World’s MOST Unusual Cars EVER made, Found In One Warehouse | Barn Find Hunter

(motor starts) (motor revving) - Wanna try it? - [Tom] No, no, I'm fine. - It's fun. - A two stroke? - Yeah. - Well I was worried about you going off into the darkness there- - No I know where I'm going though. I've been around there a few times. - I bet. (both laugh) (upbeat music) In the world of auto museums, there are generic museums and they seem to all have a '55 Thunderbird and a Studebaker Avanti and maybe a Model T, and... You know, we've all seen those museums before. But in this museu

m, which is Jeff Lane's Museum, he's got a niche for collecting the most unusual cars. Thanks for having us here. - Our niche is unique and different, cars that people typically haven't seen. I think people call me a lot of times the King of Weird, which I think is a good badge! I think that's a good thing, yeah. - Well, what Jeff has allowed us to do, because you know, we are insiders in this barn find world, we're gonna visit the basement collection. Lead the way man. - All right, let's do it.

Because we have 550 cars in the collection and we can only display about 125 at a time, we rotate about 60 cars, 60 to 70 per year. - Well, would you show us some cars that to you are significant? Like- - Okay sure. - One off or- - Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah let's wander down here. - [Tom] Is that a mini Mini? - [Jeff] Yeah, that's like a two third scaled Mini. - Geez. - Yeah. Somebody in England designed it, it's got like a Briggs & Stratton engine in it. - Geez. - Yep. - Wow... - And then we have

over here, a shortened Mini. - [Tom] Oh, look at that. - Yeah, yeah. - Geez. "Plum Mini". Oh now we're in the blue section. - So one of the interesting cars here is this Martin Aerodynamic. So there was a guy that lived on Long Island that was a patent attorney, his name was James Martin, and he wanted to build cars, sell the idea to a company and they were gonna manufacture it and he was gonna get royalties. So he did three cars and we have all three of 'em. So this was a Streamliner, you know

one door on this side, kind of like an airplane. - Aluminum? - Engine in the back- It's aluminum with a wood frame. - What a beautiful style. - Yeah, yep. - Even the back window's got a nice look to it, the curve around the... So the motor's in the back? - Motor's in the back. - What kind of motor is it? - Continental four-cylinder flathead. - [Tom] Now where do you find a car like this? - You know, we actually bought this on eBay. (Tom laughs) Yeah, years ago. There was a museum in Stone Mount

ain, Georgia called the Stone Mountain Car Museum. And this was on eBay. - This is a race car? - This is a Panhard, like a Formula 4-type Panhard. - Three lugs. - Yep. - Two cylinders, two stroke- - And it's two cylinders air cooled- No, four stroke. - It's four stroke? - Yep. - And was that a class of racing? - So there was a class of racing for this car, I think in Canada. So this Škoda is very interesting because this came... There was a couple that lived in Czechoslovakia, they moved to Chic

ago and started a bakery, and they loved Škoda, which is a Czech car manufacturer. Still around actually, owned by Volkswagen. So when they moved to Chicago, they bought two of the exact same cars. Now this was the wife's car. So when they passed away about five or six years ago, their kids said, "What are we gonna do with these pieces of junk?" So this car is totally original, except of course, you know we changed the tires, we've done some brake work... I think it has- Can you see the speedo?

- Yeah. - I think it's got like 2,500 miles on it. - 2,497. - Yeah, 2,497. - So you're saying this interior's original? - Yeah, yeah. - [Tom] Holy- - Because you can see how little they drove it, obviously they kept it in a garage. - The original paint, solid body, less than 2,500 miles. That's amazing. - Yeah. And the Traction Avant here is very interesting because this is a, what they call "Gazogène". So during World War II, most of the public could not get gasoline at any price. So there was

a company called Gazogène that you would take your car there and they would convert it to run on coal. - That's what this is? - And that's what this is. So you put the coal in here and you start a fire and it produces a methane gas which comes down through this tube, and then through the front. This was a tube to cool it off somewhat. This was a big huge filter to filter out hopefully a lot of the charcoal pieces and articulates. - [Tom] But it's got a stock motor in here? - And it runs on a sto

ck motor, yep. - Wow. Did it run efficiently, or? - So there were a lot of disadvantages. One, it took 20 minutes for it to get enough methane to get going, right. You lost one third of the power, and it would only run about 30 minutes before you had to restock it. But the biggest problem was, it was very dangerous because if the gas got too hot in here before it got into the motor, it would explode. Like I said, they did about 5,000 conversions. After the war, everybody took 'em off. Because th

ey really- I mean it was a better than nothing, but not that great. So it's rare that that a fuel- - That this still existed? - Hmm. - Cool. And no collection would be complete without a Model T. - Model T yeah, yep. This is another original car, a DKW. The interiors original, I mean, again, we put tires on it... But this has got 36,000 miles on it. - [Tom] Two door hard top, very pretty. Fender skirts, very nice. - So it's a three-cylinder, two-stroke front wheel drive. So Audi, Wanderer, Horch

and DKW were the four rings. It was kind of the European General Motors. So DKW was the bottom brand, and then Wanderer and Horch horse were the luxury brands, and Audi was kind of in the middle. Of course we know Audi still survived, but everybody else disappeared. So the other two Martins... This is the last car that he did. It was called the Stationette. - Again, on Long Island? - Yeah. 1950. So his theory with this one was- This is a crazy theory right... It's really a work of art, but it's

absolutely a horrible car. It has one band brake in the back, right, no shock absorbers, and again, now it's 1950... Like in '28 you'd be like, okay that's not so bad. But now we're way ahead of that. So his theory with this car was they were gonna make all the wood pieces in a factory, and they were gonna put 'em in a kit and they were gonna send 'em to all these airports around the country, 'cause he was convinced that all the airplane mechanics in all these little airports were sitting aroun

d half the time doing nothing. And then they were gonna put the cars together, and that's how they were gonna manufacture 'em. - [Tom] It is a beautiful piece of work. - [Jeff] But it's a beautiful, yeah. - [Tom] But I have to admire the guy, he never gave up. - [Jeff] He never, he didn't. But you know, he did a curved dash... This was like a city car, so the seats flipped down when you sit on it. But it's kind of a neat thing, when you get up they pop up outta the way. - [Tom] Again, the motor

is? - [Jeff] Is a Austin Austin four-cylinder. - Really? - Mhm. - What kind of gear box? - So this is funny, called a Martin Magnetic Magic Gearbox... It's not, it's a Harley Davidson. - Ha! - So there's a chain that drives to that Harley gearbox, and then the chain that drives the back wheel. This was his city car from 1930. - [Tom] '50 and '30, and look how similar they look... - And this is interesting because this is the only car I know where the windshield rolls up and down. - [Tom] I mean,

so he didn't vary too far between the years- - [Jeff] From this to that, no, but this was aluminum skin and a wood frame. - [Tom] He was big on these steel-disc wheels. - [Jeff] He was, big on, and the three lugs. - Now this little bubble aluminum car here, what is this? - So this is a Ericsson, this was built Dayton, Ohio. The Dymaxion is rear engine, front wheel drive, rear steer. - This is like a one of one? - Yep. One of one. Guy named Ericsson and he built this- So it's a Jeep motor, drive

s the front wheels. I believe that's a Ford steering wheel, right? - Oh yeah. - And this right here is, I'm sure a seat outta something. But the interesting thing about this car is instead of using big sheets, and you know, I can't remember the number of pieces in this car, but we went around and tried to count it, it was like 370 pieces that he riveted together. - [Tom] So if he worked in an aircraft factory, maybe he like took a little piece off the floor every day. - [Jeff] And that's what we

're thinking. - What great stuff. - Yeah. This is really interesting 'cause this is a French... I don't know what you wanna call it, but there was a French gentleman, he loved to ride a motorcycle and scooters, right, and his wife wanted a little more comfort. (Tom laughs) So he built this, right. So there's like a cockpit up here for her to ride and he sits on the back and he- - [Tom] So the whole front steers? - No, just the wheels. - Oh, I get it. - [Jeff] Just the wheels, yep. - And a little

rag top here? - Yeah. Is this a scooter that he converted or did he build this? - [Jeff] We don't know, but it sure looks like he just took the scooter and built the front. - Now that vehicle out there blows my mind, the size of that... - So that's our largest vehicle. - Man! - Yep. We bought that on eBay. So it's got four engines, four Detroit Diesels, one that runs each wheel. And it was made for the Vietnam era for like a freighter that wanted to unload cargo but there was no port. - Right I

'm 6'3', and I can't even reach the top of this tire. Remember when you were a kid... I dunno about you but me, when I heard about a four wheel drive vehicle, I thought there was a motor in each wheel, well this one actually has a motor in each wheel. It's kind of like a self-fulfilling prophecy. I finally found the car that I dreamed about when I was seven. - As a kid, yeah. - [Tom] And so how'd you get this here? - It was in Florida, came up the Mississippi River and then they brought it up th

e Cumberland River to Nashville, they picked it up with a crane, and then we drove it from there through downtown to here one night. It's 14 feet wide, it's 62 feet long and it weighs 200,000 pounds empty. 28 miles an hour is the top speed. - Does it float? - It does float, yeah, it's amphibious. Yeah there's propellers in the back. - What a vehicle. - Yeah. - Geez... So this is the air cooled room? - [Jeff] Generally we put mostly air cooled cars in here. - [Tom] Oh look at this, a double-front

deux-chevaux. - This is a replica, but they actually built one of these in the fifties. So in southern rural France at night, the fire department would patrol rural roads with a Traction Avant. Sometimes, the roads were so narrow they'd have to back up for a mile or more to find a place wide enough to turn around. So they had a workshop, they said why not take a 2CV, cut it in half 'cause 2CV is front wheel drive, front engine, and make a car that goes- - So this has two engines? - [Jeff] Yeah

it has two engines, so they can drive it either way, and they used it for 20 years. - That's unbelievable. - Yeah, yep. - I love it, that's great. - Yeah. So this is a 2CV without the body on it. Which, you know, the thing about a lot of cars, if you want to see the engineering and the architecture right, the suspension and the chassis in the 2CV's really different 'cause there's the one tube in the middle and the swing arms right, front and back both go into the tube or the spring. And with the

body on it, you can't see any of that. You know, we had 'em make one without the body on it- - [Tom] And this is a driving chassis? - [Jeff] Yeah, I actually drive this to lunch on a nice day. - So if you look at it, it's got a traditional kind of a gearbox lever coming out the top of the gearbox, but to hook that... It's got a little homemade universal joint here and this comes through the dashboard, wow. - [Jeff] And they did that because they wanted, if you were gonna beat three wide, there'

s nothing on the floor to be in your way. - So this car and this car and the red car we saw a moment ago, they were designed, if I'm not mistaken, so that you could drive across a farm field, a plowed field, with a basket of eggs on the front seat and they wouldn't break. - Right. The original car was 375cc and eight horsepower. And so this is how soft the suspension is. - And then I saw the shock is right on the- It's horizontally- - Yeah, it's right in the tube here. - And what is this odd lit

tle bubble here? - So this is a Hoffmann. In the fifties in Europe, you know, when things were pretty austere people that were handy built their own car, and this guy's name was Hoffmann. He built this aluminum one. - Is that aluminum? - Yeah, aluminum. It steers in the back. You know at 20 feet, this goes 25, and at 20 it's terrifying because look how small the wheel base is. - [Tom] And you just touch that wheel and it does dramatic things. - Yes. Yep, yep. It's got a larger track, front track

, than it has wheel base. Bizarre. A horrible car. And you know, it's pretty big actually, but look how difficult it is to get in and out. I mean the wheel well's in the way, the steering wheel's in the way. - [Tom] But he made it in his basement probably... - [Jeff] He made it in his basement, yep. - And again, one of one? - Yep. One of one. - You know, let's talk about King Midget for a minute, because you know, people have seen them, but they don't really know what they are. So give us the th

umbnail history on a King Midget. - So King Midget was a company in Ohio in the late forties. And their first cars looked like little baby race cars. And they made King Midgets up until I think like 1972. - I used to see their ads in "Popular Science" magazine. - Right. And most of 'em were Briggs and Stratton. I don't remember the horsepower, I think 10, 10 horse. - Just a just a lawnmower engine? - Just a lawnmower engine. And the vibration on these things, it's you know, single cylinder, you

know, 10 horse, right, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom... And they are, I believe they're two speeds. So top speed about 40 miles an hour. - And this was a street legal car? - Street legal car. - And you know, I don't know the volume but they actually sold quite a few cars. You know, it's not like a 100 or 200. I think throughout their lifetime- - Like thousands? - Thousands. - Great stuff man. Well this concludes our backroom tour of the Lane Automotive Museum, I wanna thank Jeff Lane for me

eting us here early. I love the place. Thanks so much for doing this. - Thanks for coming out. - If you're in Nashville, you gotta visit this place. Happy hunting. If I took all the away all your cars and I said you could have one back, what would it be? - Have to be my MGTF I built as a kid right? From the very beginning. Yep, absolutely. - You know, that's kind of what I wanted to hear you say.