It happens badly sometimes.
At age 11 I was riding my bike and saw 2 cars sitting beside a house.
1956 Thunderbird and a 1967 Shelby Mustang!
This was 1971 and just knew they were cool cars.
Jump to age 15..been working mowing lawns and hauling hay and have a few dollars.
Talked to an elderly gent and discovered the T-Bird had a bad starter and the battery kept going dead on his sons Shelby...so they were waiting to be fixed.
I still offered him $2000 for either one of them.
Finished High school and started college....drove down the dead end road to see if they were still there....Yup!
Both still there but the tires are gone from the Mustang and it looked like someone had stomped the hood on the Bird.
Offered him $3500 for both......Nope, gonna fix them.
1984, young married guy and I check again.
Shelby in now sitting on the ground with the drivers window broken and the convertible top on the T-Bird is in tatters.
Still not for sale!
Made it a quest to check at least once a year and watched as the hood and carb disappear from the Mustang and the
TBird interior is now full of leaves.
1999 I check again and the house looks abandoned.
The old gent had died and the son does not care and only remembers that his car has a dead battery.
No deal!
I did take a good look and realized that just moving the Shelby would involve moving it in 2 large pieces as it had sunk into the ground to above the brakes and had 4 inch shrubbery growing through the radiator.
Thunderbird was covered in vines and the trunk was full of water filled trash.
City finally tagged them and a local fellow who likes old Fords worked a deal with the towing company and literally performed an archeological excavation on these 2 cars.
Satisfied the legal stuff for $550.
I wish him luck as our area was stripped of 67-68 Mustangs by Unique motors for making those damn Eleanor clones.
Bruce