Amazing Cars Discovered in Barns
If you thought garages were the best places to store cars, you are correct. Sadly, when people forget to park their cars in their garages, they end up forgetting about them. This is why so many amazing cars are left in unusual places and forgotten about, only to be discovered by passers by who happen to notice the fine lines through all the rust, dust, and grim. Here are a few notable “barn finds”:
The Onassis Lamborghini Miura: In the 1970s, Stamitas Kokotas was a famous singer (called the Greek Elvis) with a famous fan, Aristotle Onassis. As a sign of his appreciation for Kokotas’s singing and his love for cars, Mr. Onassis gave Kokotas a 1969 Lamborghini Miura painted metallic brown. Oddly, Kokotas parked it under the Athens Hilton and left it there for over 30 years. Fortunately, during the hotel’s renovations, the rotted Lamborghini Miura was unearthed and put up for auction where a winning bidder paid over $400,000 for it.
The LA Junkyard of Fine Automobiles: While the junkyard is the common resting place for many automobiles that have moved past their best driving days, this junkyard, called Porsche Foreign Auto, on Alameda in South Central Los Angeles has some of the most remarkable junked cars. This junkyard was home to the most valuable Mercedes in the world, Rudi Caracciola’s 1935 500K Mercedes-Benz, marked 1 of 1. Other finds included rusted Maybachs, Ferraris, and at least one Lamborghini Miura.
Lambrecht Chevrolet Dealership: Most barn finds are rusted cars that have been well driven, well loved, and left in the dark. But the Lambrecht Chevrolet barn find was full of cars that had never been driven. This barn find included nearly 500 cars, some were brand new and some had low mileage. The Lambrecht Dealership was located in Pierce, Nebraska. It closed in 1996 and still had a huge collection of vehicles and parts.
1950 Ferrari 166MM Barchetta. This sporty little racing coupe sat idly in Tucson, Arizona until the original owner’s children started to shop it around to Ferrari fans. This ultra-rare Ferrari was sold sight unseen for over $1 million to a collector who rebuilt the engine, but decided to leave the body just the way he bought it.
