This weekend, I have been running around like crazy, or so I feel like it. The North American International Auto Show here in Detroit is about to begin and for the entire automotive industry, it’s simply a busy time. Throughout the event, thousands of people will enter the doors of Cobo Center to view the displays, many of which will have shiny new cars and trucks.
There are auto shows and then there is NAIAS. Everything seems to be made of gold; the lights are spectacular, the cars are immaculate, and even the wonder of events like Charity Preview are something to behold.
Dusty Tales
Imagine then how my curiosity is aroused when this weekend in our Book Garage series we examine a far less glamorous world; one where there are no photographers capturing pristine metal and no handsome folks on stage to present the world’s next great automobile. Quite the opposite; these cars are collecting dust and left to rust. Their stories have already been told and their time on an auto show stage has long past.
Welcome to Amazing Barn Finds and Roadside Relics: Musty Mustangs, Hidden Hudsons, Forgotten Fords, and other Lost Automotive Gems.
To many, these cars may look like a pile of junk, but to an automotive artist, they are a blank canvas. These cars merely need tender love and care and once they receive it, look as wonderful as when they first appeared at an auto show the magnitude of NAIAS.
Amazing Barn Finds and Roadside Relics takes us on the hunt for the perfect restoration project. We ride shotgun with author Ryan Brutt in a journey of automotive archaeology that documents and preserves these otherwise lost treasures.
Brutt is considered an “automotive archaeologist” and travels the United States documenting lost and abandoned automotive gems. He is a Contributing Editor for Hot Rod, Muscle Car Review, and Mopar Collectors Guide. Burtt also organizes the barn finds class for the Muscle Car and Corvette Nationals. He lives in Skokie, Illinois.
Amazing Barn Finds and Roadside Relics is available through Amazon and Motorbooks.
Like many automotive enthusiasts, I can appreciate the grandeur of an event like NAIAS. It’s just refreshing, every once in awhile, to move away from the shiny and new, to the often deeper, sometimes forgotten history of our favorite cars. And this book is exactly that.
Amazing Barn Finds & Roadside Relics Gallery
Enjoy barn find adventures? Here is one of our other favorites from Motorbooks.
