When I got my driving licence in the late 80s, I used to drive to scrap yards in my area in Ireland and spend literally hours just walking round and sometimes sitting in the cars and inhaling the unique smells each car had. Probably wierd but I remember those days with a smile 😊
Who'd have thought that a Morris Ital van would be one of the most intact and recognisable vehicles there. Probably one of the last vehicles to enter the yard.
I have memories when I was about 10 of finding "dumped cars" whenever we went on caravan holidays. Armed with a screwdriver I'd remove the switches and dashboard instruments, and take them home to put in my "den" in the loft, alongside the rear numberplates for dad's various cars that had been needed for the caravan. I had a Ford Anglia speedo, a "kneecapping arm" (solid metal casing that protruded from steering column, with tabs switches for indicators, lights, wipers) from a Ford *Consul* Corsair (ie the very early version), an ignition switch from a Mini (with the key code embossed on it, so dad bought a key for it. I even rigged up a Meccano motor to the speedo cable of the Anglia so the gauge would read about 80 mph! The best "car dump" was a narrow ravine in Wensleydale where local people took unwanted cars and pushed them over the edge - one farmer turned up with a tractor and trailer one which was the Mini from which I took the igntision switch. I also nicked a switch panel from an old fire engine that had been placed on an adventure playground at Thorp Arch trading estate (along with an old wooden galleon) which was somewhere for the kids to play while the parents were looking at new sofas etc. These things survived a house move a few years later, but then languished in a shed and disappeared when my parents had a clearout.
@@HowardLeVert When I was at school around that age, the cross-country run route went along a muddy unmade road past a car-breakers yard. I was itching to get out my magic screwdriver...
I used to go behind a local garage in the 70s which had a load of old probably mot failed cars I guess dating back to the late 40s and prize off badges with a screwdriver for my collection. Sacrilege looking back.
I remember going to scrapyards with my dad back in the late 70s, & climbing around the cars & removing bits like switches, interior lights, bulbs, badges etc & filling the big pockets of an old coat, as long as dad paid for the bigger items he wanted, no one bothered to check what other stuff you might have squirreled away in your pockets! The good old days, you'd never get away with doing that nowadays!
Now Derek from Vice Grip Garage would have driven most of those out of the brambles after a day's tinkering...Ian's ability to identify vehicles from a couple of rusty panels is truly incredible though.😊
Amazing how long everything has been there and so overgrown!To be honest, if I had inherited the site,I wouldn't be in a hurry to clear it so quickly, I'd be in my element sorting through. So glad that ERF found a good home for restoration. 👍
I remember being in a taxi in (IIRC) Singapore which was a Nissan Cedric. The taxi driver asked me whether we had them in the UK and when I told him we didn't expressed surprise - "But Cedric is an English name isn't it?"
I always imagine the naming committee sitting down to come up with a name that epitomised the product and would be immediately familiar and comfortable with the British market. “I know! We will call it the Cedric”! Much nodding and then a particularly good lunch arrived 😂 I would suspect that there’s a half decent board game to be had for the Hubnut store just from stills taken in that yard. Name that car! I suspect that Ian would win every game though.
@@peterallam6494 the lead time on the rsj’s would have been significant. Perhaps they are still waiting on delivery! You can see where they were coming from though! The driver I mean and not the rsj’s!
I never fail to be amazed at Mother Natures capacity to heal everything...Those brambles almost seem to be breaking up and digesting the cars here. Maybe they like the iron or something.
I love this sort of place. To think, all those were new once and brought so much pride to their new owners, all the people they have carried and things they have witnessed. Brilliant :)
What a brilliant video. I was astounded by what you found. A definite HubNut adventure if ever there was one. I'm 63 now and can identify many, if not most, of the cars in there but your detailed knowledge just amazes me when you start identifying individual components like wings, doors, light etc. Thanks for sharing Ian. God bless you and the family.
Thank you for posting this video, Ian. So important to document these cars and so sad all those parts may not end up in the hands of enthusiasts. Keep up the awesome work.
One of my favorite types of Hubnut videos! Nothing better on a Saturday morning than playing a bit of Forza Horizon and watching Ian and the gang tromp their way through rotting automobilia!
As a kid in the 70's our gang would meet up Saturday morning and head to a local dump. We would explore for hours. old cars, boats and a multitude of other stuff. It was an adventure, a treasure hunt for us. In this day and age we would probably have to be disinfected and quarantined for fear of bringing home a disease. It was great to grow up in that time for me. There's something sad that as i see this, and remember back all this treasure you are exploring will be gone.
Thank you for getting last record of this - was a regular customer buying spares in the mid 2000's and loved the chap that ran it - he had the most wonderful soft Welsh accent, and knew everything he had put into the site - he had a lovely expression for them when they terminally crumbled and say they were 'going flat' as cars lost structural integrity. Under the 60's & 70's cars there were older vehicles that had already flat packed themselves over time. Oldest one I remember seeing was a Dodge American style truck late 30's early 40's(?) The Invacar was there as had been very badly damaged by fire at the back end. If you stood at the front of the bus and looked forward, the next field in that direction had more of the 90's cars in. The owner wouldn't part with some things he really loved as would avoid selling parts, and insist was a complete project, but then wouldn't sell as a project, he obviously just loved them too much. He'd never part with shiny hubcaps either! Thank you again for capturing these, will figure out a way to drop you a line as have a few digi photos taken of site when I was visiting if you're interested. All the best, Kes.
Great video, Ian. That place reminds of a salvage yard that was in Prince Edward County, Ontario. Minakers' did not crush cars. They were kept until noting was left. Being there one day my brother bursts out laughing. There was a car shaped hole in a row of cars that had been there since the 1930s when the yard opened. The outline of the car was still there along with ONE part from the former resident. All that had been left behind was the head gasket from some sort of inline 6 cylinder. Unfortunately the County changed the laws and all of the yards were forced to close. That was a crying shame, as there was another yard where the proprietor collected multiple examples of the same model and year and combined parts as necessary to produce one or two perfect examples which he then sold. I was in hog heaven there.
Splendid explore. I found myself imagining these vehicles when they were new and shiny… somebody’s pride and joy. Now the’ end nearly been reclaimed by the earth. Thanks! Enjoyed this one.
Always saddens me to see all of these simply rotting away. You'd have thought for the ones that couldn't be saved that they could have at least been used as donors for others rather than being left to dissolve. It does appear that there is a sad story to this whole site.
Many probably were used as donors, with cars in that state you can't really tell what parts were missing before they fell apart. the amount of loose parts is evidence that somebody long ago did some effort to harvest certain parts
A great insight into the undergrowth life of old vehicles as they are reclaimed by nature (brambles). It's nice to remember some of the ordinary vehicles lurking in the undergrowth. My old dad had a Maxi 1750 but as a kid I wanted him to get a MK1 Granada but feeding and watering us three kids put a stop to that. There must be so many memories of those old cars and I do admit it's sad that we can't save them. At least some survive and like you I hope the Invacar get's an new chance at life. Many thanks for sharing Ian.
Thanks for the wonderful video! Great fun walking around in a yard like this and I appreciate your effort to show us this. In eastern Canada the rust doesn't really take any prisoners but most of our British cars rotted out while still on the road from the salt we have to use in winter however once they are parked the process seems to slow down and we can still find good candidates to restore. In the UK I can't believe how your cars seem to totally disintegrate when they are put out to pasture. Cheers!
Great day out and cool you had the chance to have a look and catch the remnants of these crusty old classics and diverse, other collected relics. Big farm too. Thank you, fun!
So many pieces of glass to be saved surely? Unobtanium stuff! Really interesting these kind of finds......Why?? How did that happen! Excellent stuff and thanks for getting cut and scratched to share you guys.
I have drove a few Leyland Olympians that were Gardener powered. Incredibly reliable engines that served on the front line of service work for almost 30 years.
My friend's father died leaving a place similar to this - it took us 2 years to clear. He was a heavy engine technician who drove and repaired combine harvesters, tractors, lorries, and buses (and frequently drove buses abroad for foreign trips). A massive, unsorted scrapyard was part of the uniform. The number of UA-cam "scrapyard exploration" videos suggests he was archetypal; sadly, modern regulations means such sites will never develop again - once they're gone, they're gone. Friend still has his dad's recovery vehicle, based on a Comma 2-stroke diesel tractor unit from a 60s petrol tanker, with a world war 2 heavy winch attached to the back.
Cannot help but think back to times when those cars would have been delivered brand new from the showroom to the customer. The families pride and joy, being washed and waxed at the weekends. Now, many decades later they show little, if anything of their former selves. Quite sad to see really, reminds me that I am not getting any younger, especially when I think back to my childhood in the 70's when a lot of those cars were out running the roads of the UK. Certainly a field of memories!
Always interesting to me me to be escorted around scrap yards where you have damp weather. I live in Arizona in there desert southwest of the US ! Those cars sitting her would be in same shape they were parked in. No plants would grow around them here. There would be no paint on them and all the plastics and upholstery would be gone , but we have no rust here ! Just to watch for snakes and spiders . Thanks for the walkabout Ian !
I used to have a speedometer out of a mini, was fascinated by it as a child, and still have some number plates from France! Scrapyards are amazing places!
Happy memories of wandering round the wreckers with my dad looking for parts. If you had a yard like that in Australia, the cars would all be full of redbacks and you would be running away from the snakes.
I really enjoyed that. Many memories of these cars and traipsing around scrap yards as a child. I hope some of the parts will be salvaged. These are the ones that weren’t saved making the survivors more valuable, not just in monetary terms.
Use to have a blue fiat 900t camper for years. Was great fun going on day trips round Anglesey and Snowdonia. Sad day when I had to sell it. Last I heard was rusting away in a field somewhere near Llangollen or Dolgellau, unsure which place exactly would love to see her again. Has anyone seen it? Great video again, what a find so many great cars there.
Yes 900T not 850T, I was working at a Fiat Dealer when they were new, we sold a good number of Amigo Campers, they were very popular. Point deducted from Ian for saying it was an 850T, they had round headlamps, 900T's were square. well oblong. Front Kingpin bushes on them were a nightmare..
Ive always popped down the road to here and use to have a chat with Mansel in the static caravan he was living in. I didnt realise he had passed away. When i went to go see him on saturday to get a few parts for my rover I was sad to hear of his passing. I was surprised to see a 19ton digger with a scrap grab on parked in the field and a patch of cars gone forever :( From what i have been told there use to be over 10 acres if cars and mansel and his brother didnt buy any, alot of them were driven in when they werent wanted anymore, and if you went over to the 2 field hedge line there is a load of 1930s/40s cars but in a very sad state, use to be chrome grills sticking up out of the ground! Very sad to see it go, so much useful parts gone to waste, but hopefully a friend will save the invalid car.
It was an incredible sight. Quite amazing how the bodywork rots to pieces so that the cars crumple into the ground. The only saveable car there was the Invacar.
It's both interesting and sad to see how this cars and things just can be out in the nature. It is scrap. I have lovely memories of that Ford Sierra estate.
Finally, the mythical indicator fluid has been discovered in the wild! I always used to love exploring this kind of place when I was wee. Both in the sense of being tangibly connected to history, and the beauty of being in the moment to notice it; but also being oddly comforted by how readily nature will retake a space after a few decades. If we all disappeared one day, nature would get-on with things just fine. I bet these brambles are a brilliant environment for all sorts of insects and little rodents! Also some of your attempts at identification from tiny husks of once-whole cars really reminded me of archaeology. I know you gave the car-chaeology pun at the start but, wow. What will future generations retain about all these kinds of vehicles and the ways of life around them? Will there ever be a day when all we know of British Leyland is one piece of one engine they made? I always wondered what kind of practices would lead to finding one corner of a plant pot in a forest, or a giant pile of one kind of artefact. I guess ancient peoples did this kind of thing too! Those piles of windscreens look like exactly the kind of thing which often ended up buried, after those brambles grew and grew and mulched away... I hope someone took that TV home, the picture tube looked pretty intact. Even if the non-tube electronics didn't work, it's often a very simple component which died.
Very interesting Ian, unlike some of these type of videos on you tube it's good that you can actually identify the cars, your knowledge is very impressive.
In the early eighties I did some work in a steel stockholders in Essex and next to it was a wooded area that was had dozens of cars dating back to the twenties in it. All of them were completely beyond restoration with trees growing through the roofs and many just a set of spoked wheels and heavy castings etc. The latest cars were probably of the early fifties, several of them being Jaguars and Humbers and one Ford Pilot. All the others were rotted beyond recognition. I think the area has long since been cleared with housing now on it.
13:59 My professor at uni had a fairly early one of these 304s in the first third of the 1970s. I remember its very smooth-sounding XL3 engine and distinctive transfer-gear whine. They were quite a rarity and upmarket amongst Cortinas, Marinas, Vauxhall Victors, Hillman Avengers, a few Datsuns etc.
I bet there's a fair few people weeping at seeing this graveyard. The amount of spare parts that are potentially saveable must be numbered in thousands
When Mrs Hubnut was looking a the little caravan it reminds me of our 1963 Aristocrat lil loafer trailer ,aka caravan,we managed to sleep 5 Kid and two adults 2 in the bunk bed over the stove and sink 2 over the dinette in slide out bunk my little sister with mom & dad on the converted dinette we went on many holidays my dad pulled the lil loafer with a 1960 Chevrolet Covair 4 door Sadan
My father had one of those little 850 Fiat buses many years ago, leaping lena he called it because as you are sat directly above the front axel you get bounced up and down. We also had an Ami Super estate with the flat four engine later as well.
The village where I grew up(Kent),had two "dump woods",which were woods which had a disused chalk pit(or similar),which had become the local dump.Everything was dumped there,including many cars.Another village,a few miles away,also had dump pits.They were all filled in,by late 1980's.As kids,we used to spend hours looking over these places.
You mentioned the Cedric. A very long time ago, a place I worked at serviced one. Another odd one we serviced was a Nissan President, owned by the Japanese embassy here in Canada.
Reminds me of my childhood playground of the 70/80s... my father was in the motor trade from the early 60's and quiet a lot of the less usable family farmland ended up as car grave yards for the unsaleable. 50's Vauxhaulls, Hillmans, Ford Prefects & 100E's and old Austins of all shapes and sizes.
I worked with a guy who was probably on the autism spectrum and was certainly towards the maximum end of the nerd spectrum. As well as being a very accomplished and eminent C-programmer, he was also a walking lookup table for technical trivia. One of his party tricks was that if you gave him an STD code he could tell you all the places that had that code, together with the first few digits of each exchange's phone numbers. But the thing that's relevant to this thread is that he could recognise dashboard instruments "Ah yes, a Jaeger speedometer. That was used in the Ford Cortina Mark 1 until 1965 when they changed to the Smiths speedo, and on the Ford Corsair L and GL but not the GT. And a version calibrated up to 70 rather 90 mph was used on the Morris Oxford". (Fictional examples) He could have been bullshitting - but I bet he was right.
Horders are at the same time the best of people and the worst.. My late neighbor was one... He died from a stroke and the cleaning of his flat was on renovation level... But he was a real nice guy...
I think the red Datsun was a 160B and the Fiat 127 looked like a Vauxhall Chevette to me. I loved the video, it's really amazing how some cars can rot completely away!
Epic video amazing to see how they are slowly rusting in to the ground . There will be people watching going I need the trim etc lol even off what seems to be a total heap of rust
I used to have a torch like that @ 5.07 mins. Bought it second hand from a junk shop, but reversed over it on my drive by accident with my 1993 Audi 100 back in the day. Lol. End of torch.
Great film, you really are a font of knowledge! Apologies for sounding pretentious, but there is an odd beauty to seeing nature slowly reclaiming those vehicles.
Ah that lovely white Fiat Amigo (or Pandora? - some of them had a different name) camper... Happy days. I used to own one of those in the early 1980's, and like the idiot I was back then, I sold it. I wish I could find another, but sadly they are almost all like the one you found here, far too far gone. Happy memories though. Thanks for letting us see all this, for one last time.
When I got my driving licence in the late 80s, I used to drive to scrap yards in my area in Ireland and spend literally hours just walking round and sometimes sitting in the cars and inhaling the unique smells each car had. Probably wierd but I remember those days with a smile 😊
Are you a character in a JG Ballard book?
Who'd have thought that a Morris Ital van would be one of the most intact and recognisable vehicles there. Probably one of the last vehicles to enter the yard.
I have memories when I was about 10 of finding "dumped cars" whenever we went on caravan holidays. Armed with a screwdriver I'd remove the switches and dashboard instruments, and take them home to put in my "den" in the loft, alongside the rear numberplates for dad's various cars that had been needed for the caravan. I had a Ford Anglia speedo, a "kneecapping arm" (solid metal casing that protruded from steering column, with tabs switches for indicators, lights, wipers) from a Ford *Consul* Corsair (ie the very early version), an ignition switch from a Mini (with the key code embossed on it, so dad bought a key for it. I even rigged up a Meccano motor to the speedo cable of the Anglia so the gauge would read about 80 mph! The best "car dump" was a narrow ravine in Wensleydale where local people took unwanted cars and pushed them over the edge - one farmer turned up with a tractor and trailer one which was the Mini from which I took the igntision switch. I also nicked a switch panel from an old fire engine that had been placed on an adventure playground at Thorp Arch trading estate (along with an old wooden galleon) which was somewhere for the kids to play while the parents were looking at new sofas etc.
These things survived a house move a few years later, but then languished in a shed and disappeared when my parents had a clearout.
D'you know, that's not a million miles from my childhood - except bits of cars also got put on my go-kart!
@@HowardLeVert When I was at school around that age, the cross-country run route went along a muddy unmade road past a car-breakers yard. I was itching to get out my magic screwdriver...
I used to go behind a local garage in the 70s which had a load of old probably mot failed cars I guess dating back to the late 40s and prize off badges with a screwdriver for my collection. Sacrilege looking back.
I remember going to scrapyards with my dad back in the late 70s, & climbing around the cars & removing bits like switches, interior lights, bulbs, badges etc & filling the big pockets of an old coat, as long as dad paid for the bigger items he wanted, no one bothered to check what other stuff you might have squirreled away in your pockets! The good old days, you'd never get away with doing that nowadays!
Can remember playing on that Fire Truck are Thorpe Arch when I was a child in the early 80s
Now Derek from Vice Grip Garage would have driven most of those out of the brambles after a day's tinkering...Ian's ability to identify vehicles from a couple of rusty panels is truly incredible though.😊
And drive it 600 miles home 😂
Amazing how long everything has been there and so overgrown!To be honest, if I had inherited the site,I wouldn't be in a hurry to clear it so quickly, I'd be in my element sorting through. So glad that ERF found a good home for restoration. 👍
And me! Saving and cleaning up the parts that are saleable!
I remember being in a taxi in (IIRC) Singapore which was a Nissan Cedric. The taxi driver asked me whether we had them in the UK and when I told him we didn't expressed surprise - "But Cedric is an English name isn't it?"
That is perfect
I always imagine the naming committee sitting down to come up with a name that epitomised the product and would be immediately familiar and comfortable with the British market. “I know! We will call it the Cedric”! Much nodding and then a particularly good lunch arrived 😂
I would suspect that there’s a half decent board game to be had for the Hubnut store just from stills taken in that yard. Name that car! I suspect that Ian would win every game though.
16/5 22. Driver asked us in Honalulu if Stonehenge was ever meant to have a roof.
@@peterallam6494 the lead time on the rsj’s would have been significant. Perhaps they are still waiting on delivery!
You can see where they were coming from though! The driver I mean and not the rsj’s!
Amazing Ian, especially for the children, loved exploring scrap yards before everything became off the shelf.
I never fail to be amazed at Mother Natures capacity to heal everything...Those brambles almost seem to be breaking up and digesting the cars here. Maybe they like the iron or something.
Mother nature claims everything back eventually...even us.
Great to see the kids having fun, I'd have been in my absolute element when I was their age! (And maybe even so now)
Fiesta wheel at 2:14. I can thank my childhood obsession with cars for that knowledge.
25 years ago there were still many junkyards like this one. I bought lots of cheap parts for my car back then.
I love this sort of place. To think, all those were new once and brought so much pride to their new owners, all the people they have carried and things they have witnessed. Brilliant :)
What a brilliant video. I was astounded by what you found. A definite HubNut adventure if ever there was one. I'm 63 now and can identify many, if not most, of the cars in there but your detailed knowledge just amazes me when you start identifying individual components like wings, doors, light etc. Thanks for sharing Ian. God bless you and the family.
You are the David Attenborough of motor vehicle archaeology without doubt. Great video as always.
lol - except he doesn't invent a story around the cars - DA now can't just show you lions, he has to make-up a story to go with the pictures
Perhaps more David Bellamy than Attenborough - in a good way.
Save the BLMC 1100!!!!
Love the line "Something very big and very dead". Classic!
Thank you for posting this video, Ian. So important to document these cars and so sad all those parts may not end up in the hands of enthusiasts. Keep up the awesome work.
Thanks for keeping the Car-key-ology word going!
One of my favorite types of Hubnut videos! Nothing better on a Saturday morning than playing a bit of Forza Horizon and watching Ian and the gang tromp their way through rotting automobilia!
It's nice to see all these 70s and some 80s cars all fondly remembered from my childhood.
Incredible site and I really hope plenty of bits were saved! You'd be hard pressed to find another 929 grille going spare
I could've spent at least a day wandering round those cars - very glad some have yielded useful spares for other projects
As a kid in the 70's our gang would meet up Saturday morning and head to a local dump. We would explore for hours. old cars, boats and a multitude of other stuff. It was an adventure, a treasure hunt for us. In this day and age we would probably have to be disinfected and quarantined for fear of bringing home a disease. It was great to grow up in that time for me. There's something sad that as i see this, and remember back all this treasure you are exploring will be gone.
Thank you for getting last record of this - was a regular customer buying spares in the mid 2000's and loved the chap that ran it - he had the most wonderful soft Welsh accent, and knew everything he had put into the site - he had a lovely expression for them when they terminally crumbled and say they were 'going flat' as cars lost structural integrity. Under the 60's & 70's cars there were older vehicles that had already flat packed themselves over time. Oldest one I remember seeing was a Dodge American style truck late 30's early 40's(?) The Invacar was there as had been very badly damaged by fire at the back end. If you stood at the front of the bus and looked forward, the next field in that direction had more of the 90's cars in. The owner wouldn't part with some things he really loved as would avoid selling parts, and insist was a complete project, but then wouldn't sell as a project, he obviously just loved them too much. He'd never part with shiny hubcaps either! Thank you again for capturing these, will figure out a way to drop you a line as have a few digi photos taken of site when I was visiting if you're interested. All the best, Kes.
Would love to see those, thanks. ian@hubnut.org
Me too lol
Would love to see photos or even a video of this in operation 😀
Was this Wrexham-ish way? I visited a scrap yard there which was very similar to this. I have a few photos too.
@@JonByrne No, South West Wales, Cardigan-ish ;-) Wrexham-ish one sounds ace too.
Great video, Ian. That place reminds of a salvage yard that was in Prince Edward County, Ontario. Minakers' did not crush cars. They were kept until noting was left. Being there one day my brother bursts out laughing. There was a car shaped hole in a row of cars that had been there since the 1930s when the yard opened. The outline of the car was still there along with ONE part from the former resident. All that had been left behind was the head gasket from some sort of inline 6 cylinder. Unfortunately the County changed the laws and all of the yards were forced to close. That was a crying shame, as there was another yard where the proprietor collected multiple examples of the same model and year and combined parts as necessary to produce one or two perfect examples which he then sold. I was in hog heaven there.
Splendid explore. I found myself imagining these vehicles when they were new and shiny… somebody’s pride and joy. Now the’ end nearly been reclaimed by the earth. Thanks! Enjoyed this one.
That ERF is sublime. Good to know it's been saved.
And with a Gardner engine
Always saddens me to see all of these simply rotting away. You'd have thought for the ones that couldn't be saved that they could have at least been used as donors for others rather than being left to dissolve. It does appear that there is a sad story to this whole site.
Many probably were used as donors, with cars in that state you can't really tell what parts were missing before they fell apart. the amount of loose parts is evidence that somebody long ago did some effort to harvest certain parts
Well I think those old cars are beyond restoration. Enjoyed the video.
So much entertainment poking around old motors and parts-spotting. Great to poke around before it all goes.
A great insight into the undergrowth life of old vehicles as they are reclaimed by nature (brambles). It's nice to remember some of the ordinary vehicles lurking in the undergrowth. My old dad had a Maxi 1750 but as a kid I wanted him to get a MK1 Granada but feeding and watering us three kids put a stop to that. There must be so many memories of those old cars and I do admit it's sad that we can't save them. At least some survive and like you I hope the Invacar get's an new chance at life. Many thanks for sharing Ian.
Did all kids hate their dads Maxi?
Thanks for the wonderful video! Great fun walking around in a yard like this and I appreciate your effort to show us this. In eastern Canada the rust doesn't really take any prisoners but most of our British cars rotted out while still on the road from the salt we have to use in winter however once they are parked the process seems to slow down and we can still find good candidates to restore. In the UK I can't believe how your cars seem to totally disintegrate when they are put out to pasture.
Cheers!
Great day out and cool you had the chance to have a look and catch the remnants of these crusty old classics and diverse, other collected relics. Big farm too. Thank you, fun!
Keep expecting to see Albert Steptoe come wandering out…….
The expression “as a pear” comes to mind!
So many pieces of glass to be saved surely? Unobtanium stuff! Really interesting these kind of finds......Why?? How did that happen! Excellent stuff and thanks for getting cut and scratched to share you guys.
I have drove a few Leyland Olympians that were Gardener powered. Incredibly reliable engines that served on the front line of service work for almost 30 years.
Fascinating but somehow terrifying to watch too... I remember cars from in the 1970s being as rusty as that in the 1970s.
My friend's father died leaving a place similar to this - it took us 2 years to clear. He was a heavy engine technician who drove and repaired combine harvesters, tractors, lorries, and buses (and frequently drove buses abroad for foreign trips). A massive, unsorted scrapyard was part of the uniform. The number of UA-cam "scrapyard exploration" videos suggests he was archetypal; sadly, modern regulations means such sites will never develop again - once they're gone, they're gone. Friend still has his dad's recovery vehicle, based on a Comma 2-stroke diesel tractor unit from a 60s petrol tanker, with a world war 2 heavy winch attached to the back.
Cannot help but think back to times when those cars would have been delivered brand new from the showroom to the customer. The families pride and joy, being washed and waxed at the weekends. Now, many decades later they show little, if anything of their former selves. Quite sad to see really, reminds me that I am not getting any younger, especially when I think back to my childhood in the 70's when a lot of those cars were out running the roads of the UK. Certainly a field of memories!
Same. My parents bought one of the first Maxis new. IIRC it was in my first year of secondary school.
Always interesting to me me to be escorted around scrap yards where you have damp weather. I live in Arizona in there desert southwest of the US ! Those cars sitting her would be in same shape they were parked in. No plants would grow around them here. There would be no paint on them and all the plastics and upholstery would be gone , but we have no rust here ! Just to watch for snakes and spiders . Thanks for the walkabout Ian !
You'd be brave to do that in Australia. Redbacks would be everywhere and of course...snakes!
I used to have a speedometer out of a mini, was fascinated by it as a child, and still have some number plates from France! Scrapyards are amazing places!
Good to see the Hublets education being expanded into the appreciation of old junk! The mystery wheeltrim looked rather Rootes to me.
Happy memories of wandering round the wreckers with my dad looking for parts. If you had a yard like that in Australia, the cars would all be full of redbacks and you would be running away from the snakes.
I really enjoyed that. Many memories of these cars and traipsing around scrap yards as a child. I hope some of the parts will be salvaged. These are the ones that weren’t saved making the survivors more valuable, not just in monetary terms.
Love scrapyards dont see many of them now
Another great video has always Ian and miss hubnut and hublets and hubmutts 👍
Use to have a blue fiat 900t camper for years. Was great fun going on day trips round Anglesey and Snowdonia. Sad day when I had to sell it.
Last I heard was rusting away in a field somewhere near Llangollen or Dolgellau, unsure which place exactly would love to see her again. Has anyone seen it?
Great video again, what a find so many great cars there.
Yes 900T not 850T, I was working at a Fiat Dealer when they were new, we sold a good number of Amigo Campers, they were very popular.
Point deducted from Ian for saying it was an 850T, they had round headlamps, 900T's were square. well oblong. Front Kingpin bushes on them were a nightmare..
@@ncb_uk lucky with my one I had from 2001 to 2005 apart from standard sevice parts only had a fuel pump fail in four years.
Ive always popped down the road to here and use to have a chat with Mansel in the static caravan he was living in. I didnt realise he had passed away. When i went to go see him on saturday to get a few parts for my rover I was sad to hear of his passing. I was surprised to see a 19ton digger with a scrap grab on parked in the field and a patch of cars gone forever :(
From what i have been told there use to be over 10 acres if cars and mansel and his brother didnt buy any, alot of them were driven in when they werent wanted anymore, and if you went over to the 2 field hedge line there is a load of 1930s/40s cars but in a very sad state, use to be chrome grills sticking up out of the ground!
Very sad to see it go, so much useful parts gone to waste, but hopefully a friend will save the invalid car.
It was an incredible sight. Quite amazing how the bodywork rots to pieces so that the cars crumple into the ground. The only saveable car there was the Invacar.
Great video,, sad it's all being cleared , that place would be my heaven.just an old house with a bit of land filled with junk for another day.
It's both interesting and sad to see how this cars and things just can be out in the nature. It is scrap. I have lovely memories of that Ford Sierra estate.
I have never seen cars rusting this bad before and I live in a salt state. This is incredible.
What an amazing place. Although many were past saving I really hope they were offered for parts and not just sent for scrap.
Site is just being cleared now. This was an operating scrapyard for a time.
The fiat van video was the first one of your videos i watched...since then iv'e been hooked
Oddly satisfying comes to mind. Just shows the way of this world. Everything goes back dust or dirt or what.
You found an indicator lenses, still with some original blinker fluid in. What a find.
Finally, the mythical indicator fluid has been discovered in the wild!
I always used to love exploring this kind of place when I was wee. Both in the sense of being tangibly connected to history, and the beauty of being in the moment to notice it; but also being oddly comforted by how readily nature will retake a space after a few decades. If we all disappeared one day, nature would get-on with things just fine. I bet these brambles are a brilliant environment for all sorts of insects and little rodents!
Also some of your attempts at identification from tiny husks of once-whole cars really reminded me of archaeology. I know you gave the car-chaeology pun at the start but, wow. What will future generations retain about all these kinds of vehicles and the ways of life around them? Will there ever be a day when all we know of British Leyland is one piece of one engine they made?
I always wondered what kind of practices would lead to finding one corner of a plant pot in a forest, or a giant pile of one kind of artefact. I guess ancient peoples did this kind of thing too! Those piles of windscreens look like exactly the kind of thing which often ended up buried, after those brambles grew and grew and mulched away...
I hope someone took that TV home, the picture tube looked pretty intact. Even if the non-tube electronics didn't work, it's often a very simple component which died.
That's going to take some clearing.hope some parts are salvaged to keep others alive.
Thanks for sharing this, and probably sacrificing alot of your skin in the process! Would have loved a rummage in there!
Being Wales I assume those cars were only driven there and parked up last year.
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Very interesting Ian, unlike some of these type of videos on you tube it's good that you can actually identify the cars, your knowledge is very impressive.
In the early eighties I did some work in a steel stockholders in Essex and next to it was a wooded area that was had dozens of cars dating back to the twenties in it. All of them were completely beyond restoration with trees growing through the roofs and many just a set of spoked wheels and heavy castings etc. The latest cars were probably of the early fifties, several of them being Jaguars and Humbers and one Ford Pilot. All the others were rotted beyond recognition. I think the area has long since been cleared with housing now on it.
Wow that place is so interesting, a true time capsule right there amongst nature❤️
13:59 My professor at uni had a fairly early one of these 304s in the first third of the 1970s. I remember its very smooth-sounding XL3 engine and distinctive transfer-gear whine. They were quite a rarity and upmarket amongst Cortinas, Marinas, Vauxhall Victors, Hillman Avengers, a few Datsuns etc.
I bet there's a fair few people weeping at seeing this graveyard. The amount of spare parts that are potentially saveable must be numbered in thousands
When Mrs Hubnut was looking a the little caravan it reminds me of our 1963 Aristocrat lil loafer trailer ,aka caravan,we managed to sleep 5 Kid and two adults 2 in the bunk bed over the stove and sink 2 over the dinette in slide out bunk my little sister with mom & dad on the converted dinette we went on many holidays my dad pulled the lil loafer with a 1960 Chevrolet Covair 4 door Sadan
My father had one of those little 850 Fiat buses many years ago, leaping lena he called it because as you are sat directly above the front axel you get bounced up and down. We also had an Ami Super estate with the flat four engine later as well.
I love places like this. Thank you for sharing pchooo!!!!
The village where I grew up(Kent),had two "dump woods",which were woods which had a disused chalk pit(or similar),which had become the local dump.Everything was dumped there,including many cars.Another village,a few miles away,also had dump pits.They were all filled in,by late 1980's.As kids,we used to spend hours looking over these places.
Was the village called Minster? near Ramsgate?
@@stevenc5227 Nonington,Goodnestone and Adisham,all had dumps
Couldnt help wondering who all the people were who drove those wrecks, and where they are now ,their pride and joy at the time 😞
Probably dead, these cars have been sat for about 40 years i reckon.
Such fun and so much treasure! I would never of guessed your mystery car was a Peugeot.
nice to see the family enjoying the day out
I’d have loved that transit nice little winter project ! and the welder would keep me warm in the garage 🤣
You mentioned the Cedric. A very long time ago, a place I worked at serviced one. Another odd one we serviced was a Nissan President, owned by the Japanese embassy here in Canada.
Best place for a volvo 340 mate ! 😂
Sort of a cross between Gray's Elegy and Gray's Automotive Anatomy - but without doubt, thrillingly nerdacious!
Reminds me of my childhood playground of the 70/80s... my father was in the motor trade from the early 60's and quiet a lot of the less usable family farmland ended up as car grave yards for the unsaleable. 50's Vauxhaulls, Hillmans, Ford Prefects & 100E's and old Austins of all shapes and sizes.
Love the truck…. Just watched the London to Brighton vintage commercial vehicle go past my house… awesome 🤘😎🤘
Literally melting in to the ground , amazing.
Amazing Ian you nerd knowing all those rear light clusters!!!
I worked with a guy who was probably on the autism spectrum and was certainly towards the maximum end of the nerd spectrum. As well as being a very accomplished and eminent C-programmer, he was also a walking lookup table for technical trivia. One of his party tricks was that if you gave him an STD code he could tell you all the places that had that code, together with the first few digits of each exchange's phone numbers. But the thing that's relevant to this thread is that he could recognise dashboard instruments "Ah yes, a Jaeger speedometer. That was used in the Ford Cortina Mark 1 until 1965 when they changed to the Smiths speedo, and on the Ford Corsair L and GL but not the GT. And a version calibrated up to 70 rather 90 mph was used on the Morris Oxford". (Fictional examples) He could have been bullshitting - but I bet he was right.
I hate living in a world that ridicules having knowledge on stuff that potentially becomes vital and important later on.
Why I'm a misanthrope.
Loved to have looked through this pile
Horders are at the same time the best of people and the worst.. My late neighbor was one... He died from a stroke and the cleaning of his flat was on renovation level... But he was a real nice guy...
All those spares and glass you prob can't get anymore thanks for sharing Ian all the best donny
Great video mate. Thanks from South Australia.
I think the red Datsun was a 160B and the Fiat 127 looked like a Vauxhall Chevette to me. I loved the video, it's really amazing how some cars can rot completely away!
Good shout on the Shovette, Side Gutter and Tailgate was all wrong for a 127
What a place ian..still alot of spare parts on those classics especially the windows etc..
What a mess glad someone is doing the right thing and clearing it all up
Epic video amazing to see how they are slowly rusting in to the ground . There will be people watching going I need the trim etc lol even off what seems to be a total heap of rust
That Adidas bag would probably make good money on EBay
Some really interesting finds in there. Can’t believe you could identify some of those. I couldn’t see it even after you said it.
Wheel trim in caravan at 6.27 is a Rootes Group Hubcap, fitting Humber Hawk/Snipe/Super Snipe/Imperials etc and series 1/2/3/3A Sunbeam Rapiers
Coincidentally we visited the scrapyard at Horopito for the first time last week. Fascinating place.
The scrapyard ending up in a scrapyard, sad ending to once someones hard earned pride and joy, good video fella 👍🙂
Those bean tins were a Lancia that someone was silly enough to leave outside in drizzly weather.
Wonderful, just amazing to think once they were all new and belonged to someone went places etc
Wow. Even the moss has moss growing on it!
I used to have a torch like that @ 5.07 mins. Bought it second hand from a junk shop, but reversed over it on my drive by accident with my 1993 Audi 100 back in the day. Lol. End of torch.
Great incredible video and amazing abandoned cars
Castrol oil tank in the shed looked to be in good condition, hope it got saved.
Great film, you really are a font of knowledge! Apologies for sounding pretentious, but there is an odd beauty to seeing nature slowly reclaiming those vehicles.
Ah that lovely white Fiat Amigo (or Pandora? - some of them had a different name) camper... Happy days. I used to own one of those in the early 1980's, and like the idiot I was back then, I sold it. I wish I could find another, but sadly they are almost all like the one you found here, far too far gone. Happy memories though. Thanks for letting us see all this, for one last time.
Just as well you got in when you did and got a chance to capture what remained before it all got removed.