, but how can we do that? I’m afraid it is due to income inequality and we can’t, though I question writing that, might come off a little too political, and this is not the place for that. What I can say here is, there are two kinds of car buyers, regular boys (and girls!) who do much the work themselves and do it out of love, then there are the people who obviously don’t get paid by the hour, have ample spending money they will never miss using, they are just buyers, hoarders really except their stuff is nicer. Do the bidders in a BJ auction on TV look like you and I? I should stop whining, BJ is a pleasure to watch, and without these high values, many of the cars might never be seen again, but wouldn’t it be nice if some of those cars could be cherished items in the garages of regular everyday working bumpkins and not getting dusty in some Ritchie Riches collection after he gets tired of them and moves on to the latest craze? Of course, got to be careful, I said similar things on another nameless website and was banned! I think they cater more to the leisure class, the kind of people whom I speak…the kind of people who make them money in auction sales and they don’t want the golden goose to stop laying eggs.. Know where I’m talking about kids?
Looks a lot more like a 69 Corvair than a Camaro. Of course Camaro used Late Model Corvair Windshield, Door handles, window cranks, rocker trim, and the rear quarters look exactly like 65-69 Corvair.
You might need glasses man, they are completely different car bodies. Door handles and window cranks perhaps.
Many times I have seen autos that were not for sale that either rusted until owners were dust to dust.
Yet it was theirs to do with as they wanted, although that never stopped me from asking once more through years.
The ignorance of inheiritors of those never ceased to amaze me.
A week before going to basic training an old guy sold me a running 34 Ford pick up for $25, and to buy stuff and do tune up for his 37 Dodge sedan he had backend jacked in air running a saw to cut his firewood; had a belt on rim to pulley on saw shaft.
Told him I was leaving for military but would give him another 50 to let me store under his barns loafing shed lean to.
I hauled my 62 semi pumped Cad motor placed it in bed of truck and covered well.
Came back to real world and three days later went to get what I had been dreaming about for years.
Old man had died, barn and my oh Ford had been bulldozed into pile, even to breaking caddy block, all done by his kid to pretty place up for sale.
Kid knew I had bought truck, he was there when I paid his dad and witnessed Bill of sale.
Long years ago and frontier logger justice still ruled, not bragging and damn sure not claiming PTSD, but first time I seen him in tavern I mildly told him My beef, and when he stood up I decked him.
That was mild compared to what two twin brothers did in much same case to 2 pre 30’s Buicks. 40 Chev sedan and 54 Chevy and old’s coupes I had bought from their last crazy uncle whose brother went bonkers and began HUNTING his brother with a butcher knife.
Old Growth Spruce fell upon, saved the tree, then cat logged, you can picture rest.
Old saying: “Another’s junk, is another mans treasure, (pleasure).
Older then, wiser, and civilization had come to town, good thing I was not as old as now, three squares a cot and free cable would get me by.
Days of a handshake and mans word long gone as a bargain sealer.
Realize all these things will outlive you. Restore and drive them, show them, but enjoy them while we still can. Pass the ones too far gone for the same reason, time is too short to waste
while we are on the subject here I have 2 dodge dakota reg cab short box trucks, #1 97 5.2 v8 5 speed stick 2×4 magenta colour 1 owner me #2 98 dakota 5.9 auto , with air, reg cab, short box, both trucks need nothing and are on the road! the 97 is a low production truck because of what it is! don’t build dakotas any more and never will ! you think I can pull any kind of decent money out of either one of them? not likely! last guy that looked at the 98 said to me too bad it wasn’t a s10 chev! I told him to get out and never come back
There was a guy in my old neighborhood that had an old 95 4Runner. I’ve always loved the older ones. I used to see it and kept thinking I would like to have it. Many years later, sold and moved from that neighborhood. Happened to be in the area, drove through the old ‘hood. There sat the Runner, shabby, obviously neglected. The house looked that way also. Left a note on the door. A few weeks later I received a call saying the owner had passed and once everything was probated, I could buy it. I did, spent a lot of my time and some money and still love/drive it! (one minor – I’m currently waiting on a new engine as that years 3.0 was notorious for headgasket issues)