barn finds

(frogs croaking) - this is the best day you can have, finding a hoard like this. there's muscle cars, there's vintage cars, there's race cars, just cool stuff. i'm tom cotter. the first car i found i was 12 years old. i'm 61 years old now,i'm still finding cars. and in this series, you'll see

that there are still plenty of cars left. (rock music) this is a good deal. i don't know what it is, but there's a rumblecoming out of the back so we'll see what happens. sometimes the best thingto do is just let it go until it either fixes itself or breaks. that's what's broken?

- [voiceover] just to boltback down, it's for holding. - heard about a place calledbubba daiz or daz, d-a-i-s-s, from somebody earlier this morning. they said these are theold car guys in town, and so now we're going togo to bubba's towing yard. hopefully, they havecool stuff we can look at and maybe can recommendother places for us to go. okey-dokey, let's gotake a look at some rust. is that a real ss?

- [voiceover] yes. - [tom] oh, wow. - [guy in red coat] the'68 numbers matching car. - [tom] '68 numbers matching, is that a big block or small block? - [guy in red coat] small block. - and is that bubba's? - [guy in red coat] yes. - [tom] that's got big oldwheels in the back. (laughs)

- [guy in red coat] yeah. (heavy rhythmic rock music) i mean, i'd say a thousand bucks or less, somewhere around there. - you take credit card? (both laugh) is that a big block chevelle? - [tom] big block chevelleconvertible, cowl induction. - [guy in red coat] bigblock chevelle convertible. - [tom] so, is it like, '72?

- [guy in red coat] '72. - so it would be a 502? - [guy in red coat] it'sa, that one's actually a, that's a 454 car. the chevelle's came witha 396 big block option which is actually, from '69to '72 is a technically, a 402, 402 cubic inches. - [tom] ah, okay. - [guy in red jacket] 396,they call it a 396 because

the name had been like that for so long. - ah, okay. (rock vocals) this is a 1958 morris minor. you know, most car enthusiastswould walk right by this car. it's no big deal, i've got a personal love affair with morrisminors, i race one. finding a morris minorin a yard like this, usually they're rust buckets.

it's got longitudinally mountedtorsion bars in the front. that's your front suspension,instead of springs, and they mount to the cross member, right in the middle of the car. usually that cross member's sorotted that it's just broken, and at that point, thecar needs major surgery, or a new frame. so usually i walk by a car like this thinking it's a rust bucket,which i did the first time.

but then i came back andit had right hand drive. so, that's interesting. but the problem is most righthand drive morris minors come from england and theycome here as rust buckets. but this car, the a-u means australia, and the v-i-c means victoria.this car's an australian car. and over here there's a new zealand logo, so this car actually sat in very, very dry climates its whole life.

so i crawled underneath thiscar, the torsion bars are good, the floors are solid, the body's good, and all the glass is good,it's got four hubcaps on it. what's unusual in thiscar, it's got semaphores, which are these littleblinkers that come out, so it doesn't have blinkerscoming out of the lights, it's got these littlefingers that stick out and light up at the end. kinda comical but that'swhat they had in england

and in australia. if somebody wanted tofool around a cheap car, these cars are bullet-proof,they're fun to drive, they're easy to get partsfor because any part from an mg midget will go on here, parts from austin healeysprites will work on here. would i own this car, yeah, i would. will i, probably not 'cause i'd need to finda divorce attorney.

and if bubba would sellthis at a good price, somebody watching this should buy it. (plucking banjo) - [voiceover] last on the road, 1959. - it looks like it's made of brass. so this is a little french car, you'd never see in the states. so what are we, this islike what, a '64 maybe? - [voiceover] i have no idea.

- [tom] yeah so little four cylinders,single barrel carburetor. look at all the room, imean look at that room. oh, look at this. it's the original shell oil specifications for the car when it was new. look at that, shell retinax, shell spray and shell spirax. (energetic banjo)

(car engine revs) so this is a gmc that you'dwant to give on to your son, and it's got a big block in here now? - big block, 454 that was not running when i got it. it was just trading someparts i had, got it home, couple hours, had it running,it's definitely built. i've always wanted agmc front end one it's, for every 500.- [tom] it's beautiful.

- [bald guy] chevy's they built, they built maybe a hundred gmc's. - this is the best day you could have, so we're going to walkaround through there. i'll show you up close and personal. (strong rhythm guitar) cadillac is one of the most iconic automotive designs in history. it's probably the largestamerican car ever built.

it's a '59 cadillac and thebody was actually designed by pininfarina in italy. it's ironic that pininfarinadesigned small italian cars and they designed this boat. lots of camaros here. el camino '70 challenger,plum crazy 318 car. no engine in there rightnow, it's got a transmission. '69 charger. unusual car, i can't rememberthe last time i saw one.

it's an american motors rebel. it's got a 327 americanmotors engine, not a gm motor. automatic, 2-door coupe,hard top, neat car. that would be a neat car ifyou fixed up a car like that and brought it to cars andcoffee, you'd be the only guy with a car like thatat the cars and coffee. (rock guitar) '66 charger, there's two of them there. this one had a 383 from the factory.

it now is a 413, you thinkabout that beach boys song, 413's really digging in,that's the motor this has which is a big chrysler motor. it's got automatic on a column and there's another '69charger in the corner that has automatic on the floor. these are all hot-rodsby the way, if you look the wheels are all drag wheels. they're either chromeor slotted alloy wheels.

so almost everythingback here is a hot rod. this is a kinda of an emergency vehicle that was on an airbase. if someone got hurt, there'sstretchers in the back, and it was down in florida. by the way, he drove it back here, so probably without a lot of work, this car could be arunning, driving car again. so we looked behind this fence,

and dan let us come back here. you like ford, he's got fords. you like camaros, he's got those, too. he's really a moparguy, he's got chargers, he's got a challenger,he's got a cadillac, he's got mustangs, he'sgot a fairlane convertible, he's got a '56 chevy sedan delivery. this is like a hodgepodgeof car collecting, and this is wonderful.

this yard offers something to everybody who's into old cars. finding old cars, you gotta be a salesman. you gotta talk to old mechanics, find out where the old restorers live, go to auto part stores,go to repair shops. it's not always easy to find old cars, but if you look over afence once in awhile, you ask the right questions,

sometimes you come acrossa bunch of neat cars like we found in savannah. we found cars in the town of savannah and now we're west of savannah. so if you think you can't findcars in a metropolitan area like savannah, i've gotnews for you, you can. happy hunting. (rocking guitar)