INTRODUCTION

It’s always difficult for me to do these introductions. I am not one to talk about myself; I usually talk about the adventures I’ve been on and the cars I’ve found, not really about myself as a person. It’s really not all that interesting, but it’s what I do that is interesting: Driving around the country documenting cool cars in neglected situations. Here’s a small peek into my world and the way I evolved into The Auto Archaeologist.

You’d think I was a hardcore car guy from the start, but it couldn’t be further from the truth. I was into trains as a child, but as a teenager, I considered cars as only a mode of transportation. My father used to tell me about the last new car he bought, a 1970 Hemi ’Cuda. I knew it was cool, but it really didn’t sink in until a trip to a radio installation shop in Chicago.

It is not very often that a person can trace their passion back to a single event or car, but I’m lucky in that regard. The radio in my first car—a 1990 Ford Taurus Wagon—had died, and my father had arranged to get a new one installed at a friend’s shop. It would take hours, and before smart phones and such, I got bored and began walking around. Between the two main work areas of the shop was a black car, buried in junk. I unburied the car a bit and saw it had a really nice shape to it; it had “gills” on the fenders, and the grille looked like it was going to eat you. And that’s when I saw the badge on the back: ’Cuda. It turned out to be a 1971 Plymouth ’Cuda. This thing was just so cool, with the chrome and angry look. And here it was just sitting there, buried in the shop. People walked past it every day and never paid it any attention. If this car was just sitting in a shop in Chicago and I found it by accident, what other cool cars were still out there? If I started looking for them, what could I turn up?

Not the normal use of a Gremlin, but it does the job well, protecting the Javelin AMX sitting up top in Michigan.

That started it all. On weekends I would head out with friends, combing the countryside looking for old cars. We’d always find something interesting, and just like the ‘71 ’Cuda, they were never for sale. So I just kept at it, getting deeper and deeper into the muscle car world. I took every opportunity to talk to people and follow up on leads. Some were duds, but others revealed incredible cars in amazing situations.

I always told people, I’m here for the story, not the car. The car has been sitting for 20, 30, 40, or 50 years, so obviously it isn’t for sale. But why has the car been sitting that long, and what connection do you have to it that you never let the car go? There must be a good story for you to let them sit so long. And more than likely, the owners are more than happy to talk to someone about the car—someone who isn’t trying to take it from them. It has allowed me the opportunity to see some amazingly rare cars sitting in sad locations.

Next to the regular Burnt Orange Challenger was the owner’s other car, a 1970 Dodge Challenger T/A. This one sat at the Packard Plant in storage until the place was condemned and he was able to bring the vehicle home.

In the end, I always leave my business card in the glove box. I’m more than happy to help an individual out, and if the car comes up for sale, I can try to purchase it, or I can get them in touch with individuals who are straight shooters and won’t lowball them. Or, if they ever want it restored, I can point the owners in the right direction of good, quality shops. The option used most often, I’m pleased to say, is the owners call asking where to find parts for the cars because they do want to get them going again. Sometimes my enthusiasm rubs off on them, and they want to get it going, or they just want to hear it run again. Either way, the car won’t be sitting anymore.

Before I was writing in car magazines, I had (still have) a blog about my adventures. I documented the cars with my little digital camera, then did write-ups about the adventures, and posted the pictures. It became popular enough that I made friends in the automotive journalist world. I did some freelance work for magazines such as Mopar Collector’s Guide and Mopar Muscle. One day I got a message from David Freiburger, the head editor of Hot Rod Magazine. He mentioned that they were doing a big refresh of the magazine and wondered if I would be interested in doing a monthly column for the magazine. Everything from there on is history. I’ve had a monthly column in Hot Rod now for years, and have been able to have work featured in a variety of magazines.

This newfound, very public profile led me to create my other personal website, The Auto Archaeologist. That way I could keep my regular life private, but post all my cool car adventures. This was a major boon to my collection of clues and leads. Normally, I had them all in a spreadsheet on my computer, organized by state, by zip code, and so forth, so I had a general idea of where things were when traveling. That all changed when I found Google My Maps. This allows you to have a private map online you can pin locations to. And not just pin a location, but you can enter comments and notes and more. So I was able to plot out every lead and every story on a map. Since it was in Google, I could see while traveling which pins I was near, giving me the ability to hit up a bunch of finds every trip. It revolutionized the way I find barn finds.

That’s the gist of how I started and how I operate. Anyone can do it, it just takes a little time and a little effort. People say all the time that there are no more cool cars to be found. And I am out there proving them wrong every time.

A side note about the 1971 ’Cuda that was my big epiphany car: I went back to that shop recently and learned the car had disappeared shortly after I had seen it about 15 years earlier. After talking to the owner of the shop about how that car changed my world, he invited me back into the shop, where that exact car was back in the exact same spot! But it had been fully restored and was in the final assembly! It blew my mind. And there, sitting on another car, I saw it: the original grille for the car. It had some cracks and was missing some parts, so they got a new one. And as a gift, he sold me the grille for next to nothing. So I now own the exact grille from the exact car that changed my life. When he did that, it made me the happiest man in the world. It just took 15 years!

Walking through a junkyard in the spring, this jumped out at me as a surprise: an early C3 Corvette languishing in the yard. It was an original 454 car to boot!