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Can you imagine! What a goldmine! The new owner(s) are going to make quite a buck on this find. They really should sell it as parts though and not a whole, I’d think they’d make more money. The cars look a bit rough in some of the pictures, but after that many years ~ WOW!
Yeah, unbelieveable. It sounds like Gary Esse – he has collected chevy parts for the better part of his life – and has built up a huge warehouse of them. I’ve been there a couple times to see him and its incredible… the amount of parts that he has. He uses them to restore old chevys, what a noble hobby! :salut:
I was at this place on Wednesday to view to cars and parts. I am more of a Ford guy, but this is an incredible collection of stuff. All of the cars are in need of some kind of attention and not all have their original engines. We were there to evaluate the collection for a potential purchase. You really need to be a GM parts guru to sort out and value all of this stuff. If was incredible. The person who owns the parts and cars now was a true gentleman and he must have had 30 calls while we were touring the facility. All i can say is WOW.
That would be like winning the lottery. It will be good to see all the original parts found back in circulation. I read about it in Old Cars, I would like to read more about the man behind the collection.
I will second and third that motion!!!
Does anyone have further info on this gold mine and the story behind it? I would love to know how this unfolded, from beginning to end.
Marshall
I didn’t realize circle track already posted it, and started a thread in the car news section. Funny all the years I’ve lived in Green Bay I never heard stories of these hidden trailers. I actually applied at depere auto center probably around a year or so ago, it would be cool if I would have gotten a job there and got a look at some of the stuff.
It is one of the most interesting finds in years. I would like to find more out about the collector behind it.
Here is the story, as told by the person who now owns the collection.
The person who assembled the collection was single and lived with his mom and dad for a long time. He “never took a paycheck” so to speak and spent every dime on parts and cars over 40 years of collecting. The sheer number of parts is mind boggling. As I walked through the collection I walked past dozens…YES…dozens of complete “carb to oil pan” engines. Not run of the mill stuff either…several DZ302’s, several LS6 and LS5 454…many 396’s…etc.
The collector recently died and had one sister. This sister inherited the estate and many people tried to buy their way into the collection. Many made up stories to try to “get the sympathy” vote to buy the collection. The person who bought it told the famility that his intent was to buy the collection, and then sort it out and re-sell….honest and up front to make a profit himself. He was allowed to buy the whole lot. He did not “steal” it mind you as one the ladies young sons was a computer nut and easily figured that some of the cars were very valuable.
As we walked around the cars, the owner was familiar and completely upfront about the cars. Most of them did not have the original engines in place….but he had the correct engines (date and casting wise) for all of them. The Yenko’s orignal engie was found and reunited with the car, though it was not part of this collection.
It was very neat to see, and we were there with the intent to buy, but we did not make an offer. Larry, the owner was fabulous really…a class act and he deserves to get some recognition.
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