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- Last year when I was writing the book that recently
came out callled Motor City Barn Finds,
I met a gentleman at a Cars and Coffee
event outside Detroit, who told us he had a bunch
of foreign cars in northern Michigan.
We went up there and looked
at them and wow it's pretty cool.
So now we're gonna bring the
video series, Barn Find Hunter,
with these video cameras to come and look at those cars
in his yard, way up in northern Michigan.
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Here's an Alfa Romeo 2000 ,pretty rare car.
Much larger than your average Alfa Romeo.
It's probably only good for a parts car these days.
There are nice parts on it, tail lights, bumpers
but if you look at the chassis rot
down on the quarter panel there it's pretty bad.
Next to it if you can check it out is a French car,
called a Citroën 2CV or Deux Chevaux,
and that was a front wheel drive two cylinder car
that was designed so that you could drive it
to the market to sell your eggs at the market.
And if you had those eggs in a basket on the front seat
with you you could drive across a plowed
farm field and they wouldn't break.
That's how compliant the suspension was.
And back there is a 1956 Alfa Romeo Giulietta
It's the 34th car like that built.
And it's probably too far gone to restore unfortunately
but we're just getting to the good stuff now.
This is just a prelude of things to come.
Here's a car that in Europe this was called
a Volkswagen, marketed as a Volkswagen,
but in the states it was called a Porsche.
It's a 914, a mid engine car.
This one's a four cylinder probably a 1.8.
They were amazing handling cars especially
when they had the optional six cylinder
which was a 911 6, it was amazing.
This one's got the optional alloy rims.
You know you'd really have to go in there
take everything out and see how the floor is.
These cars have a bad habit of rusting very badly.
But if it has solid bones it might be worth
restoring or making a vintage racecar.
This has been on this trailer for at least 20 years
if not longer, the owner bought it in the early '80s
and it's been sitting here ever since.
But now we're gonna go down to a garage, David, who owns
these vehicles is gonna explain what we're walking past.
This is our friend, David Korwin,
and David has invited us here to his farm
up in northern Michigan to look at some
of the cars that he and his brother
and ultimately his father collected over the years.
We've seen some of them over in the woods there
but this is the mother load in here.
So if you're a foreign car guy you'll really dig this.
So, thanks for inviting us.
- Thanks Tom.
- Show us what you got.
- [David] All right the first thing you'll see
is this 1940 Dodge truck, it's a one ton stake.
And the idea with this is that it was
gonna be the perfect vintage race car hauler.
Especially for like an old Lotus 6.
Because you could drive it up on the back
and on the ramps and you'd be all set.
- [Tom] So your dad bought this?
- [David] Yeah, and we were talking about that.
We think maybe in Roscommon, Michigan but we're not sure.
- [Tom] How long ago you figure he bought it?
- [David] Maybe 1976.
- [Tom] '76?
- [David] Or more.
- [Tom] Yeah, 40 years.
Okay so we have an Alfa coupe here?
- A 1957 Giulietta Sprint.
It's a car that my mom and dad went on dates in.
- [Tom] No Kidding?
- [David] Yeah
Way back, way back then, so early '60s, end of '50s.
I think he bought this car in '59.
- [Tom] What year is it do you think?
- [David] This is a '57.
- [Tom] Okay so he bought it as a
two year old car no kidding. - [David] Yeah.
And this thing was like a turquoise.
- [David] That is the original color
- [Tom] Isn't that something.
- [David] I think it would have been called celeste blue.
- [Tom] You can see the dash board a little bit,
wow what a fabulous car this must've been, geez!
Column shift? - [David] Yep.
- [Tom] This car has a column four on the column.
- [David] Yeah four speed on the column.
- [Tom] Here's the engine on the Giulietta
It's a 1957 1600 cc's.
If you could look at this, this is a 1957 car
being built at the same time as MG A's
and Triumph TR3's and they were so basic.
The Triumphs, the MGs and most other cars
had push rod engines very antiquated.
But this car had overhead cam, double overhead cam engine.
Aluminum head, it was so much more advanced
than the British contemporaries of the day.
Italians really had it together when it came to machinery.
It's got a single down draft single barrel
but most people who had performance versions of this
would have side draft Weber carburetors.
Two two barrels.
It's a flow through head design which means the intake
is on this side, the exhaust is on this side so gas and air
would flow through the head and right out again.
A much better cylinder head design
than the alternative which would be the gas
and air come in and go out on the same side.
It just slows the whole momentum down.
This is a car worth restoring.
And especially since David, his parents dated in this car
in the late '50s or early '60s.
He has a real need to wanna restore this again.
So we have here what is it, a GTV?
- [David] This is a GTV that my dad owned a couple of times.
(laughing)
It's a '66 and he sold it to a young man
in Ann Arbor who drove it for a couple of months
before he floated it over a traffic island
and took out the sump and the front end of the car.
And when we walk to the front end, you can see that my dad
didn't buy factory panels and repair it.
Because he was a body guy he decided to do his own take.
- [Tom] Oh look at that.
- [David] On Chazarros theme here and it's got NSU
headlights, that's where the oval headlights came from.
- [Tom] So you got a custom Alfa, holy mackerel.
- [David] Yeah, but it is a custom Alfa.
It's all done with lead, it's surviving
better than the rest of the car.
- [Tom] And did he drive it after he fixed the car?
- [David] Oh, quite a bit, after this guy
crashed it my dad bought it back from him,
the guy gave him a bunch of money and my dad
gave him in return his Iso Rivolta as a trade
and got this back and then did the work on it.
- [Tom] Huh, interesting.
- [David] So then they drove it for years, my brother and I
used to hear them coming home from the shop and we'd hear
them downshifting a block over from us and we'd say there
comes dad and it was just wonderful to listen to.
- [Tom] Isn't that cool? Wow.
And another, is this a 2000?
- [David] This is a 2000 as well this is a 1960
and this one is in pretty decent shape
as far as a restoration project
and we have all the pieces plus parts car
obviously, and this is body by touring,
this is a coach built car, the body looks
similar to some of the Maserati's at the time
because touring had their designs,
their favorite look and it does look
similar to that the 2600 was a bigger
car than this and had a little less
detail as far as trim was concerned
but this was a luxurious car for the time.
- [Tom] You got a nice Alfa logo on the back.
Is this the car that the other one
in the woods is a parts car for this?
- [David] Correct, correct. - [Tom] Yeah, okay.
It's been here for a while.
- [David] It has been, there's a roosting area up there.
- [Tom] Is your intention to restore this?
- [David] This one will be a restoration, yeah this one is.
- [Tom] Now is there anything in here that you're
interested in selling in here?
- [David] We've talked about whether or not we would.
I'm not old enough to decide to sell off
the projects yet, and at this point, I still think
there's time to restore things.
- [Tom] Yep, well we're leaving a great stash
of Alfa Romeo's in a barn and in the woods around here.
And we're driving about 50 miles north of here
in Michigan because we've heard about a guy
named Denny, who has been collecting too many cars
for too long, has decided I've got to start
getting rid of these things because I can't finish them
all in my lifetime so that sounds pretty appealing to me,
so we're going to go check that out.
Come on with us.
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