Automotive archaeology, this quest for vehicles forgotten for decades under a tarpaulin and that could be brought back to life, agitates the environment of lovers of old. Sleeper cars, known as "barn exits" in collector's jargon, regularly point to their dazed headlights and rubiginous spoked wheels among specialty classifieds and auction catalog pages. The reservoir seems inexhaustible.This effervescence is accompanied by stories as we like them. A BMW 507 that belonged to Elvis Presley (The King had it repainted in Carmine, tired of having to erase the words of Love written in lipstick by his admirers) was found in 2019 at the bottom of a pumpkin storage warehouse near San Francisco. In a shed in Los Angeles, two copies of De Lorean, one of them displaying 22 kilometers on the meter, have been released from twenty years of oblivion.Closer to home, it is enough to peel the ads published on the sites of the good corner or Interenchères to see reappear a Citroën GS Pallas of 1977 deprived of exercise for twenty-one years or a Panhard 24 BT of 1965, still beautiful under its dust coat, immobilized in a garage since the last century.
Grégory Pelletier, editor of The Argus, has realized in recent months on the newspaper's website several portfolios of these tender sedans of yesteryear more or less eaten by rust, spotted on classified ads sites. "The term " barn exit", sometimes overused, allows cars that no one wanted twenty years ago to take value, including models from the 1980s, " he notes.
Prolonged oblivion gives them a nostalgic aura and a touch of mystery. Their discovery necessarily carries a story that gives thickness, flesh to their poor stung sheet. Therefore the temptation is great for the heirs not interested in the relic to put up for sale the DS or the grand-paternal 2 CV remained "in its juice". They will just have to take care of the staging without making the mistake of passing the Kärcher or brick the body with polish. That would be a mess.
"Given the cost of a restoration, a barn outing is not always a good deal," warns Grégory Pelletier. An opinion shared by Benjamin Pette, founder of the site Newsdanciennes.com who, too, follows in the footsteps of forgotten cars. "A relatively well-preserved car, not having turned for ages, can restart with a little gas and oil, but it's still the exception," he says. In short, the folklore of the barn exit should not distract the buyer from the main thing : the condition of the mechanics, the level of corrosion of the body and the availability of spare parts. "It is often more interesting to set your sights on a model already partially restored," argues Benjamin Pette.