Colossal find amid collapsed Pennsylvania barn is a pre-war Ford goldmine
Everyone has their own taste. Whether you prefer the boxy ’80s look to the swoopy ’70s, or the large-and-in-charge ’50s American cars to cute and zippy European compacts, a lot of collectors get fixated on something and just run with it. That certainly seems to be the case in this bombshell of a barn find, which was recently uncovered in Brookville, Pennsylvania, north of Pittsburgh. If your taste is American cars (particularly Fords) of the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s, I’d recommend looking closely and remembering to shut that jaw once it drops.
According to this post on Facebook Marketplace, Andrew Glinkerman’s uncle was a big-time vintage car collector, and stored as many as 36 vehicles in a barn. Unfortunately, the barn collapsed, and Glinkerman’s uncle passed away soon after, at the ripe age of 101. That left the barn-find horde in the hands of Glinkerman’s grandfather, who would prefer to sell them all off in one big batch, listed for $100,000. (Some have already been sold.)
Glinkerman says that while many of cars were damaged in the collapse, a good portion were already rusted and none prior to the incident were running or close to showroom condition. Because Glinkerman has yet to get an exact list of all the cars, we’re doing our best to sort through the wreckage by eyeballing the photos and making educated guesses based on some cursory research. So far we’ve been able to roughly identify the following:
- 1927 Chrysler Imperial 4 Door
- 1928 Ford Model A truck
- 1930 Ford Model A truck
- 1933 (?) Dodge Brothers sedan
- 1934 Ford Coupe
- 1934 Plymouth 4 Door
- 1936 Ford 5-Window Coupe
- 1937 Ford V-8
- 1938 Cadillac Fleetwood Sixty Special
- 1938 Ford Deluxe Coupe
- 1939 Ford Deluxe 2-Door Sedan
- 1940 Ford Deluxe
- 1940 Ford Sedan
- 1941 Ford Super Deluxe Coupe
- 1941 Mercury Convertible
- 1946 Lincoln Convertible
- 1947 Ford Coupe
- 1950 Pontiac Silver Streak Super 8
- 1960 Chevy Impala Convertible
- 1963 Mercury Comet
- 1963 NSU Prinz 4
- 1966 Ford Bronco
There are some interesting peculiarities with a few of these cars, including a (maybe) Dodge Brothers sedan I’ve been having a hard time identifying (it has a ‘6’ emblem on the grille bar, which I haven’t found anywhere else. If you know what this car is exactly, please let me know me in the comments.) Secondly, the rear of the 1941 Mercury Convertible appears to have been heavily modified, including a set of non-factory taillights that look like the work of a contemporary hot rodder. (UPDATE: Contributor and national treasure Thom Taylor informed me that the Dodge Brothers sedan in question is in fact not a Dodge Brothers at all, but actually a 1930 Studebaker President 6 Brougham.)
The Bronco, the Prinz, and the Impala are probably the biggest oddballs considering the group at large, and in general, many of these cars look like they could be somewhat salvageable. Others, which caught the brunt of the damage from the barn collapse, might be a harder sell.
“My uncle got them all before 1970 and they’ve been sitting in the barn since,” Glinkerman told me. “One or two were cars he actually drove in the ’30s and ’40s. He had plans to redo a lot of them but obviously that didn’t happen. He had some very high offers for individual cars and the entire lot within the last 10 years but the cars were his passion. Even if they didn’t drive and he couldn’t drive he still couldn’t bear to let them go.”
That, indeed, is often the story when it comes to barn finds. Glinkerman tells us that an auction doesn’t seem to be in the cards, but the listing indicates that individual offers for specific cars will be considered. It’s a pretty spectacular assortment of cars, and a testament to the fact that you never know when or where the next big barn find is going to turn up.
