I’ve been shooting the old cars of Eugene for some ten years now, and needless to say, the streetscape has changed, a lot. I look at my old pictures and wonder what happened to all of those cars. I know a few got saved and sold off, but since I tend to be attracted to the scruffy ones, their fates were not so good. But there’s one car still sitting in the exact same spot on an alley near downtown, in front of a great old garage. When I came across it again recently, I decided to see how it was faring. Not all too well, obviously.
I’ve never been a fan of these box Lincolns, but my feelings have substantially mellowed over time. I may not have liked it in its time, but how can I not feel affection for this poor old neglected thing? It’s become a historical artifact, like that terrific old garage building that was undoubtedly built for Model Ts and such.
This interior shot is from 2009, before I mastered the art of eliminating the glare. It was getting a bit grotty then, maybe I was afraid to even look into it this time, as oddly I didn’t take any shots of it now. I’m sure it’s not gotten any better.
When I found it ten years ago, it looked like it had just been parked here recently, and developed a flat. I assumed someone would fix it and drive off with it again. Not so.
It’s lost a window along the way, but also gained a friend. I’ve shown you this old Chevy truck before, but I can’t find it now. I’m sure they have some interesting stories to swap.
I shall return in ten more years. If there’s a condominium building there, I will not be surprised. But maybe they could incorporate the Lincoln somehow.
These occasional then and now pics are among my favorite things. That Lincoln, with the obvious exception of the window, hasnt really deteriorated anywhere near as much as I would have figured after a decade. Well, ok, maybe the paint and the landau top haven’t gotten any better either. Still, there is (slight, very slight) hope for it.
I’ve been watching a 1957 blue Chevy hardtop coupe rotting away for nearly 20 years, in front of a house in unincorporated Springfield Illinois. It hasn’t moved once since I relocated a mile away from it in 2001. A real shame, and for the past ten years, a real eyesore. There is no housing association to motivate the owners into either proper storage, or sale. It used to be covered, but it disintegrated a decade ago.
This car could have been sold for triple what it is worth now, twenty years ago. Someone living there no longer sees it. I don’t care much for 1957 Chevrolets, but there are thousands that do and would pay top dollar for any hardtop coupe, even a junk one like this one. Not only would the neighborhood look better without it rotting away, it would get a new lease on life.
A real shame.
It seems every neighborhood (at least where laws or HOAs don’t intrude) has a counterpart to this…. When I moved to this area about 13 years ago there was a house with three late-’60s Buicks parked in the driveway, two Electras and a LeSabre if I recall correctly. They all appeared to be in decent shape and had plates on them. I figured the best parts would be combined to make one good one. Those three Buicks seem not to have moved since then and are all now rustbuckets. Some nights the light is on in the living room and you can see various things piled up almost to the ceiling.
I’m really kind of over these, but this one makes me sad. The crazy thing is that the body would still have some value in climates like mine where rust never sleeps.
There was recently a discussion in a thread (I forget which one) involving a woman who documents old neon signs and has gone back years later to see them missing or “modernized” (another word for ruined). This picture reminds me of some of those.
Sad. I like these (as well as most Panthers.) The body still looks so saveable. 302s are not hard to work on. These cars are disappearing in demo derbies and chump car races.
It reminded me of a ’60 Lincoln I used to pass by often near Alger,WA. It was quite intact and sat next to an old building that was being used as a video rental store back then. The store over 20 went out of business and the building was left to collapse. Its gone now. The car is still there, battered and covered with grafitti. Broken windows and all the other clever stuff people are supposed to do to things like this. I randomly came across a couple of pics a few years ago online that people had posted. Must some kind of landmark for some. I tried for half an hour to find one of those pics to share with you, but they seem to be gone.
Just this morning I passed an old barn alongside a fairly busy 4 lane road in north central Florida that is home to at least 4 cars from the mid 50s. I moved back to this area 8 years ago and those cars have been sitting for at least that long. It’s a shame, because just like that Lincoln those cars could have been saved. Now? I can’t imagine anyone paying anything for them, but the owner (or his heirs) will have to pay a nice bit of coin to have them removed if the property is ever sold.
(One of the cars is a 56 or 57 Olds in what was once an attractive red/white two tone.)
I’ve always been a fan of these Town Cars, but in any case I wonder what the car did to deserve just being abandoned like this. Like, does no one notice it and think they should do something, anything, about it?
It reminds me of the 1963 Galaxie 500, with a 390 according to the badging, that, from sometime before 2004 when I moved into that apartment until at least 2011 when this street view was taken, sat abandoned alongside the gas station in front of my complex. It looked like an employee drove it to work one day, parked it there, and never touched it again. Over the years I watched it go from looking like it just needed to be started to the tires rotting in place to the glass getting smashed out to mold growing inside.
I never have been able to understand letting something like a car just sit and rot.
Do you mean the green car in the background? That’s a 1968 Galaxie 500.
I would really like to see a psychological profile. Not of the car but of the owner.
Upon seeing this I thought of Bruce Springsteen’s ” Born in the USA”. The lyrics go something like “I’m ten years burnin’ down the road. Nowhere to run, ain’t got nowhere to go”
It is amazing to see these shots taken a decade apart and observe the decay wrought by 10 years in the elements. It’s also intriguing that someone bothered to cover the rear window (to protect what, exactly?) and I’m frankly surprised that there hasn’t been more vandalism or stolen parts from a car that hasn’t moved in 10 years and is located near a busy downtown area. I guess demand for old Lincoln Town Car parts and pieces is virtually non-existent in Eugene.
Also, while I was never a fan of these boxy Town Cars when they were new, my heart softens considerably as they fade into oblivion. They were definitely an icon of their times, for better or worse. And to me, in a strange way, the decay adds to their visual impact. It reminds me of the images taken by Louisiana photographer Clarence John Loughlin, whose work captured the surreal beauty of old buildings falling into ruin. Some of his photographs, like this shot of Belle Grove Plantation from the 1930s, wonderfully capture the destruction delivered by the elements to human follies.
It’s possible that someone moved into the car and did the window “repair” to protect themselves from the weather(?). Perhaps that’s why Paul didn’t think to get interior shots this time, the vibe subconsciously warned him off.
Or maybe he was afraid that the gravitational pull of the thing that would suck him into ownership before he could get control of himself. 🙂
Plastic bag windows must be an option on those cars, the one that was stored on my mates lawn for a while featured one too but left rear are the a special type of curtain to hide the occupants from view, that particular car arrived and left under its own power 302 V8 not a lot for the weight.
I’ll be a contrarian here – sure it’s decaying, but there’s more to admire here than if it had been recycled into a tin can or a refrigerator. I am a bit surprised that the city has allowed it to remain in that condition, though.
The right hand end wall of the garage is slowly going increasingly out of vertical too, though wooden buildings often seem to defy the odds for ages.
During my childhood our neighbor across the street had a first generation Mustang. When I was really young it was his daily driver, although even at that point it was a well worn 20 year old car. At some point he stopped driving it, and parked it behind his house where it just sat and deteriorated for years. I suspect in the case of that Mustang it was a case of “some day I’m going to restore this”, and “someday” never came. I have no idea what it’s ultimate fate was, but I wouldn’t be surprised at all if it was still there.
Although not as popular a classic as the Mustang, when his daughter got her driver’s license he bought a used Datsun B210 for her to drive. Once she got a different car the Datsun suffered the same fate of being left in the yard to deteriorate.
I think in this case of Stang and B210, the owner just likes to hold on to things, for sentiment and memories. But there is a cost to hoarding.
Never attractive when a derelict car becomes part of the long term landscape. The state of the house and out building look equally neglected. Shame, given the forgiving climate.
I am thoroughly impressed with the right rear tire. Assuming it has not been aired up in the last ten years (and judging from the flat front, airing up the tires has not been a priority), it has done a remarkable job of maintaining air pressure.
This is fabulous! A study of decay.
Now, we wants to see the interior! Go back and take a pic for the masses.
In my old Chicago neighborhood, someone had two mid 50’s cars in driveway. Rusted, and one had wheel on metal crate, for about a decade; 1970-81?
I used to think they were Mercurys, but they were Packard Caribbeans. I think they finally were gone by about 1984-85.
Was probably a case of “these Packards will be worth a lot some day”.
A long story I posted just got marked as spam. I am sad. 😞 Maybe it can be resolved by admin?
We have an ’87 Town Car out back of my work doing the same thing this car’s doing, and given Cleveland’s, er, “wonderful” climate it’s in considerably worse condition. It was out in the back lot when I started here in ’09 and although it’s been moved a couple times it’s otherwise never been given a b it of attention.
These are great pictures. So much to see in every shot. I wonder what is in those garages? What treasures from a bygone era? Newpapers? Magazines? Spare new old stock engines and who knows what???