Holzman's Treasures: The Barn Find

David C. Holzman
by David C. Holzman

This “barn find” was found at Johnnie’s Sales and Service just the other week, down on Warwick Rd., somewhere in the middle of Massachusetts, where the car has sat for… seems no-one hereabouts can quite remember.

It’s expected to fetch about fifty bucks at the Concours, assuming they can actually load it onto the truck to haul it there, and that no-one bars the door when they arrive. Treasures found under the seats include a Nixon-Lodge button, a pack of stale L&Ms, a pez machine, and some Trojans.

At David Holzman’s classic car celebrating website, motorlegends.com, you can learn about Richard Nixon’s biggest mistake (having to do with Hannibal, a ’53 Buick), and buy classic car T-shirts. You can also see the world’s only menorah made out of Porsche valves, and see photos of the Yugo Next exhibit, which was 40 reinCARnations of Yugos by the students of a New York City art teacher.


David C. Holzman
David C. Holzman

I'm a freelance journalist covering science, medicine, and automobiles.

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  • Bill mcgee Bill mcgee on Dec 16, 2012

    Met an older guy in Shamrock Texas who had owned an Edsel dealership a few years back . He still had the remains of it , including a 1958 Edsel Corsair convertible , several 1959 stationwagons , and the rarest , a 1960 Edsel convertible in a peculiar rose metallic color , a factory paint job he said , one of only 76 1960 Edsel convertibles built . Shamrock is one of those towns on old Route 66 , long ago bypassed by the interstate , but quite the big deal back in the day .

  • MrWhopee MrWhopee on Dec 16, 2012

    Wow, how come the headlights is in such good shape? Usually they'd be yellowed or blackened before the car's reached this shape. Who would replace headlights on a car that seem to have been derelict decades ago?

    • Truckducken Truckducken on Dec 16, 2012

      Must be from back when they made headlights out of glass instead of plastic!

  • Analoggrotto I don't see a red car here, how blazing stupid are you people?
  • Redapple2 Love the wheels
  • Redapple2 Good luck to them. They used to make great cars. 510. 240Z, Sentra SE-R. Maxima. Frontier.
  • Joe65688619 Under Ghosn they went through the same short-term bottom-line thinking that GM did in the 80s/90s, and they have not recovered say, to their heyday in the 50s and 60s in terms of market share and innovation. Poor design decisions (a CVT in their front-wheel drive "4-Door Sports Car", model overlap in a poorly performing segment (they never needed the Altima AND the Maxima...what they needed was one vehicle with different drivetrain, including hybrid, to compete with the Accord/Camry, and decontenting their vehicles: My 2012 QX56 (I know, not a Nissan, but the same holds for the Armada) had power rear windows in the cargo area that could vent, a glass hatch on the back door that could be opened separate from the whole liftgate (in such a tall vehicle, kinda essential if you have it in a garage and want to load the trunk without having to open the garage door to make room for the lift gate), a nice driver's side folding armrest, and a few other quality-of-life details absent from my 2018 QX80. In a competitive market this attention to detai is can be the differentiator that sell cars. Now they are caught in the middle of the market, competing more with Hyundai and Kia and selling discounted vehicles near the same price points, but losing money on them. They invested also invested a lot in niche platforms. The Leaf was one of the first full EVs, but never really evolved. They misjudged the market - luxury EVs are selling, small budget models not so much. Variable compression engines offering little in terms of real-world power or tech, let a lot of complexity that is leading to higher failure rates. Aside from the Z and GT-R (low volume models), not much forced induction (whether your a fan or not, look at what Honda did with the CR-V and Acura RDX - same chassis, slap a turbo on it, make it nicer inside, and now you can sell it as a semi-premium brand with higher markup). That said, I do believe they retain the technical and engineering capability to do far better. About time management realized they need to make smarter investments and understand their markets better.
  • Kwik_Shift_Pro4X Off-road fluff on vehicles that should not be off road needs to die.
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