In part 1 of my VW Westfalia biopic, “If Cars Could Talk,” I mused on the lives my old van might have lived before I took ownership. An old Westfalia is kind of like an old yacht (and I don’t just mean in its insatiable appetite for $$$), and it has tons of cubbies and cabinets. The van came with a lot of odds and ends. Going through the drawers painted some interesting pictures of the previous owners.
My van came with three pairs of sunglasses. One was in the glove compartment, one was in the pull-out drawer below the stove, and the vintage tortoise-shell pair in the middle (my favorite) was found trapped and buried behind the refrigerator cabinet in some pink insulation foam; It was likely lost back there decades ago, and I rock these whenever I take the old bus out on a sunny day.
I also found a waterproof weatherbreaker in a collapsible bag (that fits perfectly!), and this emergency poncho.
Then, there was a couple of bucks in change and some mardi gras beads.
There were several flashlights, and the coolest one is this guy with magnetic, adjustable legs.
In the cabinets were assorted tools, cables and connectors, and some fuses and parts:
Valve cover gaskets: Don’t leave home without ’em.
There’s a 100 foot electrical extension cable, a squirt bottle, a bike lock extension, a long flathead screwdriver, and my favorite, a vintage “The Club” steering wheel lock that I actually have the key for. I added the lug wrench in.
A used oven mitt and a wooden spoon! Just what the doctor ordered!
I also found an unused POR-15 rust repair kit (which I actually came in very handy when repairing rust on the windshield frame)
More stuff: a fire extinguisher, tire chain ties, a beanie, a waterbottle and a lightweight blanket. With the extinguisher being of the dry chemical variety, I didn’t dare use it when I sparked a minor electrical fire while working on the radio a few months ago.
The Westy’s fridge was toast, but I got this very nice fridge/freezer thrown in. This would actually have cost $3-400!
This is a bluetooth USB port that you can use to charge devices and play music on the van’s stereo through radio frequency. An inverter came with the van and its auxiliary power setup, but both had to be replaced. Also, I don’t know that those really qualify as “freebies” so much as upgrades to the van.
This sad looking jailbird sits by the clock and gauges. He came with the van and is part of its character. I have no idea what it might have meant to the former owner.
The other day, when I was attempting to rewire the stereo to the auxiliary battery, I found this tape, covered in layers of dust, wedged into the deep cavern under the driver’s seat. These guys are a gospel group, and this album sounds kind of like a holy mashup of Curtis Mayfield meets the O’Jays.
In the rear closet was a prom picture of a Latino couple tucked into the little clip-on mirror. I wished I’d kept it to share with you!
Every time I look, I find something else tucked into one of the nooks and crannies of this old van. Each little item is a ghost of the former owners, of the van’s former lives.
What cool freebies came with your current car or Curbside Classic? Ever found anything cool as you were going through your vehicle?
I bought a 1982 Skylark back a few months ago.
Apart from the traditionnal user manuals, toolkits and tapes, there was a old postcard with a very non suitable for work scene from the 70’s (this being the reason why only the top half is shown here).
When I bought my 1993 Camry in November 2016 it came with a map of Crater Lake National Park, a “Get Fat” bicycle oriented sticker covering up a scuffed rear bumper corner, a bottle of touch of paint, two different kinds of shop manuals so you can fix the car, and some taillight bulbs. Also has a piece of wire stored under the hood that I can plug into the OBD One ports to diagnose a CEL and the original owner’s manual with an insert from Beaverton Toyota. I keep the Crater Lake National Park map right where I found it, there was already touch up paint crudely applied by the previous owner so I just tossed the bottle, and everything else I kept. I did cover up the bumper sticker with one of my own.
“Get Fat” was the long time advertising slogan of Fat Tire Farm, Portland Oregon’s largest and oldest mountain bike specialist, still around at https://www.fattirefarm.com/ although they appear to be using “The Farm” as branding. I still have an old Get Fat water bottle, as well as one from their defunct road & commuter shop 21st Avenue Bicycles.
I got nothing in my current Citroen it had been detailed at a used car lot where I bought it the harvested any goodies, but in my old Hillman when I pulled it apart I found quite a lot of pre decimal coins worthless now and gone when I sold off the 200 odd kilos of old coins I already had, I found similar in my EH Holden when I dismantled it just old money that had dropped into crevices, nobody seems to leave anything usefull in cars I buy anymore,
We rented an early aughts Crown Vic one time for a vacation to LA and Arizona – great desert road car. Someone had left a mix CD in the radio. It became the soundtrack for our trip and we still have it.
I once left a VERY expensive pair of driving sunglasses in a rental car. Someone got a nice treat.
Similar experience here with the sunglasses. Once left a nice pair of Ray Bans in the console of a Hertz rental car when I returned it. Realized it maybe 30 minutes later when I was in the airport terminal. Called the Hertz place and explained the situation. Practically had to beg them to check. Was put on hold forever, then the call disconnected. Called back and they said they “didn’t find” the sunglasses. Right. Never rented from Hertz again.
The most interesting things to come immediately to mind are: I bought my 1988 Jaguar XJ-SC (still have) on eBay in 2012. There was an aluminum baseball bat in the trunk. I always wondered if it was for sport or protection. I bought a 2007 S550 (no longer have) on eBay in 2014. The power driver seat didn’t work hardly at all. In trying to free it up and get it lubricated, a found fistfuls of McDonald’s receipts stuffed under the driver seat. Every single one was for sweet tea, or a soft serve cone, or both.
My free treasures after buying about 40 used vehicles,
My 1980 Chevy van came with shag carpets and a box of (unused) condoms.
1979 Chevy van – about 10,000 tiny sheet-metal screws, strewn everywhere.
My 77 Mercury- about a dozen thrash metal CDs.
1979 Chevy C10 Stepside -auto burglary tools.
1967 Lincoln- the remains of auto workers coffee break under the carpet including cigarette butts and flattened Ford paper cups from the Wixom assembly plant. The cups had management slogans on them to encourage workers to maintain quality on their jobs. The worker response was to jam their trash in the new cars.
(Part 1A)
My 1971 Dart, bought in 2006 in Toronto, came to me with a very thorough logbook its original owner had kept of every last oil change, air filter, spark plug, and repair job. It also came with a good collection of spare parts, some of which are shown here demonstrating how Chrysler marketed parts and supplies in Canada before the American Mopar branding was brought in.
Nice finds Daniel.
(Part 1B)
That same ’71 Dart came with a small stuffy hanging from the wiper switch. Someone who saw it dubbed it the Horsepower Chicken.
(And a dingus swinging from the handbrake)
I had a similar tissue dispenser that sat on the hump between the driver and the passenger in my ’74 Dart. One day a friend was along for a ride to his requested destination, and he insisted on placing his foot exactly where the dispenser was, moving it further and further towards me and about to fall on my accelerator foot. I asked him politely two or three or more times to remove his foot, and the last and final time he asked me what he should do with the dispenser, remove it altogether. I told him in no uncertain terms to remove his foot or he should make his exit from the vehicle in short order. That was emblematic of his lack of self awareness, and the soon to be end of our friendship.
No loss.
My ’71 VW tintop Campmobile had quite a bit of detritus that needed cleaning out when I gutted it. Brings to mind a scene from The Blues Brothers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qw__irwL6pY
My ’64 Beetle had a few spares (belts, plug wires and the like), and one of those small softcover Gideon New Testaments in the glove box, which still rides with me in my current DD.
The ’63 Beetle I bought at a yard sale (!) was loaded with parts, both for the ’63, but also for a number of other model years. Anyone need a set of one-year-only reverse lights for a ’67?
“Every Car Has a Story,” and probably the saddest one was the story told when we cleaned out the ’73 Vega hatch purchased from an impound lot for parts back in the ’80s. There were months of unopened bills, dirty clothes and food wrappers piled deep everywhere but the driver’s seat. Someone (a female by the name on the bills) had obviously been living in the car up to the point it was impounded.
How much for the VW reverse lights?
Happy Motoring, Mark
I’m in the middle of moving, so they’re boxed and inaccessible at the moment. I’ll need to dig them out and assess their condition to nail down a price. For reference, there’s a set with what appears to be good chrome on The Samba right now for $70. Mine probably aren’t as pristine, so probably in the $40-50 range unless there’s worse pitting than I remember.
(Part 2)
But all that stuff’s handily topped by the plastic Mary, complete with gold plastic halo, that arrived adhered to the dash of the ’73 Dart I bought in Michigan in ’09ish. My photographer husband featured it in one of his shows.
About 20 years ago, I saw what looked like a McDonald’s French fry between the seat and belt of an ’89 Cavalier I bought. I could not reach it, not could the vacuum fit in the space. I had the car for a couple of years, then gave it to my wife’s brother. Five years later, the fry was still there, and looked exactly the same. What kind of food is it that bacteria won’t even touch? I still occasionally eat fries, but often think of that ancient fry between the seats.
I disagree with the premise of the question—you can eat it, but it’s a stretch to call it food. See also: interminable Twinkie™ brand cake food snack.
I once found a half eaten McDs cheeseburger of indeterminent vintage under a car seat that seemed to defy the laws of putrescence.
My 1978 Fiesta, which I purchased used from Budget Rental, had a fair amount of marijuana under the back seat. And another car I had for a few days but never took title to, had the remnants of a joint in a rear ashtray.
I fully expected the butts I found in the ashtray of the Westy to be roaches, but it turned out they were just hand-rolled cigarettes.
Roaches would’ve cost extra. Unless they forgot to charge you extra, and then…uh…
…wait, what?
The best one was this Fuzzbuster radar detector in my old Reliant Scimitar. Does not work but is pretty neat.
My 02 crown Vic police (sold last year): one crack pipe behind the perp seat. Of course. And many many pills of unknown type in the trunk. I did not test or try them.
I bought a perp seat, OK the auctioneer said he’d give a buck to anyone that bid a buck. Up under the bottom of the foam pad I found a needle. Thankfully it didn’t stick me. I found the gas card in one of the CVPIs I’ve had as well as a number of the officer’s pay stubs.
Do negative freebies count? Like the missing jack in a Taurus sedan I bought?
I’ve not had anything too interesting but my sister’s boyfriend bought a 1971 Riviera that came with a small bag of cocaine under the seat.
Or that’s what he said anyway….
Best: $40 of parking change in $2 coins in a bank bag under the seat. The 1998 Volvo S90, and only that final model, has secret map pockets under the front seats. Bought from a dealer and detailed so couldn’t return it to the previous owner.
Worst: a bloody and decayed adult tooth in a dentist plastic bag down in the seat.
Anthony got a lot of neat things with this car and one surprise at 15:30:
A couple years ago we had a thrashed ’99 Chevy Tahoe at work that was about to go up for auction (I work for a municipality). We were scavenging it for anything usable and I found a new pair of red and white UAW/GM gloves in the space inside the fender between the taillight and wheelwell. Somebody on the assembly line decided to toss them in there for whatever reason.
My latest purchase, a 2009 Honda Accord came with rain deflectors on all four doors, a full set of aftermarket custom carpets’ including one for the trunk, window blinds all round, including the rear window, a 3.5mm stereo jack, eighty bucks of fuel still in the tank and road tax for another six months. All in all, the ‘freebies’ took 20% off my original purchase price. Win win!
I found a Zooble (top) and the remains of a McDonald’s french fry container (not pictured, already disposed) wedged in the storage drawer under the front passenger seat in my ’96 Ford Aerostar. Internet research reveals this particular one–“Costello”–was #2 out of 8 distributed with the McDonald’s Happy Meal line in 2011. It’s safe to assume it & the french fry box wound up in the van at the same time. The cassette (right) was loaded into the van’s cassette player & plays music you’d likely hear on Soul Train.
The ash tray (left) came with my 2011 Ranger as a factory accessory. All I found in my ’05 Chevrolet Astro (besides the trailer brake controller & wired up trailer connector) was a bunch of trash (candy wrappers, discarded paper notes, etc.) stuffed into every storage bin accessible from the back seats.
I’ve also found a few interesting and/or still useful things from all the cars at Pull-a-Part, but that probably doesn’t count.
A mystery switch, no longer attached to anything, in variations on no less than three different cars I have owned.
Well, four, but one turned out to be attached after all.
I didn’t know that, when, bored in night traffic at lights, my flicking of a very flickable mystery switch – on and off – in my old Peugeot 404 had any effect. But it transpired that a previous owner had connected same to a super bright reversing lamp. (None of any sort were fitted new).
A helpful motorist from behind set me straight about this one night. Nice man.
Mind you, he did have a very red face, and was rather loud.
Can’t remember his exact words, but they did involve “blinded”, “f*wit” and “Morse f*ing code, you f*ing moron”.
I disconnected that switch when I got home.
+1 to mystery switches, although most of mine were attached to wires but didn’t do anything. And +1 to finding out at night that one actually did something after all – one night I absentmindedly flicked the mystery switch on my old ex-JDM-driving-school ’92 Nissan Laurel, turns out it was for a (factory!) lamp hidden under the steering column that shone a bright light on the foot pedals. Perfect for an instructor teaching late-night clutch pedal techniques!
I had an experience like this once. In 1990 I decided that I wanted something more refined than my Saab 96 V4. My shade-tree mechanic, who would service just about anything, suggested a Peugeot 504. He had owned multiple 96s and Peugeot 403s, 404s, and 504s, so I trusted his judgement.
I had been a subscriber to the Saab Club newsletter, originally published by Dick Grossman in Chicago, since 1976, so I knew the value of a good marque-related newsletter. My mechanic had given me the contact information for a Peugeot club newsletter published by Marvin Needler in Indianapolis, and I subscribed around the time I set my sights on a 504.
I looked at a couple of 504s over a period of a few months, and they were in poor condition. And then I found an immaculate ’71 504, for sale by the original owners at a very reasonable price. My mechanic checked it out and said, “If you don’t buy this car, I will.” And the cherry on top was that it had a binder of Peugeot Club newsletters going back at least several years!
I had the 504 for a year and a half, and it was T-boned by some kind of full-size American pickup. 🙁 But it was nice while I had it.
Over a 23 year span, I found the most memorable, and sometimes even useable or enjoyable items in three older Mercedes sedans.
In 2010, I bought an ’82 240D, with a commercial recorded cassette of some female Vietnamese singer wedged next to the front seat. Can’t understand a word but a some of the songs are nice.
In 2006 I bought a very rusty ’82 240D. While getting it ready to repair major sections of rotten floor, I found about $5 in coins wedged in or under every carpet, pad and seat cushion. Plus a Sony CD player under the right rear floor-mat. The Sony actually worked the first time I tested it, but thereafter, never again!
In 1987, I bought a ’72 220, and found a beautiful pair of Brazilian-made nickel-plated steel Dritz Super Sharp model 688 fabric scissors. They’re super heavy duty and sturdy enough to cut almost anything, including very thin sheet-metal. I keep them in my bedroom, and use them all the time. So much nicer than those plastic handled Chinese contraptions they sell today!
Happy Motoring, Mark
Happy Motoring, Mark
Worked for a guy with a Thunderbird junkyard back in the seventies. We took in a 64 Bird that was a weird one. It was used as a taxi. Who uses a 2 door for a taxi? Often wondered if it was a conversion or special order because it had different size pulleys on the engine, also all body emblems were gone and holes filled. Very nice body work. The weird find was when I stripped out the interior, must have been $60-70 dollars worth of quarters under the carpet behind the drivers seat. All were silver quarters, pre-1965. Always wondered what’s the story behind this? Had they been tossed in at manufacture? Was the driver skimming and stuffing them there? Never could figure out a logical reason for it.
My F150 came with a second set of factory alloy wheels and tires, an aftermarket engine tuner box and a large AC inverter. There is also a bracket where a trailer brake controller was so the plan is figure out the trailer wiring and diagnose or replace the currently non working inverter for use with a future camper. The truck also has a second set of trailer connectors in the bed to work with a fifth wheel.
On the useful to CC side the paperwork included the window sticker and some dealer papers indicating that it passed through three different dealers in Oregon starting in Eugene, then Hillsboro and finally Bend.
I also just remembered the 81 VW Scirocco I bought in college that came with an entire wiring harness and fuse panel in the trunk along with an aftermarket front air dam.
I got a giant Maglite in the passenger side floorboard of my 87 Fury
I found a map of an off-road park in a pocket of my Bronco
Just yesterday, l found the owner’s manual in the glove compartment of my 61’ Corvair which isn’t something l expected.
“my 61 Corvair” Really? We need to hear more about that!
You will! It’s a 1961 Corvair Monza coupe. She’s got a four speed stick and literally no other options. Her name is Rosie.
Sweet! My first car was a ’63 Monza four speed. I keep toying with the idea of another.
I got more “leftovers” the brief time I had rented out my condo after buying my home from tenants who never figured it was their job to clean up after they left…though I’ve only owned 1 new car, I’ve owned so few cars in my 46 years of driving, and I guess I bought the used cars with only a few years of prior owners who apparently cleaned them out before I bought them. Fortunately I finally sold the condo (not cut out to be a landlord) though it took awhile.
I bought my current car 20 years ago new, in another city that I hardly ever get to…they added a “mandatory” service discount package to the deal which I refused to pay for, as I told them I was very unlikely to take advantage of as I didn’t live there and wasn’t likely to revisit. It included discounts to local businesses (resturants, other attractions) and sure enough, I didn’t use a single one of them. One of my pet peaves is when I do business with a company, they don’t seem to appreciate “just one” purchase, and seem to act like you gave them a license to do lots of follow on business with them (or their cohorts)…maybe I will do follow on business with them but I want to decide that on a case by case basis, rather than some “relationship” they think I have with them just because I bought one thing (albeit a large purchase like a car) from them.
I’m pretty good about cleaning out my old cars before I give them up (I’ve never traded them in, I sell them myself) except I do intentionally include spare parts or accessories I’m not likely to use with my replacement car…like roof racks (that fit only that model). The exception (for some reason) was the mounted snow tires I bought when I lived up north which I ended up selling (for the rims primarily, but never know if buyer might want to use them for trip up north). Guess I figured they wouldn’t easily fit in the back (because there were 4 of them so bulky) of the car, and my replacement car had larger brakes that wouldn’t fit over the (smaller diameter) wheels that the snow tires were mounted on.