The amazingly local discovery

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When reading the ‘Lost & Found’ stories that our contributor Michael E Ware collects for Classic & Sports Car magazine, or the ones that Tom Cotter compiled for his great series of books ‘The Cobra/Hemi/Corvette/etc. In The Barn’, one thing may strike you: even the most experienced of classic car hunters can get surprised by the sheer locality of their most exotic finds. They tell tales of neighbours who they have known for decades but who never told them about that rusty old car in their garage, which turns out to be a Siata. Or about lock-ups they have passed thousands of times on their way to work without even thinking something could be hiding there. And when they do so – in order to find a spanner or a nail - the ultimate of barn finds appears to have stood there for 50-odd years, just waiting to be rediscovered.

Anyhow: something not quite so exiting, but still equally coincidental happened to me this week. I knew the lady from the neighbouring farm had been married to a Citroen-mad man. And I knew he had been driving and collecting DSs and TAs for much of his life. But he’d passed away decades ago, while she only moved from the place last year. Her son is now clearing the place and has already filled three massive containers with rubble and debris. ‘Have you ever seen the DS that’s in the back of the garden?’ he asked. I hadn’t, but was now eager to see it.  And there it was, on no more than 150 metres from my house. Even less from the place from where I type this, as my office is located in the garage further back in the garden. He remembered they’d parked the car there when the Dutch MOT was introduced - it needed too much work at the time. I looked it up: this was in 1981. Before that his mother had used it as a daily driver for years. Now he had to cut several trees in order to reach it. It won’t be there much longer now, but the memory won’t fade. I'm out to check that shed opposite.

(Words and picture Jeroen Booij)
 

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