Incredible Barn Finds

Wallace Wyss

It’s a recurring dream, surely, for even the most casual of petrolheads.

You open the shed door, shift all the customary junk (garden fork, bird feeders, Flymo, sunloungers last used in 1976) and find cobweb-laced traces of a Bugatti chassis rail, or perhaps the remains of an Auburn Speedster. Usually, though, there’s nothing more enticing than an old Quality Street tin full of rusty nails.

Wyss’s book recounts 50 instances of rather greater fulfillment, covering a range of cars from the long-forgotten GM Two Rotor to a 1969 Corvette via assorted other exotica, most of it Italian or American.

It’s an easy read, ripe with tales of subterfuge, and the short chapters are delivered in a breezy style.

Be warned, though, that some might turn you a mild shade of green. SA

Published by Brooklands Books, ISBN 978-1-58388-305-1, $22.95