- There are tons of valuable cars rotting away in barns,
waiting for you to discover them.
That's right.
Today we're talking barn finds.
(upbeat music)
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A barn find is when someone uncovers an old, dusty car
in a forgotten garage, or even buried under ground.
You might know the term from playing Forza Horizon,
which honestly,
barn finds are probably the best part of that game.
I'm not gonna lie, I get a little too excited
knowing that I could just stumble across an old car,
like a Mercedes SL300 in an old garage,
which is exactly what happened
in Jacksonville, Florida of all places.
(fun hip-hop music)
This classic Benz was found in 2018,
after sitting dormant for almost 50 years.
It's in pretty good condition,
considering how humid Florida is.
Just breathing in Florida is a chore for me.
I don't do well in the humidity.
It's very hot, by the way.
I'm sweaty, just sweaty right now.
This particular Gullwing they found is very special
because it's the 43rd SL300 that Mercedes made
in a production run of only 1400 total car.
It has a bunch of prototype-like features.
Gooseneck shifter, those only made it in the first 50 cars,
bolted on eyebrows on the fenders,
and these corn-looking things on the bumper
that didn't make it onto the later production models.
The odometer read just over 35,000 miles.
So someone obviously enjoyed this beautiful car
for a little while before they abandoned it.
The original owner was a lawyer
that bought it back in 1957 and raced it.
Then he sold it to his mechanic, who raced it as well,
before selling it to a Navy pilot.
This pilot wanted to repaint the car
and somewhere in the process of stripping it down,
something went wrong and it was never finished.
A newspaper found in the backseat is from 1965,
which is likely the last year this SL300 was driven.
Luckily, the car was found just last year
and bought for just over a million dollars.
It made its way back to Stuttgart, Germany
and was cleaned up by Mechatronik,
just feet where it was produced 64 years ago.
It's truly amazing.
(cool rock music)
In a Hilton parking garage in Athens, Greece,
a custom, metallic brown Lamborghini Miura
was found slowly decaying.
It had been gifted to rally driver
and Greek Elvis (Chuckles), Stamatis Kokotas.
The Lamborghini had some cool mods
that were necessary for rally driving,
like bolted on fog lights and engraved alloy air vents,
and a passenger grab handle for those oh, (beep) moments.
Kokotas drive the hell out of this Miura,
and when it fell into disrepair, I guess he forgot about it
in a hotel parking lot for 40 years.
You've probably all heard by now about this Portuguese barn
with a bunch of classic cars in it, right?
The story goes that a retired New Yorker
bought property in Portugal,
only to discover a building with its doors welded shut.
Him and his wife bring a grinder over
and cut the doors open to reveal over 200 rare and unique
cars caked in dust.
It's pretty amazing, right?
Lucky ass dude.
Well, it's not all true.
The barn is there in Portugal,
and it is filled with rare cars,
but there is no retired New Yorker and his pretty wife,
and they didn't just stumble across this treasure trove.
The owner of the building is a Portuguese car dealer
that collected some of the more interested vehicles
that came through his lot during the 70s and 80s.
When it became full, he soldered the doors shut.
Kind of weird.
The doors were only opened one time,
for a photographer to come in and document the entire lot.
He counted 180 cars total.
Cars like the Abarth Scorpion, a rare Alfa Romeo,
some BMWs, a Lotus Europa, and a Ford Taunus.
Pretty cool.
Don't get your hopes up though,
because none of these cars are for sale,
and the photographer was sworn to secrecy
to the location of the warehouse.
I'll take that BMW 2002 off your hands.
In 2009, a Ford RS200 with a thousand miles on it,
an unregistered Mercedes 190E Cosworth Evo,
and two E30 M3's,
with a combined 94 miles on their odometers,
were bought from a British man
who had purchased them for his boys,
that never drove them (sighs heavily).
(hardcore rock music)
Who are these kids?
I'm gonna drive the (beep) out of those things.
"Oh, look at me.
"Oh, oh, thanks, Dad, yeah.
"E30, nice. I'm playing Fortnite."
While we're on the subject of BMW, this 1981 BMW M1
was found in a garage in Southern Italy
with only 4500 miles on it,
despite it never being registered.
That's weird.
It had been collecting dust for over 30 years.
These cars were special.
BMW only made 453 M1s between 1978 and '81.
This one was lovingly restored by a company
called Mint Classics, and sold in 2016 for (clears throat),
a million dollars.
This next barn find wasn't in a barn at all (laughs),
but buried underground in a Los Angeles neighborhood.
(classic jazz music) (car accelerating)
In 1974, a plumber in the Los Angeles area bought a
Pininfarina-designed Dino 246 GTS for his wife.
Lucky lady.
And she drives it around for a week
before it gets mysteriously stolen.
The car was never found
and the plumber got full compensation for the stolen vehicle
from his insurance company.
Pretty cool, right?
Then, four years later,
some kids are digging in the backyard of their house.
They discovered the car.
The cops are called in and start digging the Dino up.
The lead detective was worried that
there might have been a body in the car,
but was pleasantly surprised to find that
A, there was no dead body,
and B, whoever buried the sports car
had painstakingly padded the interior
with towels around the seams
to sop up any moisture that got in the cabin.
Pretty thoughtful, right?
The outside, unfortunately, did not fare as well.
The moisture had pockmarked the entire body with white spots
and rust had pretty much eaten through the metal everywhere.
It was in really bad shape.
The story gets weirder though,
because it came out that no children
had ever been digging in the yard,
and that story was made-up to protect an informant.
What really happened was
the plumber hired some goons to steal the car
for the insurance claim, and they were supposed to scrap it.
But the goons, they fell in love with the Italian Stallion
and decided to bury it instead, to dig it up later.
But they forgot where they buried it.
Same year the car was dug up, a man named Brad Howard,
bought the rusted heap
and began restoring it to its full beauty.
He repainted it a dark green,
and now the license plate reads, "Dug Up."
And you can still see Brad driving the Dino
around Southern California car meets.
I personally haven't seen it yet,
but now that I know this, gonna be on the lookout.
One of the craziest barn find stories ever
also took place in SoCal,
involving one of the most coveted
and most famous race cars in history.
This one is insane.
(big band music)
Shelby only built six Daytona Coupes in England,
and only five of them were known to survive.
The whereabouts of the sixth car remained a mystery
until October of 2000,
when a woman name Donna O'Hara lit herself on fire.
I'll explain that part in a second.
Locked away in her storage space
was the missing Daytona Coupe.
Not only was it one of the original six,
but it was the first.
People caught wind of the lost Cobra, but she wouldn't sell.
She wouldn't even let people look at it,
including the man whose name was on the car, Carroll Shelby.
That's crazy.
The coupe retired from racing in 1965,
and Shelby sold it to a guy for 4500 bucks.
Apparently it was so loud that the guy needed to weld
eight Smithy mufflers to it
to make it quiet enough to drive on the street.
That's awesome.
Respect to Carroll Shelby.
A year later it was sold
to none other than record producer Phil Spector.
The Daytona had some pretty insane stuff painted on the side
like "Winner 33 Grand Prix" and "Land speed record 227,"
which were ludicrously false claims.
Like, why couldn't you just put the real accomplishments
on the side of the car?
I mean, why even put things on the side at all?
The race car was a total cop magnet, obviously,
and Spector later sold it to the manager of his mansion,
and father of Donna O'Hara.
Donna agreed to store the car for her dad.
After she passed away, her mother sold the car
to a British Shelby enthusiast for a cool $3 million,
who then flipped it for $4 million.
Takes money to make money, that's business 101.
That's all for now.
Go say hi to your grandpa and tell him you love him.
And before we end this episode,
don't forget to take advantage of Current's
free mobile banking app.
Thank you, Current, for sponsoring the episode.
And while you're at it, take a peak in his garage,
because you just might come across
the next million dollar barn find.
My grandpa had a Caprice in his garage.
I don't think that'd be worth a million dollars.
- [Camera Man] What you got there, Nolan?
- I got my rug here.
Now I own two rugs.
I'm a man with two rugs and silverware.