TREASURE HUNT
I found one of the largest classic car graveyards I’ve ever seen featuring 2 Edsels and hidden treasure town car parts
The two cars are worth $52,362 collectively
A CLASSIC car collector has visited one of the largest classic car graveyards in the country and found two rare cars worth $168,000.
One man's trash is another man's treasure, especially when it comes to rusted classic cars.
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Ben from IT Garage, a YouTube channel (@) dedicated to the adventures that come with restoring classic cars, ventured to a salvage yard known for being expansive.
As an owner of a partly restored Ford Edsel, a rare car made by Ford Motor Company named after Henry Ford's son, Ben was looking for salvage parts to finish his project.
"I heard they have two Edsels at the yard, we'll see when we get there," Ben said in the .
"He said they were wagons, I think."
Ford had a separate division dedicated to the car, with 10 years and $250 million allocated to bring the company's creator's vision to life.
When the first Edsels debuted, sales were high - though they fell to about a third of the projected sales mark before the end of the year.
Not long after, Ford shut down the division, development, and production of Edsels despite it being a "middle ground" vehicle that would compete with Dodge, General Motors, and Chevrolet.
Time wrote that the Edsel division may have been the perfect car if it debuted at a different time.
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"The Edsel was a classic case of the wrong car for the wrong market at the wrong time," the publication .
"The flaw in all the research was that by 1957, when Edsel appeared, the bloom was gone from the medium-priced field, and a new boom was starting in the compact field, an area the Edsel research had overlooked completely."
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Ben found the first Edsel, a 1958 Ranger, shortly after walking into yard in Germanton, North Carolina.
The image used as the hero image for the yards' website shows the rare vehicle at the very front, and to Ben's dismay, it had been picked clean.
Some of the vehicle's base black paint showed above the rust, though some key components were already removed.
"I can already tell that the big block is missing," he said, attempting to lift the hood.
Rust had made it weak enough to fall apart.
"And obviously the hood has seen better days."
What made the car so rare was that it came with a three-speed manual transmission, when a majority of vehicles sold had automatic transmissions.
The rear brake drums had also been removed, which Ben said were worth a little bit of money.
The data tag was still intact, which he intended to send to Edsel.
"I'm going to send it to the Edsel guys and see if this car has been reported or not, but this looks a little like a base 1958," he said.
The second Edsel he found was a 1959 Edsel Villager wagon.
The station wagon was made to fit six passengers, and only a little over 5,000 units were made.
Despite its rarity, the average price of a Villager is $24,887 as of last year.
A Ranger's average price is a little over $27,000.
Like the Ranger, the engine was missing and many key features of the interior were already removed.
While there weren't many pieces he could use for his own Edsel restoration project, he did find a piece that he could use for decoration.
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"Now, this tailgate would be really cool to have," he said.
"This would be a sweet, sweet wall hanger. It's got a little bit of rust there and it's folded up a little bit, but it would be super neat to have hanging up somewhere."
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