T-Bird Treasure Trove Found in Michigan Barn, and They Can Be Yours
Pitchforks and dung aside, the world’s barns often hold undiscovered treasures, from the 1974 Volkswagen Beetle that sold for $43,000 in June, to a bumper crop of Ford Thunderbirds recently uncovered near Grand Rapids, Michigan.
According to the Detroit Free Press, an unnamed family recently called a Wayland auction house in the hopes of making a sale. The item? The contents of a barn containing about 50 classic cars, including a bevy of Thunderbirds from the porthole to basket handle eras.
In total, 28 Thunderbirds ranging from restorable to drive away condition resided in the barn, along with classic Lincoln Continentals, Cadillacs, a couple of 1970s motorhomes, and some less-classic vehicles (Lincoln Versailles, anyone?). The vehicles haven’t been driven in 30 years, and besides the family who sold them, no one knew they existed.
The vehicles are featured in an estate auction that went live this morning at Repocast.com. Act fast if you’ve got the time and the cash to bring one of these beauties (or the Versailles) back onto the road.
Most of the Thunderbirds date from the late 1950s to the mid-1960s, with bodies in good condition. Finding a cache of undiscovered classics this large is rare, but it’s nice to know that more vehicles without plastic front fascias will soon return to the road.
[Image: Stephen Velden/ Flickr]
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Pretty poor planning that this auction gets stories published the day of the auction. What would those prices be with some better promotion and a longer auction time?
If those cars haven't been driven on at least a semi-regular basis, then they are dry-rotted, so aside from the bodies and certain other parts, they are mostly worthless.
I wouldn't say these cars are worthless, it will just take some work to get them running. In a Global market the Thunderbirds would be worth more than you would think. Even some of the parts cars have value to restorers who are looking for some hard to find parts. The Swedes collect old Detroit iron from the 50's and 60's and will come to the USA and search for these old cars and send them back home. There was a junkyard segment on TTAC a few years ago featuring a 1957 Chrysler Windsor (a car my parents drove us from Dayton, OH to Houston, TX when we moved in August of 1958) and in that article Murilee made a comment about the Swedes buying these old cars and shipping them home. The bodies are in good shape with little rust and the interiors are decent which can actually cost more to restore than getting the vehicles running especially old T-Birds. These cars should have been better promoted and been available for bidding for a longer time. The auction house did not maximize the sales potential of these vehicles.
The only Thunderbirds that I would deem fit for rescuing, restoration are the Aero Thunderbirds from 1983-1988, preferably an Elan model from 1986 or TurboCoupes from all years. Also I can't forget the MN12 based Thunderbirds from 1993-1997, supercoupe models. Yes I left the 1989-1992 models out for a reason.