Editor’s note: This story originally ran in 2016. The prices and hours have been updated.
The only thing bigger than his grin was that car. The wife and kids ran out to look.
What a sight they beheld: 3,000-plus pounds of steel and iron and glass. And chrome! Chrome on the bumpers, on the hood, along the side and coming to an exquisite point on those finned rear fenders, chrome! In 1957, the Bel Aire was one of Chevy's marquee machines. The family that sat in its plush seats had arrived.
For untold years — a decade maybe, or perhaps longer — their four-door behemoth did it all. Trips to Panama City, church, PTA meetings: that small-block V-8 rarely faltered. Finally, dad sold it for a newer Detroit gem. The ‘57 passed through more owners, each paying less than the previous, until Walter Dean Lewis eyed it.
Now, it sits under a tangle of hardwoods, just off the two-lane highway where Lewis is proprietor of Old Car City USA. It is one of an estimated 4,200 cars, nearly all built before 1972, that are slowly returning to the elements from which they sprung decades earlier. It, like nearly every heap here, is not for sale. This junkyard 50 miles north of Atlanta deals in memories, not parts.
One morning in 2016, winter reluctantly letting go in northwest Georgia, Lewis stepped outside his jumbled office and surveyed his doman — 32 acres, bisected with six miles of paths. Hubcaps hanging from wires jangled in a slight breeze. In the distance, a crow cawed.
“Thirty years ago, I told my kids, ‘This place will probably turn into a show place,” Lewis, 78, said.
The years have proved him correct. Today, Old Car City may (stress that word, may) be the world’s largest collection of unrestored vintage cars. People come from all over the country, hell, the world, to wander woods where root and vine are slowly winning the fight with metal and glass. All are welcome, provided each pays $20 to enter ($10 for children 7-12; ages 6 and younger are free) — $30, to take photos.
“It’s pretty well-known, worldwide,” Lewis said. He paused, country-boy smug. “Here, in White, Ga.”
Old Car City traces its roots to 1931, when Walter and Mary Lucille Lewis opened a small store on the edge of Ga. 411. It had the basics, some food and gas. The couple lived in the rear. When he got a chance to buy a few wrecked cars, Walter Lewis took them to a tract on the other side of the road. Selling spare parts, he figured, would help make ends meet.
By 1937, when their son was born, the junkyard on the other side of the road had at least 20 cars, maybe twice that. His parents eventually closed the site to concentrate on their store. Their son grew up and and became a manager of a terminal servicing trucks. But Lewis never forgot his early years, when a metal playground beckoned from the forest.
“I was born in a junkyard,” Lewis said. “I was raised in a junkyard.”
In 1970, Lewis returned to his roots. He convinced his mom and dad to let him reopen the auto-parts yard. He began going to sheriff’s sales, estate sales, bankruptcies, anyplace where a junk man with some dollars might bring home an unwanted car or truck.
“Others wanted cars 10 years or newer,” he said. “I wanted them 10 years or older.”
In came tired old pickups, ratty convertibles, bashed-up sedans, dented delivery vans. Fords and Chevys and Pontiacs, Dodges and Plymouths and Chryslers, Hudsons and DeSotos and Packards. Old Car City boasts everything from 1918 (a bit of an Oldsmobile) to 1972. Yes, he has a few cars newer than that — Corvettes, mostly, because, well, they’re Corvettes; you never sneer at those. He also likes Monte Carlos. His mama had one. Now, he has at least 10.
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Mike McEnroe and his daughter, Jozette, were quiet for a moment. They stood inside the entrance of Old Car City and let their eyes adjust to the old metal at every turn. The McEnroes, in the metro area for a convention, are from Maine. Earlier that day, Jozette, 20, got on her computer and discovered a treasure trove of tired automobiles not far from their hotel. They’re restoring a ‘74 Corvette, so the duo had to visit.
“There’s a lot of art in these old vehicles,” the father said.
The cars are a testament to an art now relegated to old-car shows and coffee books. Consider the '40 Ford coupe, whose headlights were ringed by chrome "teardrop" fixtures. Or the '53 Buick, whose shiny bumper may weigh more than a Toyota Tercel. The '49 Hudson, whose back seat had more stuffing than grandma's sofa.
Lewis smiled. “I don’t collect fancy cars,” he said. “I’m a junk man.”
He’s more than that. If he didn’t have so much room, folks might call him a hoarder. Old Car City’s grounds are dotted with cast-off coin-operated vending machines. Discarded gasoline pumps stand like robots awaiting orders. The sun twinkles on 100 handlebars attached to bicycles, most fat-tired and retired. Old signs advertising oil, gas, tires hang from trees and sagging storage sheds.
And, everywhere, are cars. Mike and Pam Head, visiting from Locust Grove, stopped at a '65 Mustang. At one time, it was red, with white bucket seats. Now, it's sort of orange, with seats the color of weak tea. But still …
“I remember when the Mustang first came out,” said Mike Head, a retired brick mason. “People got excited.”
Head admitted feeling his pulse race as he walked past reminders of Detroit’s automotive might. “I’ve been driving by this place for 40 years,” he said. “I finally had to come.”
Pam Head nodded. Their son has a '67 Ford Fairlane that looks new; they come by their interest honestly. "We go to old-car shows," she said. She nodded at a one-eyed Dodge van. "We look at ones that actually run, too."
Will these cars run again? Lewis likes them the way they are. It's better to let them rest, to watch the struggle between soil and steel. He recalled a visitor wanting to buy a '67 Pontiac GTO from his yard. Lewis said no. Not long after, a couple asked if they could use one of his cars as a prop for some fancy wedding-anniversary photos. It couldn't be just any old car. It had to be a Pontiac. A '67. Ideally, a GTO.
Lewis smiled. “They paid me $150” for the shoot, he said. “If I’d sold that car, I wouldn’t have had it — or that $150.”
3098 Highway 411 NE, White, GA 30184
9 a.m. – 4 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday; closed Sunday-Monday
