What Have You Found In Your Car?

I have never been very lucky to find much in the many cars that ive owned. The First 308 was a bit different though. In collecting various parts the car needed, I bought a set of indicator lights for the instument panel as they were missing. Over a year later, when I lifted the console to work on the levers, I found the entire missing set of lights along with lever and switch knobs, a Zippo lighter, lots of french fries, a rusty screwdriver, misc. nuts, bolts and screws, and over five dollars in old coins. But the greatest find happened recently.

The rear deck lid on the 308 has the aluminum louvers over the engine. The set on the drivers side was missing one fin, the very frontmost fin of the louver. I wanted to fix it, but finding one louver is pretty difficult. I had even considered making a fin. But in over two years of owning that car I had thought I had looked in every concievable pocket, nook or cranie. I know for absolute certain I had felt inside the door pockets lloking for things many many times. But a few weeks back while sitting in the car looking it over, I felt around inside the passenger door pocket, and I feel this peice of metal. I pull it out and low and behold its the missing fin. I swear Enzo musta put it there.

 

Someone I know found a half-eaten pepper under the back seat of his dad's Alfa Giulia.

It was also under the original paint......

 

When I picked up 0389GT at the dock, I saw a dock worker scowling at me. When I got all the paperwork done and got in the car, I found a very nice bottle of scotch under a crumpled newspaper. Wow, a profit already, and the car wasn't even for sale!

 

DeLoreans obviously weren't built in Italy, but the body work was designed by an Italian, so I guess this kind of applies to this thread.

When DeLorean owners remove interior pieces they sometimes uncover What are refered to as "Cave Paintings" done by the assembly guys with magic marker. Some are quite interesting, have a look at the following link.


http://www.dmcnews.com/cavepaintings.html


By the way, some interesting things have been found on the back sides of Ferrari body panels too.

John

 

I imported quite a rare Fiat into Australia. It came from a scrap yard in Mexico where it had been for many years and a lot of parts were missing. Australian quarintine laws are very strict and I had a real problem as the car was full of fine dust... inches thick in places. After some drama it was agreed that the car could be cleaned at the port by the Department under strict control but I asked if I could go through the debris in case there were any small parts. One thing I found was the ash tray which rattled but for some reason I didn't look. During the restoration the thought occured several times that we didn't have any keys then one day I happened to open the ash tray. Inside... a full set of original keys... even the gas cap.

Ean

 

in my '79 chevy, i found an old mont blanc roller pen and a real nice pocket knife
sold the mont blanc, for almost half what i paid for the car!

 

We bought a 1960 Alfa from a used car lot in Alexandria, Virginia, in about 1972. It had a "frozen engine" as told by the dealer, so we had to push it onto our trailer to get it home. When we began looking closely at it, we found the endcap of a connecting rod sitting on top of the starter motor. Next thing to look for of course was the hole in the side of the block. The engine was frozen because the stub of the second connecting rod was wedged into the block, or what remained of it.
Ed

 

Ed,

That's rather depressing.

Regards,

Art S.

 

Wow. I'd almost feel bad selling it. Although.....finders keepers, loosers weepers

 

Bought a 1970 Alfa Berlina in Italy (Forli) a few years ago from an old man.
Drove it home to The Netherlands (800 miles).
While cleaning the interior I pulled out the ashtray in the console.
Underneeth I found a few Italian Lire bills and a package of condoms.

 

An empty bottle of Vodka where you stash the soft top in my friends Miata.

 

Cleaning my 1977 308GTB I found a card from a Limo Service in Portland, the original owner lived there..

I also pulled the radio from my other 1977 308GTB, and found the installer's business card from Miami.

Both confirmed the previously known travels of the two vehicles....

No contraband or ladies clothes, though.....sadly. Maybe the NEXT owner will have better luck.....

 

Well my '85 308GTSI was originally a California car. The guy I bought it from here in Chicago, I knew he had bought it after his second marriage went "up in smoke" in about 1987-88. I bought the car from him in 96 or 97. Like 4-5 years ago, I did a re-dye on the leather myself. When I was taking the consul apart, I found a half smoked roach under it - CA car!!?? The guy here is a nothing!!! CA CAR!!!!

 

I found the Ferrari plug-in auxiliary light buried deep in the wheel well of my 365GT - it was in what I assume is its original vinyl pouch. It's incredibly long, don't know if the aux lights for the 365 had to be that long because of the car's length! And I can use it in my 308 too! I just found out today reading another post that it is magnetic! Very cool.

 

What was the manufacturer? Can you post a photo of it? Is there a socket under the dash for it on 365 GT like on most - if not all - Italian cars?

 

Yes, there is the hidden socket on the 365. Don't know the manufacturer, of the light, but it has a little horsey logo on it that's kinda cool... Photos below.
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Never seen one like it! The horse logo (very cool indeed!) looks like a (replaceable) tool insert, so similar lights were very likely made in large quantities with other logos. What is that "clip" on the back side? Is it a magnet or just a clip that the wire can be pressed into in order to hang the light around something? Best wishes, Kare

 

That is a very cool story!

Got one myself. When I was a 16 yo farm boy in Wisconsin bought a 1970 Dodge Challenger from a fellow farmer that had it stored in is barn under a tarp. It was in good shape but obviously needed a good cleaning.

Under one of the seats that I pulled I found an old Zippo with an engraving Of the outline of Vietnam and an inscription that said "God can't send me to hell - I've already been there - DaNang 1969" It turns out the car was the farmers sons who had been KIA in 1971.

I returned it to him and he told me he hadn't had the heart to sell the car until he saw my enthusiasum for it like his son had.

 

Dave, that's a sad story. :\

In my 240Z I found endless amounts of change, a couple of matchbooks, old receipts for work completed, a dried-up pen or two, the usual stuff. Same story for my '67 VW Squareback, though I did find a 10-year old bottle of brake fluid kind of wedged in the front trunk.. I haven't had the pleasure of coming across something really wonderfully odd.

 

Okay, I think this one takes the cake!

Coming on six years ago, my neighbor Oliver restored one of the most beautiful 1963 330 Americas I have ever seen. For the longest time he claimed that he had that child-hood dream-like experience of finding an old Ferrari in a barn that hadn't been seen for twenty years or more. To be honest I had met the man who sold it to him and he didn't seem like the barn-having-type, if you know what I mean.
I was staying for dinner with their family one night, during the final stages of restoration when the two of us went into the garage to look at some leather upholstery for the seats. We removed the seats and Oliver starts to remove the old upholstery, and low and behold, out comes the tail of what we find is a whole opossum skeleton! This was a shock to us both!


Regards

 

Possum patina?

 

The only way that I could sell my 250LM to Sonny Bono was to take in trade his Omega (complete with cartoon of Cher on the sail panel). The Omega sat outside for a week or two while I tried to figure out what to do with it, and when I finally opened it up I was hit with the most God-awful smell. It took me at least 3 hours to find the package of Italian salami that had slipped under the spare tire, and at least 3 months before the smell left!

 

Who is eating salame under the spare tire?

 

The gent who gave me my first experience restoring an old car had me do some of the worst initial tasks on a 1921 Rolls Royce Silver Ghost he had bought off a sheep ranch in Australia, where it had supposedly seen duty pulling a plow (may have been true, considering the desk-sized transmission) and had clearly last been used as a home for many, many mice. So in relation to the title of this thread, my "find" was two five-gallon bucketfuls of mouse turds.