Chances are every vintage car enthusiast has had the same dream. You’re driving along a country road and notice the door open on an old barn. You catch a glimpse of an old car, perhaps sprouting weeds or rust or both. It’s a Barn Find.
You stop and talk with owner and he’s willing to sell the Stubebaker or the Porsche or the Volkswagen camper or the old Dodge pick-up or maybe even the Rolls-Royce or Bugatti.
That’s the premise of the intriguing coffeetable-sized book, Barn Find Road Trip.
Author and photographer Tom Cotter, collector friend Brian Barr and photographer Michael Alan Ross embarked on a 14-day trek through several states in a 1939 Ford Woody. They uncovered more than 1,000 vehicles. They took a lot of images, and they heard a lot of stories along the way.
Barn Find: More Than 1,000 cars In Four States
The Barn Find trip covered 2,700 miles through Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania. The three friends discovered lots of Fords, Chevys and a Cord Beverly sedan.
The 192-page book has it all. Great photography of iconic and not-so iconic vehicles. Great tales of the the cars’ owners, some with as much character as the vehicles in the car lots and garages and barns.
Rambler has always been intriguing, and of my favorites in the book is on page 90. It’s a 1959 Rambler 10. The author writes:
“Hidden behind the hedge in the front yard is probably the lowest-ranked mileage Rambler 10 in existence. Just 2,700 miles are registered on the odometer, and the spare tire is new.”
Near the end of the book, there’s a page of the Barn Find Road Trip Best Of list, best food to best beer to best road.
And there’s also a two-page, detailed list of the top-10 Rules Barn Find Hunting, including “Always Search on the Wrong of Town.”
Here’s the fine print:
Author: Tom Cotter; Photographer Michael Alan Ross; Format, Hardcover; Publisher, Motorbooks; Illustrations, 410; ISBN, 978-0-7603-4940-3; Size: 9×10; Published, Sept. 28, 2015; Price, $35.
To order the book, visit:
Barn Find Road Trip: 3 Guys, 14 Days and 1000 Lost Collector Cars Discovered
Article Last Updated: December 11, 2015.
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A sports, travel and business journalist for more than 45 years, James has written the new car review column The Weekly Driver since 2004.
In addition to founding this site in 2004, James writes a Sunday automotive column for The San Jose Mercury and East Bay Times in Walnut Creek, Calif., and monthly auto review and wellness columns for Gulfshore Business, a magazine in Southwest Florida.
An author and contributor to many newspapers, magazines and online publications, co-hosted The Weekly Driver Podcast from 2017 to 2024.
