Is the barn find phenomenon a thing of the past?

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sprucay@reddit

YouTube channel called the late brake show has a whole series of them in the UK

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the government ran a program called Cash-for-Clunkers where they bought up hundreds of thousands of vehicles that ran perfectly fine, and then crushed them. There is now a large deficit of cheaper vehicles compared to 20 years ago. This video from The Fat Electrician explains it pretty well.

https://youtu.be/z-JOYGlsnKw?si=D4Nx_Hi9tMM0OcSw

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Stevenwave@reddit

This would apply mostly to old non-enthusiast stuff though wouldn't it? Most aren't gonna take scrap value for anything with any following.

Like no one's gonna spot the early 90s Bluebird and be all holy shit barn find, can't believe this is just sitting here. Whereas if it's one of the few types of cars worth fixing up, that someone will spend 10k on even if it's just a super straight, rust-free shell, those are barn finds.

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lunarc@reddit

There is a list of some of the cars that were crushed, I remember seeing an e30 m3 and a few other rare/valuable cars on the list

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Stevenwave@reddit

Could be anything though. May have been totally written off. No one's scrapping a perfectly decent M3.

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Fickle-Watercress876@reddit

I get what you’re saying but the program was 20 years ago and people don’t place value on a vehicle from 10-20 years ago because in their eyes it’s outdated and nothing special. Look at all these cars and trucks from the 80s and 90s that people used to not care about that are considered collectible, nostalgic, or cool nowadays. A Tacoma from 2015 to most people wouldn’t be anything special but old Toyota Hiluxes and Toyota Pickups from the 70s and 80s sell like hotcakes now

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Stevenwave@reddit

Sure, and there's plenty of stuff that can become that. Most cars aren't that though. For every interesting old model people want nowadays, there's 25 no one cares about and never will. No one's gonna be restoring a 2018 Altima in 20 years.

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Spoonmanners2@reddit

I’m sorry a video from whomst?

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Fickle-Watercress876@reddit

He calls himself the Fat Electrician

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ThatsMyRug@reddit

Of all the ‘Barn Finds’ that have surfaced I honestly think that there are probably close to the same amount of potential ‘Barn Finds’ unfound because the owner has been chasing people snooping around the property with a shotgun or something like that…

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Left4DayZGone@reddit

I hate Cash 4 Clunkers with a fiery passion, but only cars as far back as 1984 were eligible, AND they had to be recently registered, you couldn’t just go buy a car out of a junkyard and take it to a dealer for that $4,500 credit. So, there weren’t a ton of desirable cars from the late 80’s and early 90’s turned in, mostly stuff from the mid 90’s and up.

We had some nut job turn in a MINT, and I mean SHOWROOM CONDITION 1984 Olds Cutlass, but rather than give him the $4,500 credit and stamping the title, the dealership manager just paid him cash and put the car back on the lot to sell it. Had a few decent condition Caprices and Silverados… most cars we got in were perfectly drive able cars that could’ve changed someone’s life, but noooo, they had to be destroyed. Fuck C4C and whoever thought it up and whoever ran it.

However, C4C is not responsible for wiping out 50’s, 60’s and 70’s classics, there are many other reasons why they aren’t so common anymore.

Scrap prices went really high at one point and that accounts for probably the single biggest hit to the pre-1980’s “barn find” resource.
YouTube and other “barn find restoration” shows skyjacked the value of these cars by increasing demand.
They aren’t getting any younger or less rusty as years pass. Many of them are simply expiring.

That said, they’re still out there… just have to drive some back roads with a gift wrapped 6 pack of Miller Lite and be willing to knock on doors.

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Stevenwave@reddit

I'd say there's gotta still be lots around. But that number's only gonna get smaller. Over time it'll get to be more and more slim pickins. Can see it on the roads, the examples I see of cool old stuff becomes almost exclusively stuff that's been babied or full on restored.

The scary thing is that cars that were new when I was young has entered that realm. There's people out there spending half a mil on a redone and heavily worked GT-R.

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Or BarnFinds.com