While enroute to Flint...

[Charles E Snyder II]

I love the fact that our International Meets are in a different area of the country every year. The one benefit to this is that between my father and I, we will go out of our way to find scrap yards along the way. For example, on the way to Denver a couple of years ago, we left the Pittsburgh area and headed up through Chicago, Wisconsin and Minnesota before we dropped back down in the direction of Colorado. We do not always find a lot of professional cars, but I love to go looking anyway to see what we might find.

This year, we were very lucky to find this yard just a couple of miles off of the interstate. We added maybe 10 miles to our trip, but spent 3 or 4 hours walking around the woods behind this yard. Yes, I said the woods. The owner said to check out the older cars "along the treeline". Along? What is he thinking? They were IN the treeline!

Found just 2 professional cars amoungst hundreds of cars from the 1970's and back. Neither one of them in good shape, but both had a lot of little things like trim pieces and some glass intact. This place is definately a place that we will go back to. Sometime in the late fall, winter or early spring when the weeds are all down.

The first one, this MM was rusted into the ground. Not much at all left. Even the MM emblem on ths side was mangled.

To be continued...

 

[Charles E Snyder II]

The other one was this Cadillac. I can only say Cadillac because that is all that I could figure out. The front is almost all gone except for part of the grill and the hood. No markings on the rest of the body that I could find.

It was really tough getting around any of these vehicles let alone getting decent pictures. I do have a couple of other pictures that I managed to get, but they aren't much better. Any idea what year or coachbuilder the second one might be?

 

[Charles E Snyder II]

Oh, one other that might be a coach built vehicle. This Suburban sure does look too long to be a standard built truck. Would it have been stretched? The only tag that I could find was from Chevy with the vehicle weight rating and information from the Chevy factory.

What do you think? Is there someplace in particular on a truck like this that I would find a build plate from a coach company? Under the hood?

 

[Dwayne Brooks]

Charles, you need to stay out of my "Ohio stash" of procars!! Those 2 coaches you pictured first are picked over because my friend Chris (who bought Ron's 1977 Soverign) has been raiding the same 2 hearses & selling the parts he doesn't use. He still has the rear glass from the purple early 50's Miller coach & all the rear interior pieces from the '61 M-M, also has some pull-down shades that were in the purple one. There's also a reason the rear bumper is on top of the M-M (looks around the room LOL). Anyway, Chris was IN that purple Miller last spring removing the window garnishes & SOMETHING started growling at him... so he started throwing tools & banging around on his way out... and obviously it's not easy to get OUT of that thing! So I tease him about the evil monkey that lives in the hearse that tried to kill him! Those coaches are miserble to get to right now, i'm surprised you even found them. So you don't think i'm yanking your chain... PICTURES!!! (guess the Miller isn't really purple, but in the pix I attached it looks purple)

 

[Mike Stevens]

I knew it

I knew there was a 61 out there somewhere. Though this one looks to be well used and abused.
Mike

 

[Charles E Snyder II]

We will definately be going back, but not necessarily for the hearses. I kinda figured that someone out that way would have known about these already. You notice, I didn't say where the place was other than just off the interstate. For the most part, I just like salvage yards in general.

Right now, my dad has 8 collector vehicles that he is working on (in one stage or another) and he is always looking for parts. A couple in particular that he was looking for are parts for a 59 Pontiac, a 51 Willys and 58 Ford Ranchero.

Another club that I belong to is a station wagon only club and I must have taken 50 pictures of wagon from this yard. He has enough stuff out there that I might be able to help someone with parts for their wagon.

I'm glad to see that someone is getting the useable parts off of those two hearses. I'll leave the hearses to you and Chris, Dwayne.

 

[Dwayne Brooks]

Oh it's ok man... I was just teasing you! Figured i'd give poor Richard a break & tease you Charles when I saw your pictures & recognized the coaches.
Another odd story about that yard, Chris had stopped there & asked if they had any old hearses, the owner said "no". Chris walked the yard anyway in search of a windshield for his '56 Cadillac Miller combo and that's when he found the 2 procars you discovered. The owner had no idea they were even back there.

 

[Richard Vyse]

They can be brought back to life boys. Anything is possible with time and money, mostly money. I too, love to cruise the salvage yards and was in our local "Pull-n-Save" over the weekend just looking. I found a couple parts I needed for my daily driver, 92 Buick Roadmaster, and saw a ton of cars from the Cash for Clunkers push. All of these cars had a big red "X" over the engine showing it destroyed.

 

[Charles E Snyder II]

Hey Dwayne, I realize that you were just giving me a hard time. Nothing personal taken there! You still have a Hot Wheels hearse that I need, so I don't intend to make an enemy of you!

I'll have to remember that evil monkey that you mentioned and look for him the next time that I go back to that yard.

With the pictures that you posted, I have to assume that you were there in the spring because the buds are just starting to come out on all the bushes. We ended up there in the middle of the summer just because we happened to be passing through the area in the beginning of August on the way to Flint. It is a 2 hour drive for me and close to 3 hours for my father. He actually found quite a few parts "along the treeline" that he was interested in that I am sure that he will want to make another trip out. Maybe I will give you a call the next time that we will be in the area and we can get together and have a junk yard gathering!

 

[Charles E Snyder II]

Yeh Richard, I know about the "time and money" thing. I need to check how long it has been, I know it has been a long time and a LOT of money, but the 59 Superior Pontiac that my father is working on is getting close to being done. My father is set to retire in January of 2010 and he claims that it will be done before then. I hope so! He wants it to be finished in '09. I guess that he figures that '59-'09 is a good time frame to have it done.

 

[Richard Vyse]

Yeh Richard, I know about the "time and money" thing. I need to check how long it has been, I know it has been a long time and a LOT of money, but the 59 Superior Pontiac that my father is working on is getting close to being done. My father is set to retire in January of 2010 and he claims that it will be done before then. I hope so! He wants it to be finished in '09. I guess that he figures that '59-'09 is a good time frame to have it done.

Pictures baby pictures. Congratulations on retirement. I hear about it and hope to do so one day!!!!

 

[Dwayne Brooks]

Hey Dwayne, I realize that you were just giving me a hard time. Nothing personal taken there! You still have a Hot Wheels hearse that I need, so I don't intend to make an enemy of you!

I'll have to remember that evil monkey that you mentioned and look for him the next time that I go back to that yard.

With the pictures that you posted, I have to assume that you were there in the spring because the buds are just starting to come out on all the bushes. We ended up there in the middle of the summer just because we happened to be passing through the area in the beginning of August on the way to Flint. It is a 2 hour drive for me and close to 3 hours for my father. He actually found quite a few parts "along the treeline" that he was interested in that I am sure that he will want to make another trip out. Maybe I will give you a call the next time that we will be in the area and we can get together and have a junk yard gathering!

I just wanted to make sure you knew I was teasing, there's nothing on those coaches I can use anyway. Chris took those pictures this past spring when he was there removing the loading door glass & some other parts from both cars. I was so surprised to see you'd discovered the same 2 coaches! Thought you'd appreciate seeing what they look like when the overgrowth is all dormant. As for that Hot Wheels you want, is it the white one or black one? I'm assuming it's the white one... anyway i'm going to get the Hot wheels collection out this fall so i'll PM you once I have the one you want in-hand...