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Expert
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Location: San Antonio TX | So after coming across a 57 on CL with some pretty bad rust, it's got me wondering: What's the most rusted out FL you've ever seen? Pics?
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Location: North Australia | Worst one I ever saw (in pics) is Docs, Fireflite.
Steve. |
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Expert
Posts: 3480
Location: Montreal, Canada | Worst one I've ever seen was this 1957 Chrysler Airport limo I found in a junkyard here in Quebec:
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Expert 5K+
Posts: 6498
Location: Newark, Texas (Fort Worth) | BIG M can fix it! |
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Location: Parts Unknown | One of the main reasons I left the Wet Side of the Washington was the rain - 600 days
of rain a year. I think the last recorded sun break was in August of 1952. Coastal weather
was hell on these pre-leaked cars. I never thought to take pictures highlighting the worst
of the worst, but it was not uncommon to find cars left in fields or woods where the body
had quite literally collapsed down over the chassis. Hell, moss would grow on your car as
it sat in the driveway, if you did not wash it for a year or two !
This was nothing like road salt rust that ate frames and caused a whole different set of
rust conditions, but was largely an issue of body rot. And coastal rust, caused by salty fog
settling on your car, made for a bizarre rust from the top down. Cars from these areas might
have perfectly good lower metal, yet the roof drip rails and all around the glass channels
would be wasted !
The 58 Adventurer convertible I bought out of the D.C. area was rotted so bad, the owner
cut it into pallet-able chunks for shipment. He said the car came into his yard in 1963 with
a collapsed frame just ahead of the rear wheel hump. Remember, this was a 5-year-old car
in 1963 !!! 
I was able to salvage the windshield header, upper top tub, and frame X-member and use
some of the remaining rusty metal to visually help recreate some of the cuts, but not much
else wasn't so shot as to just scrap it once the work was done. |
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Expert
Posts: 2490
Location: Kansas City, KS | Wow, that airport limo is bad! and it wasn't even stored in an underground capsule for 50 years. |
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Expert
Posts: 2633
Location: Minor Hill, TN | That is so sad. |
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Location: Parts Unknown | 60 Imp - 2016-06-09 5:04 AM
Worst one I ever saw (in pics) is Docs, Fireflite.
Steve.
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While my Fireflite was bad, I think it was pretty typical for the used-and-abused
Forward Look ragtops I have seen. Maybe even better than most. But in opening
up the body to work on it, I discovered that it has had the lower quarters already
replaced once. This work was done in 1959 or 60, as the owner from 60 to 83 said
it had been done before he got the car. I find this interesting, as the car was built
in January 1958, making it less than 2 years old and requiring that kind of rust repair
already ??? ! This was some sort of corporate-owned promo car (based on the delivery
code), so who knows what it was used for by DeSoto or if it was purposely abused
as a matter of testing ??? It seems like testing would have been done on a "pilot"
or super early production car, rather than one made midway through the model year.
But by the time I got the car, the floors were shot and the trunk was enough gone
that it was easier to replace the entire thing, and of course, the lower quarters and
wheel tubs were all eaten up again. The car is know to have been in Syracuse, NY
in 1960 and was used around Madison, WI until 1968, when it was stuffed in a garage
and forgotten. It has been out of the elements ever since, but those first 10 years
were intense salt exposure. The previous owner also told me that midwestern humidity
can also be a bad factor for cars that just sit. We don't have that problem here in the
desert, so I will have to take his word on that.
Disirregardlessly, ... in my search to find my Adventurer (and how I found the Fireflite)
I looked at a good dozen similar cars, and I would say this Fireflite is on the better end
of the curve for cars that were not pampered.
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Expert
Posts: 1223
Location: Ramona, CA | soiouz - 2016-06-08 6:00 AM
Worst one I've ever seen was this 1957 Chrysler Airport limo I found in a junkyard here in Quebec:
You Win! LOL |
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Elite Veteran
Posts: 1115
Location: CA | Worst I've laid eyes on was the buried car in Tulsa, the worst I've seen period... man that airport car has to take the trophy. The entire structure of the car has failed and collapsed onto itself. WOW! There is a '58 belvedere 4 dr ht in a riverbed here locally that's banged up and crushed to hell but not rusted like that. |
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Extreme Veteran
Posts: 480
Location: Georgetown Texas | Finsinthemirror - 2016-06-08 4:06 PM
Worst I've laid eyes on was the buried car in Tulsa, the worst I've seen period... man that airport car has to take the trophy. The entire structure of the car has failed and collapsed onto itself. WOW! There is a '58 belvedere 4 dr ht in a riverbed here locally that's banged up and crushed to hell but not rusted like that.
Pics! |
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Elite Veteran
Posts: 1115
Location: CA | LOL I don't have any. Sorry! Maybe one of these days I'll trek on back there with a camera. They used to put "junk" cars along the sides for erosion control. There are a bunch of cars there that get covered, and occasionally exposed. The plymouth is screwed and not much left, it was an a/c car. It's mostly just a shell. I grabbed the dash bezel and a bracket from the motor but it was very hard to do with the crushed roof. One of the cars I was most surprised at was a '60 ford that looked pretty good. Kinda sad really.. |
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Expert
Posts: 2996
Location: Sept. 1958 | This one maybe the worst, and just think it was a helluva nice car 58 years ago, 58 Plymouth convertible.
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Elite Veteran
Posts: 854
| Did you save anything off that Ragtop? |
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Expert 5K+
Posts: 7806
Location: Williams California | christine-lover - 2016-06-08 3:48 PM
This one maybe the worst, and just think it was a helluva nice car 58 years ago, 58 Plymouth convertible.
Matt- if the boot snap moldings are there, even if ripped apart or crushed, I would be interested in them, one of my projects is missing both.
---John |
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Expert
Posts: 2996
Location: Sept. 1958 | I've never seen it in person, I was offered the VIN plate and title from it but I have no use for those. The car is in Virginia or West Virginia. I'm not really sure if anything is salvageable on it but you never know.
John, I'll send you a pm of the guys number he gave me back in late 2014. |
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Expert
Posts: 3967
Location: DFW, TX | I bought a '57 Firedome coupe several years ago. It's the rustiest one that I, personally, have dealt with.
I bought it sight unseen knowing it was a complete mess.
It did not disappoint!
(everyone always asks, so I'll tell you the car is long gone now  ) |
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Elite Veteran,, James Passed away March 2021, He will be Missed
Posts: 1028
Location: Melbourne, Australia | Hey Danny I was going to ask would you want to sell the main rear bumper off this car if its ok to restore ? |
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Expert
Posts: 3967
Location: DFW, TX | This car is long gone, sir. But I hear there's a pretty sharp 4-door sedan for sale in the classifieds. Owner is kind of touchy though. 
Edited by 57burb 2016-06-08 8:35 PM
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Expert
Posts: 1488
Location: New Castle PA | If you go to my 1957 DeSoto web site, I have 3 pages of rusty/junk cars listed under "Junk Yard Dogs". The main page is http://www.angelfire.com/de/petrus/index.html
I don't think I have the one at the top of this page there, so I'll need to add it.
I'm moving things from several servers onto one, so a few of the pages won't load properly (yet), but the junk yard dogs should.
Edited by 57desoto 2016-06-08 9:34 PM
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Expert
Posts: 1737
Location: Hay Lakes, Alberta, Canada | Here is a '57 Chrysler Windsor 4 door see-dan I pulled out of a wrecker that was crushing out. $150 bucks... but the frame and floors are literally gone! The front seat was being held up by the driveshaft, till I removed that. I had to move it two years ago, to build my shop. I chained around the rear differential...and when I picked the rear end up, the frame tore apart in front of the diff, and everything collapsed! I salvaged the engine for parts (it was destroyed internally) and the transmission was rebuilt, to go in my 2 door. I've removed as much of the stainless, chrome, and other parts that I have deemed worth saving.
I took some "artful" shots of it this morning.
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Expert
Posts: 3480
Location: Montreal, Canada | Well, you have a pretty "good" contender to the title, there Brad. |
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Expert
Posts: 2524
Location: Houston | I think you have to make a distinction between cars that are actually in use or at least in the 'real world' as opposed to cars that are in junkyard, been buried, underwater, or other wise left to rot.
ANY car or stove or old plow can rust to pieces if 'discarded'. But it's the car that got rusty while it was still supposedly in use that is of interest. |
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Location: Parts Unknown | I got a tip that a 57 DeSoto was hiding behind a barn out in Hobart. Took a drive
out there and shur-nuff ! ... there it was ! 57 Fireflite coupe. White with red top
and sweep. A nicely loaded car. The owner, a little tiny guy named John was very
friendly and gave us a tour of his farm. He explained that he bought TWO of these
cars for his daughters that were going off to college. One daughter pampered hers,
the other one blew the transmission, and there it sat behind the barn. The pampered
one was later sold as a nice used car.
No, he didn't want to sell it. He planned to restore it as a project with his grandson.
I asked if he might get it into one of the barns to get it out of the relentless Seattle-
area rain, but it never did move. I checked back in on him from time to time as the
car grew more and more scunge and moss on it. Finally, his wife intervened and gave
him an ear full .... Sell him the dammed car, .... you're never going to get to it !
John was in his high 80's at this time.
So, we went out and looked at the car again and when I tried to open the hood, the
hinges tore loose from the cowl, it was so rusty ! The car still looked decent, just sitting
there, but everything was just crumbling. That additional 20 years in the rain had just
killed it.
On another occasion, we got a tip of a 57 "Golden Adventurer" up out of Port Angeles.
This was quite the drive to get up into that neck of the woods, and one of those instances
that made me gun shy whenever I heard the term "Golden Adventurer", as it usually meant
the story teller was an idiot. So, we drive for hours and finally get to the car. It was parked
out in the forest with 3-4 inches of leaves accumulated on it from years of sitting. The rear
window was gone, and so was about 3-4 inches of roof metal that had once held it, with a
similar problem running forward along the drip channels. There were no floors, but what
was left of the bare seat springs sat on the frame. Surprisingly, the doors opened and closed
OK, but the bottom 8' was gone from both the doors and the quarters. The best news of all
was that this "Golden Adventurer" was known as such simply because it was white with gold
roof and sweep, but was in fact, as #@! Firesweep, so with a wasted body and useless chassis
and drivetrain (to a DeSoto guy), the whole trip was another goose chase for nothing.
Along the line, one of our friends got stopped for some traffic infraction and ended up in
jail on an unpaid fine warrant, so we had the added pleasure of waiting for hours as the jail
processed him through the system. I was not happy to have wasted a perfectly good Saturday
this way.
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Expert 5K+
Posts: 9654
Location: So. Cal | These cars weren't rusty at all until disaster struck. This first '57 New Yorker was in So. CA, near me and I think the '58 was somewhere in Scandinavia. Does anyone have a picture of the '58 before it was burnt?
Edited by Powerflite 2016-06-11 11:11 AM
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Expert
Posts: 1267
Location: San Antonio TX | Powerflite - 2016-06-11 9:49 AM
These cars weren't rusty at all until disaster struck. This first '57 New Yorker was in So. CA, near me and I think the '58 was somewhere in Scandinavia. Does anyone have a picture of the '58 before it was burnt?
Ooh, that's painful to look at. Some has been using that first one for target practice too. |
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Expert 5K+
Posts: 7806
Location: Williams California | The second one looks like it was inside a structure that burned. |
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Veteran
Posts: 112
Location: Brisbane Australia | A couple from Queensland Australia. The 60 dodge collapsed getting it off trailer.
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Veteran
Posts: 281
Location: WA/USA | These are some great photos.
The worst I have personally seen is a 57 300 that had been sitting downhill from a spring for many years. Amazingly, the Hemi could still be hand-turned, but so much of the bottom middle to rear of the car was missing that the the remains of the seats were actually just sitting loose on the mud. |
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Expert
Posts: 2633
Location: Minor Hill, TN | WOW I remember when Flagler County , FL had 1 of those fires. . I seen on the news a lot of car owners drove their antique cars when they were evacuated. I would of done the same thing and take my classic . I sure as hell would not leave it behind.
The smoke even got as far as Brevard county when I was on my way to work I had my headlights on so other drivers could see me .
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Location: Parts Unknown | I LIKE TACOS !
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Elite Veteran
Posts: 1172
Location: Georgia | Who doesn't?
I think Terry's 60 wins so far.
Pete |
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Elite Veteran
Posts: 769
Location: Oley, PA | This nice '59 was in Baughman's Junkyard in PA before the yard was totally cleared out in 2010.
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Elite Veteran
Posts: 963
Location: San Antonio, TX | I saw this one a while back. There are rustier for sure, but the foil tape made this one laughingly memorable. That and the fact it was in the dry as a bone southern Nevada dessert. Obviously it had spent time elsewhere.
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Expert 5K+
Posts: 5006
| pretty crazy one that one. We shouldn't count wrecks or burns 
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Expert 5K+
Posts: 9654
Location: So. Cal | That is very likely a California beach car. Cars that spend their time too close to the beach rust out like this. They rust from the inside out because manufacturers didn't bother to paint the inside surfaces. The roof is usually the first to go, followed by every other interior joint. |
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Expert
Posts: 4654
| A Firedome conv I was thinking about purchasing years ago.
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Elite Veteran
Posts: 1155
Location: somerville mass | docs fireflite good or bad havent seen it on here in ages |
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Location: Parts Unknown | You will see more of it this winter when I get to welding up
the trunk area.
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Extreme Veteran
Posts: 480
Location: Georgetown Texas | 1958 New Yorker, the floors were super solid and the frame had rust holes (bad). how is that possible!
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Elite Veteran
Posts: 963
Location: San Antonio, TX | From what you can see that doesn't look like a car with a rotted frame. Rust is funny, sometimes almost seems random. I've got a 57 DeSoto 4dr hdtp with no floors or trunk but the rockers and frame are really solid. |
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Member
Posts: 43
Location: Peoria< IL | These are from an auction I was at last year. This poor '59 was 1/3 gone. 
Edited by throwinwrenches 2017-06-14 9:34 PM
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Extreme Veteran
Posts: 480
Location: Georgetown Texas | macedon - 2017-06-12 6:50 PM
From what you can see that doesn't look like a car with a rotted frame. Rust is funny, sometimes almost seems random. I've got a 57 DeSoto 4dr hdtp with no floors or trunk but the rockers and frame are really solid.
It was a loaded NewYorker sedan with A/C. The passenger side frame had several holes in it. Being a houston car, I think the crazy humidity caused 1. the owners to run the A/C all the time in which 2. the evaporator drain dripped water onto the frame for 20 years while it was on the road. Likely the real reason.
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Extreme Veteran
Posts: 398
Location: Watertown South Dakota | This 59 was in water fairly deep for years. Finally dried up enough to get it out. Surprisingly decent trim parts left.
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New User
Posts: 2
| Hey miquelonbrad, that was the worst one. |
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Most rusted out FL you've ever seen
