
The faded beauty of abandoned cars across Europe and the US - Kaibeezy
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/in-pictures-52632396
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205guy
Because of the extensive photoshopping (and HDR as the other comment
mentions), none of these photos look real to me, more like a video game
background. Which I think is a shame, because I like ruins and scenes of
industrial decay, so I do like the subject matter. And the author clearly did
a lot of work to find these old cars and photograph their interesting
character. I understand the desire to fix the light (and certainly the dark
forest settings were difficult to capture), but it just looks overdone to me,
no longer real life.

~~~
mcbuilder
Maybe check out Kyle McDougall, he is a photographer interested in similar
themes (decayed motels, cars, ghost towns, etc), but his photographs are much
more compelling.

Edit: link to his website
[https://www.kylemcdougallphoto.com/](https://www.kylemcdougallphoto.com/)

~~~
a012
Thanks for the link, I have an impression of Kodak Portra film on his photos.

~~~
ThrowItAway2Day
Check out his YouTube channel, that's one of his favorite film stocks.

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pgreenwood
Love the subject matter but the hyper saturated over blown HDR makes me feel
like I have a brown acid hangover.

HDR is great, but if you can tell it's there its too much.

~~~
fireattack
Since we're on this topic, is there any explanation why these over-processed
images (particularly when they're over-sharpened) make me physiologically
uncomfortable/disgusted? Like, literally vomit-inducing.

~~~
bagels
Literally? Surely that is an exaggeration?

~~~
isoprophlex
Maybe not; those deep dream zoom videos that were popular some years back made
me physically uncomfortable to the point of nausea and bad lightheadedness ..!

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roel_v
Reminds me of this one from a few years ago:
[https://edition.cnn.com/style/article/classic-cars-
abandoned...](https://edition.cnn.com/style/article/classic-cars-abandoned-
for-decades-in-french-barn-valued-at-20-million/index.html)

Seems like straight out of a boys book - abandoned shed, dozens of cars stored
in there, nobody knows that they're so valuable. I don't know anything about
cars but from looking at the pictures in the OP, I can't help but think that
some of them would be worth quite a bit? Certainly more than the scrap metal
value?

~~~
WalterBright
I know that people build replicas of expensive Ferraris. But they always seem
to take a shortcut and put a modern engine/driveline in it.

Most of the magic of a Ferrari is in the engine, driveline and running gear.
When some Ferraris fetch north of $20m, if I was super rich and wanted one,
I'd just have a machine shop build a duplicate - including the engine, etc. It
can't be that expensive to do it, after all, the originals were built in a
machine shop.

~~~
djaychela
I think the value of these cars is in their rarity and originality - the
replica would be worth a tiny fraction of that, because its not original, and
many buy them because of their investment potential not because they are a
great car to drive (a lot don't get driven as it reduces the value and is
risky).

Also, don't underestimate the cost involved in making something like this.
While obviously not $20m, having every part created from scratch involves
creating accurate drawings and understanding the specifications of the
materials and processes involved, which isn't simple. Even creating a
replacement set of gears for an existing gearbox takes an immense amount of
investment in time, and creating something complex such as an engine block or
gearbox casing would be considerably more.

Yes, the originals were built in a machine shop, but also a foundry, and a
design department, with a larger supply chain for many of the smaller
components, and you'd need to replicators, or all of their work - a
substantial effort.

~~~
WalterBright
Oh, I know it would be expensive. But Ferrari doesn't make those parts
anymore, and people go to great lengths to restore them. So somebody is making
these parts.

There are lots of shops that make drag racing engines, including forgings. I
know, I put forged rotating parts in my Dodge. They aren't particularly
expensive. Ditto for things like special gears for your differential. So these
foundries exist, and I'm sure you can write them a check and they can build
whatever you want.

You would need an original engine to get the specifications off of. You might
be able to get a blown one for a reasonable price. You may also be able to
examine the parts from someone who is doing a restoration of the same engine.
You might be able to share expenses with someone who in a pickle because he
has the car with a blown engine.

As for driving it, one of the points is to be able to enjoy driving it, rather
than have a $37m museum piece too valuable to drive. I'm not terribly
interested in a museum piece. I wanna drive it. It would likely cost a couple
million to do this. But it would be a way cool project!

Besides, an "original" car is hardly original. It's got new paint, new
coachwork, new rubber, lots of rusty parts replaced, new oil, new bearings,
etc.

~~~
WalterBright
Also, for low production runs, a forging can be replaced by a "billet" chunk
of metal machined to size. I seriously doubt Ferrari was relying on some
secret exotic metal for their engines in the 50's and 60's. A top fuel drag
engine builder should know everything needed to make a very suitable clone of
the originals.

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Akinato
These would be cool photos if they weren't so overly processed. The current
technique makes them look like poorly composited images.

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olivermarks
A lot of these 'abandoned' cars are valuable at this point. There's a forest
near Chatillon in Belgium where US servicemen parked their cars at the end of
WWII, hoping to return one day and retrieve them.
[https://www.digitaltrends.com/dtdesign/belgian-car-
graveyard...](https://www.digitaltrends.com/dtdesign/belgian-car-graveyard-
revisited/)

~~~
userbinator
Based on the popularity of YouTube channels aimed at restoring or even just
getting abandoned cars' engines to start, I'd say they have a lot more than
just intrinsic value.

(It makes me wonder if, e.g. 50 or 60 years from now, people will be finding
abandoned Teslas and such and trying to get them moving again.)

~~~
olivermarks
The beauty of older cars are their simplicity and the fact they were designed
to be owner maintained. Teslas and virtually all modern cars require expensive
unique software diagnostic tools, getting past drm hurdles and a lack of
workshop manuals. Modern cars are also typically sold with services packages
included for a 3 year/mileage amount after which value drops significantly. It
would be great to get back to basics with a simple EV that is owner servicable
in the future

~~~
dreamcompiler
OTOH electric cars are much simpler than IC cars, so getting one running again
in 70 years will probably be mostly an issue of finding a new battery.

~~~
driverdan
I downvoted you because the complexity of the software and electronics in a
modern electric car is much higher than an old ICE car. The source code is
private, schematics are hard or impossible to get, and replacement chips can't
be fabbed at home like metal engine parts.

~~~
dreamcompiler
Fair enough, but I was also assuming that integrated circuits wouldn't wear
out from sitting in a cow pasture quite as fast as a steel engine block would.
Software doesn't rust.

Then again maybe I'm being naive. Lightning strikes happen, power supply
glitches happen, and the lack of schematics and source code would indeed be a
huge barrier to debugging. Unless somebody develops AI-enabled JTAG reverse-
engineering systems in the future.

~~~
Moru
Software does not rust but the board it sits on does. Not to mention we still
haven't managed to create any longterm storage that does not loose data...

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Tade0
Coming from a country where the average age of cars is over 14 years, I'm
afraid that modern vehicles won't look nearly as good abandoned and exposed to
the elements.

I've seen my share of VW Passat B3, B4 and B5s rusting away around allotments
and they bring to mind images of illegally disposed of appliances like washing
machines etc.

Farming equipment on the other hand - new and old - doesn't give off this
vibe. Perhaps being designed to bury into dirt they don't invoke an
expectation of being clean and tidy.

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sixstringtheory
There was a 99PI episode about abandoned cars here in Alaska:
[https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/dead-
cars/](https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/dead-cars/)

Plenty of specimens around my neck of the woods. Also many grizzly twisted
wrecks laying on the side of the road. Good reminders to drive carefully in a
place where you could be hours or days away from help!

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Kaibeezy
Should self-driving cars be required to have a failsafe where under specific
parameters of disuse and remaining power they drive themselves to a repair or
storage facility, like my robot vacuum does? Probably not.

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gregoryrueda
The Japanese call this wabi sabi, the authentic earned look of aging/rusting.

~~~
isoprophlex
... upon which we then apply gratuitous HDR and oversaturation in post
processing

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kristiandupont
I am a sucker for these. I don't know what it is about decay that just piques
my interest, no matter which era it might be from. There are a bunch of
channels for similar pictures if you are interested:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/AbandonedPorn/](https://www.reddit.com/r/AbandonedPorn/)

[https://www.instagram.com/itsabandoned/](https://www.instagram.com/itsabandoned/)

[https://www.instagram.com/abandonedafterdark/](https://www.instagram.com/abandonedafterdark/)

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vagab0nd
Somewhat related: There's a car that's parked in front of my house, on the
street, for over a year now. Never moved, no sign, just parked there. I find
it hilarious and annoying that there's no legal way for me to report it, or
have the authority check the owner. Is it stolen? Abandoned? It just seems
wrong that a car can be legally parked at one spot for so long.

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eiji
Whenever I travel down to the desert south-west (Arizona, Texas, NM, ...) I'm
amazed how many abandoned or half-abandoned (still on private property) cars
there are everywhere visible. It must be a mix of better weather and them not
rusting down in matter of month when outside instead of a garage, and
different regulation not enforcing their removal.

~~~
ndespres
I'm in upstate New York where even the cars I drive regularly are rusting out
constantly, to say nothing of the rusted junk that doesn't get used. When I
bought my house and talked to the homeowner insurance agent about risks on the
property they asked if I had any abandoned junk cars in the yard. When I said
no, she said "you will."

Nearly everyone here has some junk cars sitting around rotting, whether it's a
future project that they'll never do, spare parts for another vehicle, or just
something they know that a pinch they can roll down to the scrap yard for
$100-200 (or waiting for the price of scrap metal to rise again so maybe they
can get $400).

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driverdan
If you enjoy this type of thing you might like Barn Find Hunter, a YT series
about traveling around the US and finding stored cars in various states:
[https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLHKCmmH-x9mLN0PNeFBtx...](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLHKCmmH-x9mLN0PNeFBtxyZ7olwptkO5q)

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FpUser
I love ruins and old things in general. Often photograph those myself. However
the ones mentioned here look over-processed to me.

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brenden2
Just looks like trash with too much photo editing to me. It's kind of funny
because I did a trash photo exhibit a few years back where I literally took
photos of trash with good lighting and such. The photos were aesthetically
pleasing to the eyes, but it was literally trash.

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izzydata
Maybe it is just me, but I find these vehicles to be a gross blemish on an
otherwise beautiful scene. Like a natural wonder that has been destroyed by
humans.

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mirimir
FYI:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carhenge](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carhenge)

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modzu
its cool and brought back memories of some old abandoned cars ive happened
across on hikes over the years. but that level of hdr.. oh my.

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d0100
Are these salvageable? And is it legal to just take them and use them?

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RickJWagner
Nice. I've been a gearhead for nearly 50 years now, I just like cars.

Lately my thoughts have been turning to Teslas. It feels weird, almost like
I'm losing part of myself.

~~~
Gibbon1
I'm not a gear head but I feel it, a whole esthetic and art is starting to
slip away. 250 years of thermal machines and it'll be gone in a generation.

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extro
Tastelessly overdone HDR is ____.

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alex_young
Show us some rust!

