There was a time when I fell in love with literally every Swiss woman I met.
In March of 1995 I was in Nice, France. The momentary Swiss-love-of-my-life was a lover of classic cars and classic car 
pictures. She even had a book. In exchange for accompanying her to a gallery full of old car photos she agreed to climb up and over Mt Boron to Fort de Mont Alban and down into Villefranche-sur-Mer with me.
The old town was full of drunk American sailors looking for a fight so we hitched a ride wherever we could go and ended up at Passable on the way to St. Jean Cap Ferrat.
Near the beach we climbed a rusted gate into an overgrown garden dominated by tumble-down walls and bright flowers and I must have said something like “magnificent” because she said “I notice you like rustic things.”
And then she saw the car.
You know, I’m not a car guy. When people ask “what type of car was it?” My answer is usually “a green one” or “a blue one” or … anyway, I dont know a Ferrari from a Lada.
She liked the old car. She loved the car. She knew everything about it and droned on about this make and that model. It was sitting among vines and spindly trees and it was a rusted hulk and flowers grew out of dirt that had blown into the open engine cavity. There were no tires. No seats. The hood was gone.
“Wow,” she said. And there we stood, looking at the car and both wishing we had brought cameras instead of cheap bottles of wine and stinky cheeses.
The seven photographers below came a bit more prepared.
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Debra Hansen Schmidt
“The image of this old truck was taken In on Passcreek Pass in Colorado. It was my first time to Colorado, and I was just in awe of the beauty all around me through out the entire state. While traveling from one end of the state to another we passed two old trucks being driven thru the mountains, this was one of the trucks. We later came back down the mountain and found this truck with a broken axle in the back and an old sign on the back saying (if this was a horse I would shoot it) I had to stop and take the picture.”
Find Debra’s fabulous work at Schmidt Photography.
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Steve Collins
“This old bus reached the end of the line but still has some use left. It looks like rust is the only thing holding it together. I found it on private property while exploring the Glorieta Civil War Battlefield near Pecos, NM.”
Steve and his lovely wife Billie are The Santa Fe Travelers. Check them out.
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John Mata
“Grand Valley Fire Truck 926 sits among the elements just between the backside of San Diego Aerospace Museum at Gillespie Field and the Gillespie Field runway. Many of the old airplanes and artifacts on display at San Diego Aerospace Museum Gillespie Field have been either donated or are hand-me-downs from the San Diego Aerospace Museum at Balboa Park. This old Dodge fire truck I assume has never flown, and was probably donated. And, I suspect that most museum visitors don’t even give this old beauty a second look. Many people who I have shown this photograph insist that it was taken elsewhere in the states, like perhaps somewhere in the deep South, where old rusty trucks and photosynthesis are plenty. The truth is, I took this shot just between rainfalls during the winter months of Southern California.”
John introduced us to the photo editing program GIMP and guest-posted this awesome photo two months ago. Hear and see more from John at JohnMata.com
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January Sadler
Curiosity got the best of me one day and I took a drive down a dirt road located in the northwest Rio Rancho, New Mexico area. With intentions to take photos of the small canyon that I believed to be at the end, I came across this beauty all by its lonesome. There was another vehicle at the bottom of the canyon that was tossed over like piece of trash. This one seemed to have been given another fate and left for me to look through and photograph. With appreciation and a sense of reverence, I captured it forever; unchanged.
Sharing the planet one blink at a time, January Sadler is the owner/photographer of JDawnPhotos
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Jim O’Donnell
“Much of my childhood was spent in the ghost-town mining camps of my native southern Colorado. There were dead vehicles scattered in the most bizarre places in those bare hills. Poverty Gulch was our stomping ground. When the claims ran dry just after the first war, they left the mules in the shafts to starve to death. When a car, purchased in better times, broke down on the side of the road and escape to Pueblo or Colorado Springs was stymied, they just left it. This old boy was rusting and rotting on a slope near the Mollie Kathleen Mine in the summer of 2011.”
You know where to find me……
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Jim Cox
Jim O’Donnell: For Taos-based photographers and painters (not to mention many passing through) this old boy is a well-known gem. Jim Cox shot this truck on a late winters day behind the Overland Sheep Skin Company in El Prado, just a few miles north of Taos Plaza. In the back ground some of the finest high altitude meadows in the southwest stretch out to the hills and mountains on Taos Pueblo land.
Jim Cox can be found at his art studio in Arroyo Hondo, New Mexico.
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Marti Reed
“This wonderful old Chevy pickup truck near my house in Albuquerque must have a story, but I don’t know what it is. I photographed it one evening a couple of years ago when I was practicing with the Nifty Fifty “Teaching Lens.” Periodically, as I pass it on my way to and from the Walmart near Highland High School, I think about going in to the A&A Sign Shop on whose land the old truck still sits. The shop has wonderful murals on the outside walls depicting the truck in various settings. So when Jim asked the other night if I had an old vehicle photo, I immediately thought of the Old Chevy pix, and shared this one. I went by the shop on Saturday to inquire about it, but, unfortunately, they’re not open on Saturdays and today is a holiday, so I don’t know the story. But I bet it has one!”
Find Marti and her work over on Facebook.
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A tribute to rusting rotting old cars. What an excellent idea. And, what a spectacular collection of photographs and stories. Nice work, Jim O'Donnell!
A tribute to rusting rotting old cars. What an excellent idea. And, what a spectacular collection of photographs and stories. Nice work, Jim O'Donnell!
Thank you! Great photos from you guys!
You did good, my friend!
YOU guys did good! I love all the different perspectives. I'd like to pick another theme and do it again next month. Thanks again!
OK ..you can all come to Indiana and do rusted tractors and or rotten barns !!!
We need to do that, dont we?
Wow! All photos great. I was particularly taken by photos from Jim Cox,Marti Reed and John Mata! I love classic automobiles!
Me too. And I love finding these old rusting hulks back in the bush somewhere. What stories they can tell!
a tribute to all the stories those old cars would tell if they could. Good story
Sarah, that's interesting; the stories those old rusty cars would tell, if they only could.
Love all the pictures of the old rusted "beauties"! Great collection of photos….
Thanks Jill! This was a fun post to put together and great people joining in.
I was overcome with nostalgia, seeing these photos, as I remember seeing these vehicles driving around Pueblo when I was a kid. I gave John a 1956 Chevy P/U, which is slowly rusting away some where. Thanks for the pictures.
and we have a 1965 Chevy pickup resting in our garage!
I wish I still had that ole truck!
You gotta wonder Gilbert Mata if any of these WERE driving around Pueblo when you were a kid!
Wow! Some great old stuff. These venerable old beasts have worked hard (some still working) and still have some beauty left as well as lots of food for nostalgia… Great idea, Jim! Thanks.
Great blog! When I was little I would find derelict cars on our stream fishing trips to the Sierras and dream they were fixable and I would have one (I was car crazy kid). Then, in my young and environmentally aware years I saw them as a blight on the landscape left by uncaring humans. Now, I as believe many of you do, I see them as interesting photo studies and stories of our ancestors.
I TOTALLY agree Jess. I thought the same thing as a kid. Now I too see them as part of the landscape. Part of humanity passing over and through the land and leaving behind a memory and maybe even contribution of our existence on the land.
Very nice photos! I love old cars…lots of history here!
Jim-O, you really did a good job here, pulling together some fantastic old beater cars from some really talented photographers. I am really looking forward to seeing more of these types of post in the future. I have three suggestions for three photo-collaborative posts upcoming: "bridges", "old buildings", and "old churches".
Bridges is the one. I was toying with old churches this week but once you said bridges it hit me. That is the one. I'll set a date and get an email out to the group soon. Id really like to get Jess in on this one.
If you give enough lead time, then people have enough time to go shoot if they don't happen to have one in their archives. You may consider scheduling more than one collaborative event straight away; Bridges next, something else further into the future, and perhaps something even further. Allows for prep time, you know.
You're reading my mind.
Loved the theme and compositions, especially the fire truck and those mysterious clouds…thought provoking…
this is a great one Jim. I would love to be in on your old truck thing next month if you are looking for another truck or three. I have many. plus I love the idea of having a theme to shoot for and old bridges sounds fun. would love to know more.
peace n abundance,
CheyAnne
http://www.cheyannesexton.etsy.com
CheyAnne, We’re going to do trains next week. You are welcome to join in. Do you have anything?