In Eugene, I’m used to seeing many odd things. But this is just about the oddest and most mysterious curbside scene I’ve yet come across. At first glance from across distance, it didn’t quite register what was really up there. But then I went in for a closer look:
This a a very bizarre assemblage of items, from a piece of metal conduit, to lots of wire and and computer cases, and more.
The items are all quite loose, and would look like they’d go flying off. But they’re wired together, and they’ve obviously been there for a while while being driven, as the many deep scratches in the paint attest.
Here’s the view from the rear. There’s several art cars in Eugene, but if that’s what this is, it’s taking it to a new level.
I decided to take a peek into the back seat, and there’s a somewhat similar theme of randomness going on too, and the seat itself is missing. What am I missing?
Time to move on, and ponder life’s little mysteries.
Id say the junk on the roof was put there after it was rear ended. The wire flailing around in the wind probably does a pretty good job of keeping people off his a*$.
Not that it has any bearing on the car in the article, but the odd assemblage of electronic bits reminds me of a fellow who once saved a $400 computer purchase by disassembling the keyboard and extracting a piece of dried food from the #3 key. We could never understand how the man organized his life but his efforts were worth $50 and it made both of us very happy.
Maybe he just has a little touch of Asperger.
I sense a new TLC or A&E reality show in the making: Mobile Hoarders.
Or Mobile Storage Wars?
I can only imagine the noise coming from the roof of this thing at any speed over 25 mph.
I thought my truck was strange with the homemade headache rack. I can think of no reason a person playing with a full deck would do this.
Definitely looks like a case where the owner is trying to ward off potential accidents by saying, “Keep your distance from me, I’m nuts and have nothing to lose”.
Or maybe he’s trying to ward off aliens or the black helicopters…
Perhaps he’s saving scrap metal to take to the recycler when he accumulates enough to justify the trip? Burning Man project car? A more mobile version of the stereotypical homeless crazy person’s shopping cart?
Mobile shopping cart, indeed. There are quite a lot of lived in vehicles of all size around here. Add a dash of special to the pot and you wind up with this car.
An electronics geek got kicked out of Mom’s basement?
I see what looks like pieces of CAT 5 network cables and fiber optics.
No tail light? Ticket that POS and get it off the road. Surprised Oregon hasn’t already… I’d think they’d have laws against that… 😀
Hmmm…the only thing I can compare this to is when out of the service, at my job, a guy had a 1962 Pontiac Tempest wagon. It was not only his daily driver, but he hauled coal in the back with no type of protection for the interior at all – that car was one of the most hideous-looking vehicles I had ever seen up to that time! The owner wasn’t exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer, either…
The Lumina-owner could be a distant relative…
Is there something about the Northwest US that seems to attract stuff like this and the characters who drive them? Could it be as in the old Olympia beer commercials; “It’s the water” ?
FWIW, I never liked the 2nd-gen Luminas.
I’d look for the “Eviction” notice on the front passenger seat. Either that, or he is my school’s new IT guy!
When the scrap dea;er comes for the car he gets the rest free. So thats a lumina. Real easy to see why the world buys its Chevrolets from Australia not the US these days
Probably a metal scrapper. Most have trucks, but this is Eugene, one might drive a VW Beetle there.
It reminds me of a guy I know named Sidney. He owned a Lumina that was around the same year model and was trashed out alot like that. Hood was held down by fifty feet of coax cable after he forgot to close it (he had a 95 Ford pickup before that the same thing happened to suprisingly) the back was full of scrap metal and assorted tools and parts that should have killed him when he rolled the thing off the highway but he came out okay. Just was given a DWI for being on his prescription medication while driving. Yeah, dont expect to get away with much around Jonesboro, Arkansas.
Back in the 60s and 70s, Mopar guys kept a spare ballast resistor, Ford guys often kept a spare starter solenoid. Maybe this is what you need to keep in reserve to drive an old GM car with dodgey electronics today. 🙂
I think MarcKyle hit the nail on its head. For the last 5 years or so I’ve been noticing a large number of these mobile hoarders on the road. At first I only noticed the 30YO beat up 1/2 ton trucks with crap stacked up on top of 3 or 4 fridges and washer/dryers in the bed with maybe a homemade trailer in tow. A sign of the times I guess. I used to flip cars on a regular basis and would haul off a carcus(pun!) of a parts car to the scrapper every other month and these clowns would just drive me up the wall complaining about how they were getting ripped off on the price of recycled metal. Me? I was in and off the scales and waiting at the pay window in record time. Don’t care what steel is paying I just want the crap off my property before code enforcement notices. Mr iLuminatti is a hoarder. When the pile in the rear gets tall enough or some cop writes him a citation is when you’ll find him down on the corner with Willy and the Poorboys looking for more than a nickel, tapping his feet waiting for that dime or whatever dirty copper is paying.
Yes I admit that I too dumpster dive on occasion. And yes I too I have found perfectly good Tripods and other miscellanous treasures that bring a few bucks at the pawn shop.
Does Eugene have a curbside bulk trash pickup day, Paul? Maybe he just piled all the scrap metal in one spot. Sensible…
Anyone else notice the back seat seems to be missing?